Most Famous Paintings in the World
Here's a list of the most famous paintings and the stories behind them.
Some of the paintings maybe familiar to you as it is very common to see them on television and in the Internet, but some that made it to this list is just too famous that hearing just the title of the artwork will make us curious as to why we always hear about it. This list is in no particular order.
1. Flaming June - Frederic Leighton
Flaming June is a painting by Sir Frederic Leighton, produced in 1895. Painted with oil paints on a 47-by-47-inch (1,200 mm × 1,200 mm) square canvas, it is widely considered to be Leighton's magnum opus, showing his classicist nature. It is thought that the woman portrayed alludes to the figures of sleeping nymphs and naiads the Greeks often sculpted.
2. The Mona Lisa - Leonardo da Vinci
The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait of Lisa Gherardini by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, which has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world".
3. The Scream - Edvard Munch
The Scream is the popular name given to each of four versions of a composition, created as both paintings and pastels, by Norwegian Expressionist artist Edvard Munch between 1893 and 1910. The German title Munch gave these works is Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature). The works show a figure with an agonized expression against a landscape with a tumultuous orange sky.
4. Girl with a Pearl Earring - Johannes Vermeer
Girl with a Pearl Earring is an oil painting by 17th-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. It is a tronie of a girl with a headscarf and a pearl earring.
After the most recent restoration of the painting in 1994, the subtle color scheme and the intimacy of the girl's gaze toward the viewer have been greatly enhanced. During the restoration, it was discovered that the dark background, today somewhat mottled, was initially intended by the painter to be a deep enamel-like green. This effect was produced by applying a thin transparent layer of paint, called a glaze, over the present-day black background. However, the two organic pigments of the green glaze, indigo and weld, have faded.
5. The Last Supper - Leonardo da Vinci
The Last Supper is a late 15th-century mural painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. It is one of the world's most famous paintings.
Leonardo has depicted the consternation that occurred among the Twelve Disciples when Jesus announced that one of them would betray him.
6. The Birth of Venus - Sandro Botticelli
The Birth of Venus is a painting by Sandro Botticelli generally thought to have been made in the mid 1480s. It depicts the goddess Venus, having emerged from the sea as an adult woman, arriving at the shore.
7. Guernica - Pablo Picasso
Guernica is a mural-sized oil painting on canvas by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso completed in June 1937. The painting, which uses a palette of gray, black, and white, is regarded by many art critics as one of the most moving and powerful anti-war paintings in history. Standing at 3.49 meters (11 ft 5 in) tall and 7.76 meters (25 ft 6 in) wide, the large mural shows the suffering of people wrenched by violence and chaos. Prominent in the composition are a gored horse, a bull, and flames.
8. Whistler's Mother - James McNeill Whistler
Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1, best known under its colloquial name Whistler's Mother, is a painting in oils on canvas created by the American-born painter James McNeill Whistler in 1871. The subject of the painting is Whistler's mother, Anna McNeill Whistler.
It has been variously described as an American icon and a Victorian Mona Lisa.
9. The Persistence of Memory - Salvador Dalí
The Persistence of Memory is a 1931 painting by artist Salvador Dalí, and is one of his most recognizable works. The well-known surrealist piece introduced the image of the soft melting pocket watch. It epitomizes Dalí's theory of "softness" and "hardness", which was central to his thinking at the time. As Dawn Adès wrote, "The soft watches are an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time, a Surrealist meditation on the collapse of our notions of a fixed cosmic order".
10. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte - Georges Seurat
Painted in 1884, is one of Georges Seurat's most famous works. It is a leading example of pointillism technique, executed on a large canvas. Seurat's composition includes a number of Parisians at a park on the banks of the River Seine.
11. American Gothic - Grant Wood
American Gothic is a painting by Grant Wood in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood's inspiration came from what is now known as the American Gothic House, and his decision to paint the house along with "the kind of people I fancied should live in that house." Created in 1930, it depicts a farmer standing beside a woman that has been interpreted to be either his wife or his daughter.
12. The Kiss - Gustav Klimt
The Kiss (Lovers) was painted by the Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt between 1907 and 1908, the highpoint of his "Golden Period", when he painted a number of works in a similar gilded style. A perfect square, the canvas depicts a couple embracing, their bodies entwined in elaborate robes decorated in a style influenced by both linear constructs of the contemporary Art Nouveau style and the organic forms of the earlier Arts and Crafts movement.
13. The Night Watch - Rembrandt van Rijn
Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, also known as The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch, but commonly referred to as The Night Watch, is a 1642 painting by Rembrandt van Rijn.
The painting was completed in 1642, at the peak of the Dutch Golden Age. It depicts the eponymous company moving out, led by Captain Frans Banning Cocq (dressed in black, with a red sash) and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruytenburch (dressed in yellow, with a white sash). With effective use of sunlight and shade, Rembrandt leads the eye to the three most important characters among the crowd: the two gentlemen in the centre (from whom the painting gets its original title), and the woman in the centre-left background carrying a chicken. Behind them, the company's colours are carried by the ensign, Jan Visscher Cornelissen.
14. Las Meninas - Diego Velázquez
Las Meninas is a 1656 painting in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age. Its complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and creates an uncertain relationship between the viewer and the figures depicted. Because of these complexities, Las Meninas has been one of the most widely analyzed works in Western painting.
The painting shows a large room in the Royal Alcazar of Madrid during the reign of King Philip IV of Spain, and presents several figures, most identifiable from the Spanish court, captured, according to some commentators, in a particular moment as if in a snapshot. Some look out of the canvas towards the viewer, while others interact among themselves.
The young Infanta Margaret Theresa is surrounded by her entourage of maids of honour, chaperone, bodyguard, two dwarfs and a dog. Just behind them, Velázquez portrays himself working at a large canvas. Velázquez looks outwards, beyond the pictorial space to where a viewer of the painting would stand. In the background there is a mirror that reflects the upper bodies of the king and queen. They appear to be placed outside the picture space in a position similar to that of the viewer, although some scholars have speculated that their image is a reflection from the painting Velázquez is shown working on.
15. Nighthawks - Edward Hopper
Nighthawks is a 1942 oil on canvas painting by Edward Hopper that portrays people in a downtown diner late at night.
16. The Starry Night - Vincent van Gogh
The Starry Night is an oil on canvas by the Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. Painted in June 1889, it depicts the view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, just before sunrise, with the addition of an idealized village.
17. The Son of Man - René Magritte
The Son of Man is a 1964 painting by the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte.
Magritte painted it as a self-portrait. The painting consists of a man in an overcoat and a bowler hat standing in front of a low wall, beyond which is the sea and a cloudy sky. The man's face is largely obscured by a hovering green apple. However, the man's eyes can be seen peeking over the edge of the apple. Another subtle feature is that the man's left arm appears to bend backwards at the elbow.
18. Arnolfini Portrait - Jan van Eyck
The Arnolfini Portrait is a 1434 oil painting on oak panel by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It forms a full-length double portrait, believed to depict the Italian merchant Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife, presumably in their home in the Flemish city of Bruges.
19. The School of Athens – Raphael
The School of Athens is one of the most famous frescoes by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1509 and 1511 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.
20. Café Terrace at Night - Vincent van Gogh
Café Terrace at Night, also known as The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, is an oil painting executed by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh while at Arles, France, in mid-September 1888. The painting is not signed, but described and mentioned by the artist in three letters.
21. No. 5, 1948 - Jackson Pollock
No. 5, 1948 is a painting by Jackson Pollock, an American painter known for his contributions to the abstract expressionist movement. Initial reactions to the work by the uninitiated were underwhelming: “You spent money on that”? The initial reaction of Ted Dragon, Ossorio's partner.
22. Assumption of the Virgin - Titian
Assumption of the Virgin is a large oil painting by Italian Renaissance artist Titian, executed in 1515–18. It is located on the high altar in the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice, being the largest altarpiece in the city.
This picture shows different events in three layers. In the lowest layer are the Apostles. They are shown in a variety of poses, ranging from gazing in awe, to kneeling and reaching for the skies. In the center, the Virgin Mary is drawn wrapped in a red robe and blue mantle. She is raised to the heavens by a swarm of cherubim while standing on a cloud. Above is an attempt to draw God, who watches over the earth with hair flying in the wind. Next to him, flies an angel with a crown for Mary.
23. The Third of May 1808 - Francisco Goya
The Third of May 1808 (also known as El tres de mayo de 1808 en Madrid or Los fusilamientos de la montaña del Príncipe Pío, or Los fusilamientos del tres de mayo) is a painting completed in 1814 by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya, now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. In the work, Goya sought to commemorate Spanish resistance to Napoleon's armies during the occupation of 1808 in the Peninsular War.
24. Wanderer above the Sea of Fog - Caspar David Friedrich
Also known as Wanderer Above the Mist or Mountaineer in a misty Landscape is an oil painting c. 1818 by the German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich.
In the foreground, a young man stands upon a rocky precipice with his back to the viewer. He is wrapped in a dark green overcoat, and grips a walking stick in his right hand. His hair caught in a wind, the wanderer gazes out on a landscape covered in a thick sea of fog. In the middle ground, several other ridges, perhaps not unlike the ones the wanderer himself stands upon, jut out from the mass. Through the wreaths of fog, forests of trees can be perceived atop these escarpments. In the far distance, faded mountains rise in the left, gently levelling off into lowland plains in the east. Beyond here, the pervading fog stretches out indefinitely, eventually commingling with the horizon and becoming indistinguishable from the cloud-filled sky.
25. Massacre of the Innocents - Peter Paul Rubens
Massacre of the Innocents, 1611–12
Massacre of the Innocents, 1636–38
The Massacre of the Innocents is the subject of two paintings by Peter Paul Rubens depicting the episode of the biblical Massacre of the Innocents of Bethlehem, as related in the Gospel of Matthew, Ch.2, vs.13-18. The first, measuring 142 x 182 cm, was painted after his return to his native Antwerp in 1608, following eight years spent in Italy.
26. Starry Night Over the Rhône - Vincent van Gogh
Starry Night Over the Rhône (September 1888) is one of Vincent van Gogh's paintings of Arles at nighttime. It was painted at a spot on the bank of the Rhône River that was only a one or two-minute walk from the Yellow House on the Place Lamartine which Van Gogh was renting at the time. The night sky and the effects of light at night provided the subject for some of his more famous paintings, including Cafe Terrace at Night (painted earlier the same month) and the later canvas from Saint-Rémy, The Starry Night.
27. The Card Players - Paul Cézanne
The Card Players, 1890–92(a)
The Card Players, 1890–92(b)
The Card Players, 1894–95
The Card Players, 1892–95
The Card Players, 1892–93
The Card Players is a series of oil paintings by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne. Painted during Cézanne's final period in the early 1890s, there are five paintings in the series. The versions vary in size, the number of players, and the setting in which the game takes place. Cézanne also completed numerous drawings and studies in preparation for The Card Players series.
28. Impression, Sunrise - Claude Monet
Impression, Sunrise (French: Impression, soleil levant) is a painting by Claude Monet. Shown at what would later be known as the "Exhibition of the Impressionists" in April 1874, the painting is attributed to giving rise to the name of the Impressionist movement. Impression, Sunrise depicts the port of Le Havre, Monet's hometown, and is his most famous painting of the harbor.
29. The Flower Carrier - Diego Rivera
The Flower Carrier (known in its original language as ‘Cargador de Flores’) is a masterpiece created by Diego Rivera in 1935. Like many of Rivera’s paintings, ‘The Flower Carrier’ imparts simplicity, yet exudes much symbolism and meaning.
The colourful painting displays a peasant man in white clothing with a yellow sombrero, struggling on all fours with a dramatically oversized basket of flowers that is strapped to his back with a yellow sling. A woman, most likely the peasant’s wife, stands behind him trying to help with the support of the basket as he attempts to rise to his feet. While the flowers in the basket are strikingly beautiful to the viewer, the man does not see their beauty, but only their value as he carries them to the market for sale or exchange.
30. Sistine Madonna - Raphael Sanzio
The Sistine Madonna, also called the Madonna di San Sisto, is an oil painting by the Italian artist Raphael Sanzio. The altarpiece was commissioned in 1512 by Pope Julius II for the church of San Sisto, Piacenza. The canvas was one of the last Madonnas painted by the artist.
31. Lady with an Ermine - Leonardo da Vinci
Lady with an Ermine is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci from around 1489–1490. The subject of the portrait is Cecilia Gallerani, painted at a time when she was the mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Leonardo was in the service of the duke. The painting is one of only four portraits of women painted by Leonardo, the others being the Mona Lisa, the portrait of Ginevra de' Benci, and La belle ferronnière.
32. View of Toledo - El Greco
View of Toledo (original title Vista de Toledo), is one of the two surviving landscapes painted by El Greco. The other, View and Plan of Toledo lies at Museo Del Greco, Toledo, Spain.
View of Toledo is among the best known depictions of the sky in Western art, along with Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night and the landscapes of William Turner and Monet, among others. Most notable is the distinct color contrast between the dark and somber skies above and the glowing green hills below.
33. Bacchus and Ariadne - Titian
Bacchus and Ariadne (1522–1523) is an oil painting by Titian. It is one of a cycle of paintings on mythological subjects produced for Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, for the Camerino d'Alabastro – a private room in his palazzo in Ferrara decorated with paintings based on classical texts.
34. The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp - Rembrandt
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp is a 1632 oil painting on canvas by Rembrandt housed in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, the Netherlands. Dr. Nicolaes Tulp is pictured explaining the musculature of the arm to medical professionals.
35. Portrait of Madame X - John Singer Sargent
Madame X or Portrait of Madame X is the informal title of a portrait painting by John Singer Sargent of a young socialite named Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, wife of Pierre Gautreau.
The model was an American expatriate who married a French banker, and became notorious in Parisian high society for her beauty and rumored infidelities. She wore lavender powder and prided herself on her appearance.
36. A Bar at the Folies-Bergère – Édouard Manet
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (French: Un bar aux Folies Bergère), painted and exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1882, is considered the last major work of French painter Édouard Manet. It depicts a scene in the Folies Bergère nightclub in Paris.
37. Napoleon Crossing the Alps - Jacques-Louis David
Napoleon Crossing the Alps, First Versailles version
Napoleon Crossing the Alps is the title given to the five versions of an oil on canvas equestrian portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte painted by the French artist Jacques-Louis David between 1801 and 1805. Initially commissioned by the King of Spain, the composition shows a strongly idealized view of the real crossing that Napoleon and his army made across the Alps through the Great St. Bernard Pass in May 1800.
38. Primavera - Sandro Botticelli
Primavera also known as Allegory of Spring, is a tempera panel painting by Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli painted about 1482. It has been described as "one of the most written about, and most controversial paintings in the world", and also "one of the most popular paintings in Western art".
Most critics agree that the painting, depicting a group of mythological figures in a garden, is allegorical for the lush growth of Spring.
39. Bal du moulin de la Galette - Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Bal du moulin de la Galette is an 1876 painting by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The painting depicts a typical Sunday afternoon at Moulin de la Galette in the district of Montmartre in Paris. In the late 19th century, working class Parisians would dress up and spend time there dancing, drinking, and eating galettes into the evening.
40. Christina's World - Andrew Wyeth
Christina's World is a 1948 painting by American painter Andrew Wyeth, and one of the best-known American paintings of the middle 20th century. It depicts a woman lying on the ground in a treeless, mostly tawny field, looking up at a gray house on the horizon; a barn and various other small outbuildings are adjacent to the house.
41. The Potato Eaters - Vincent van Gogh
The Potato Eaters is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh painted in April 1885 in Nuenen, Netherlands.
Van Gogh said he wanted to depict peasants as they really were. He deliberately chose coarse and ugly models, thinking that they would be natural and unspoiled in his finished work: "You see, I really have wanted to make it so that people get the idea that these folk, who are eating their potatoes by the light of their little lamp, have tilled the earth themselves with these hands they are putting in the dish, and so it speaks of manual labor and — that they have thus honestly earned their food. I wanted it to give the idea of a wholly different way of life from ours — civilized people. So I certainly don’t want everyone just to admire it or approve of it without knowing why."
42. Irises - Vincent van Gogh
Irises is one of several painitngs of irises by the Vincent van Gogh, and one of a series of paintings he executed at the Saint Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, in the last year before his death in 1890.
Van Gogh started painting Irises within a week of entering the asylum, in May 1889, working from nature in the hospital garden. There is a lack of the high tension which is seen in his later works. He called painting "the lightning conductor for my illness" because he felt that he could keep himself from going insane by continuing to paint.
43. The Milkmaid - Johannes Vermeer
The Milkmaid, sometimes called The Kitchen Maid, is an oil-on-canvas painting of a "milkmaid", in fact a domestic kitchen maid, by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. It is now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, which regards it as "unquestionably one of the museum's finest attractions".
Sources:
Wikipedia
http://www.aaronartprints.org/
