Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

50 famous paintings and the stories behind them

A picture is worth a thousand words, and like texts, art is often meant to be "read" through critical deconstruction. Paintings can be far more than complicated than they appear at first glance and hard to decipher if the viewer doesn't speak the same tongue. Iconography—the symbolic language of a given work of art—tin be sophisticated and complex, reflecting the commonage consciousness or drawn from the artist's personal experience. Why would someone eschew the written word in favor of paint and canvas? 20th-century American artist Edward Hopper appears to have had the answer. "If I could say information technology in words," he said, "in that location would exist no reason to pigment."

The stories told past works of art—and about them—are, quite literally, the stuff of novels. Johannes Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" inspired the novel of the aforementioned name by author Tracy Chevalier. The book was later on turned into a film starring Scarlett Johansson. Nearly 40 years after Irving Stone wrote his biographical account of the life of Michelangelo, Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" turned the life and work of the Renaissance master into a romp through the preceding millennia.

September 2019 heralded the wide cinematic release of the latest exponent of the genre: "The Goldfinch," based on Donna Tartt'south Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The book centers around the fictionalized theft of Dutch artist Carel Fabritius' eponymous painting after an explosion rocks New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ironically, Fabritius died in a devastating gunpowder explosion in 1654, shortly after completing his near memorable piece of work. The success enjoyed by Tartt'south volume elevated "The Goldfinch" to rock star status, mobbed by crowds determined to take hold of a glimpse of the tiny bird tethered by a delicate concatenation. [Annotation: Fabritius' painting is not featured in Stacker's gallery.]

Stacker curated this list of some of the world's most famous images and the fascinating stories behind them. Ringlet through the list and find out which paintings scandalized Paris, were looted by the Nazis, and inspired a hit Broadway musical.

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Christina'southward Earth

- Creative person: Andrew Wyeth
- Year: 1948

"Christina's World" continues to fascinate more than 70 years afterwards it was first painted. The faceless adult female lying on the basis was Anna Christina Olson, the neighbor and muse of Pennsylvania artist Andrew Wyeth. While the painting has all the hallmarks of a pastoral, Olson's pose is not 1 of romantic sluggishness; she suffered from a muscle-wasting disorder—possibly Charcot-Marie-Tooth affliction—and was known to elevate herself across the family homestead.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Arnolfini Portrait

- Artist: January van Eyck
- Year: 1434

Painted past Dutch master Jan van Eyck, this early on Netherlandish console painting is shrouded in symbolism. The elegantly dressed couple are thought to be Giovanni di Nicolao di Arnolfini, and his wife, Costanza Trenta, wealthy Italians living in Bruges. The unusual limerick begs several questions. Does the painting celebrate the couple's wedding, or commemorate some other event, such every bit a shrewdly negotiated union contract? Was the bride pregnant, or but dressed in the latest way? And what are the mysterious figures depicted in the convex mirror? The unorthodox placement of van Eyck's signature straight above information technology suggests i of the men may exist the creative person himself.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

American Gothic

- Artist: Grant Woods
- Year: 1930

Grant Woods spent years searching for inspiration in Europe. The work that would make him famous, however, was painted afterward his return to the heartland. A national icon and leading exponent of regionalism, "American Gothic" depicts what appears to exist a Depression-era farmer and his weathered wife. Grant intended the couple to correspond father and girl; in reality, they were neither. The homo holding the pitchfork was Forest's dentist, Byron McKeeby, flanked past the artist'due south sister, Nan Wood Graham.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Cyclops

- Artist: Odilon Redon
- Twelvemonth: 1914

For those not familiar with the finer points of Greek mythology, the dream-like field of study of Odilon Redon'due south "Cyclops" may non exist hands identifiable. Polyphemus, the giant that is sporting the alone eyeball, peers over a rocky outcropping at the object of his desire—the nymph Galatea. Derived from Homer's "Odyssey," the tale was a popular trope among French symbolists, including Redon'south contemporary, poet and painter Gustave Moreau.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Death of Marat

- Artist: Jacques-Louis David
- Yr: 1793

The pallid figure bleeding out in Jacques-Louis David'south 1793 neoclassical masterpiece is none other than Jean-Paul Marat, the French revolutionary famously stabbed to death in the bathroom by political adversary Charlotte Corday. David gravitated toward radical politics, aligning himself with the Jacobin ideologies of Marat and Maximilien Robespierre. In mail-revolutionary France, he rose to the position of courtroom painter under Napoléon Bonaparte.

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MatthiasKabel // WikimediaCommons

Frescoes, Villa of the Mysteries

- Artist: Unknown
- Twelvemonth: c. start century B.C.

In 1909, archeologists working in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii unearthed a villa cached under xxx anxiety of volcanic ash. Preserved inside was a room, measuring approximately 225 square feet, containing a series of cute notwithstanding baffling frescoes. The images describe more than than ii dozen, life-size figures. At the eye of the activity is a clothesless woman, shown flogged in i scene while dancing and playing the cymbals in another. Virtually scholars concur that the wheel represents a Dionysian initiation cult.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Girl with a Pearl Earring

- Artist: Johannes Vermeer
- Year: 1665

A masterpiece of the Dutch Golden Age, Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" has transfixed viewers with her wistful gaze ever since the painting resurfaced in the late 19th century. Little, however, is known about the young adult female who modeled for the portrait. It has been suggested that the girl was Vermeer'southward daughter or mistress. While this may be the example, the prototype wasn't intended to represent an actual person. The turban worn by the sitter indicates that the piece was intended as a "tronie," an arcadian image cloaked in exotic wear.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

- Artist: Edouard Manet
- Year: 1863

Edouard Manet'due south sensational "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe" ("The Luncheon on the Grass") scandalized 19th-century Paris, not for its stark nudity, but because it broke with a long-standing tradition of depicting nudes in classical settings. The Paris Salon rejected the painting, declaring information technology obscene. Victorine-Louise Meurent, the naked woman staring unapologetically at the viewer, was assumed by many to be a local prostitute; she was really a sought-after Parisian artist's model and an accomplished painter in her own correct.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Ophelia

- Artist: Sir John Everett Millais
- Year: 1851-52

Pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais, in true Pre-Raphaelite fashion, painted directly from life whenever possible. Much of the exuberant foliage constitute in "Ophelia" can be constitute in Shakespeare'southward "Village" and was painted en plein air. Millais, however, didn't subject field his nineteen-year-old model, Elizabeth Siddall, to the elements; she reportedly posed for the artist in a bathtub full of water in his London studio.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

The Gross Clinic

- Artist: Thomas Eakins
- Year: 1875

Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins spent a yr working on "The Gross Dispensary," which he painted specifically for his hometown'due south 1876 Centennial Exhibition. The closely observed piece of work depicts Dr. Samuel Gross and associates operating on a patient'south leg. A stricken woman hiding her confront from the open gash has been traditionally identified every bit the faceless patient's female parent. Sitting backside Gross, to the correct of the painting is a cocky-portrait of the artist. Jurists, shocked by the gory realism, rejected the work, which was eventually housed in a reconstruction of a U.S. Ground forces Postal service Hospital.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Christ in the Tempest on the Sea of Galilee

- Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn
- Year: 1633

Purchased past fine art enthusiast Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1898, Rembrandt'due south just painted seascape occupied a place of prominence in the Boston museum Gardner erected in her name until March xviii, 1990, when it was stolen, forth with over a dozen of import works valued at approximately half a billion dollars. Although the finger has frequently been pointed at now-deceased Boston career criminal Whitey Bulger, the thieves accept never been caught, and the whereabouts of the missing artwork remains unknown.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Jack the Ripper's Bedroom

- Artist: Walter Sickert
- Twelvemonth: 1908

Walter Sickert, noted for his moody portraits and dimly lit domestic interiors, may accept harbored a hole-and-corner darker than his paintings. It has been argued that disconcerting works such as "Jack the Ripper'southward Bedroom" and "The Camden Town Murder" may reflect some connection between the artist and the grisly Whitechapel butcher—either every bit an accomplice or the murderer himself.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear

- Creative person: Vincent van Gogh
- Twelvemonth: 1889

Vincent van Gogh is famous for having severed his own ear; the strained relationship with boyfriend post-impressionist Paul Gauguin that precipitated the creative person's self-mutilation is not nearly besides known. Van Gogh spent 1888 working in the S of France and was joined in October of that year by Gauguin. Their friendship deteriorated, and van Gogh didn't react well to the news of Gauguin'due south impending difference. The troubled artist cut off his ear, wrapped in paper, and reportedly gave it to a local prostitute for safekeeping. "Cocky-Portrait with Bandaged Ear" depicts van Gogh in his studio, with the right side of his head wrapped in cloth. In fact, it was a portion of van Gogh's left ear that was removed, with the inconsistency in the painting arising from the inverted reflection perceived by the artist while gazing in the mirror.

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Laura Estefania Lopez // Wikimedia Commons

Guernica

- Artist: Pablo Picasso
- Year: 1937

An enormous, shifting mass of distorted, agonized figures, Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" was the creative person's personal response to the horrific bombing inflicted by the Germans on the tiny Basque town in 1937. Exhibited at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne the aforementioned year, the painting was a plea for peace in an historic period of brutal conflict—both the Castilian Civil War and the dawn of World War II. Picasso expressly forbid the exhibition of his masterwork in Kingdom of spain until the land became a commonwealth. While his homeland never met that demand, the painting was seen—behind bullet-proof drinking glass—at the Prada in Madrid in 1981, half-dozen years after the decease of dictator Francisco Franco.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

The Scream

- Artist: Edvard Munch
- Year: 1893

Popularly known as "The Scream," Norwegian artist Edvard Munch's expressionist masterpiece is frequently interpreted as a primal response to the excessive pressures of modern life. Originally titled "The Shriek of Nature," the paradigm was created with an entirely different intent, as related past Munch himself, "One evening I was walking forth a path, the city was on ane side and the fjord beneath. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the dominicus was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this flick, painted the clouds as bodily claret. The color shrieked." The iconic painting was stolen from the Oslo National Gallery in 1994; the culprit was apprehended and the painting recovered several months subsequently. Ironically, a 1910 version of "The Scream" was taken in broad daylight from the Munch Museum in 2004. It, also, was eventually recovered despite fears information technology had been destroyed.

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Postdif // Wikimedia Commons

Ii Tahitian Women

- Artist: Paul Gauguin
- Twelvemonth: 1899

A leading mail service-impressionist and frenemy of Vincent van Gogh, Gauguin abandoned his wife and children for a hedonistic life in the South Seas. Admired for over a century for his seemingly innocent portraits of Tahitian women, Gaughin was also a syphilitic sexual predator who molested endless immature girls in his Polynesian pleasure palace dubbed "The House of Orgasm."

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer

- Artist: Gustav Klimt
- Year: 1907

One of a handful of paintings seized by the Nazis from the family dwelling of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, this glittering portrait by fin-de-siecle creative person Gustav Klimt depicts the Viennese sugar magnate'due south wife—art enthusiast and club hostess Adele Bloch-Bauer. Afterwards the state of war, the portrait turned up in the state-run Galerie Belvedere. Maria Altmann, Adele'south niece, spent years fighting for the painting's return, finally triumphing in 2006. The incredible story was fabricated into a flick, "Woman in Gold," starring Helen Mirren every bit Altmann. Both patron and muse, Bloch-Bauer is the simply sitter Klimt painted twice.

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Prof saxx // Wikimedia Commons

Lascaux Cave Paintings

- Artist: Unknown
- Year: c. 15,000–17,000 B.C.

In 1940, 18-twelvemonth-old Marcel Ravidat opened a window to the distant by when he savage into a pigsty while out walking with his domestic dog in the Dordogne region of France. The pigsty led to a cave covered with approximately 6,000 Paleolithic images depicting animals, enigmatic symbols, and a alone human class. The purpose of the paintings, created with mineral pigments and charcoal, is obscure but may be linked to some sort of ceremonial rite.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Primavera

- Artist: Sandro Botticelli
- Year: 1477–1482

Christened "Primavera" by pioneering art historian Giorgio Vasari in 1550, Boticelli'south mysterious masterwork originally lacked a title. Although its precise significant remains enigmatic, "Primavera" is an emblematic work inspired by classical mythology, depicting the transformation of the nymph Chloris into Flora, the goddess of leap. Commissioned by a member of the powerful Medici clan, information technology has been suggested that figures in the composition were modeled on members of the family.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Portrait of Madame Ten

- Artist: John Singer Sargent
- Twelvemonth: 1883–84

John Singer Sargent's moody portrait of Virginie Avegno Gautreau, the American wife of a French banker, outraged critics when it was get-go exhibited at the Paris Salon 1884. Sargent had hoped the portrait would make his career. The painting, nonetheless, fix off a scandal of such magnitude that Sargent exiled himself to England. What was information technology that had so offended Parisian high society? While the image's overt sexuality was expected for a mythological heroine and tolerable for a prostitute moonlighting as an creative person'south model, it was downright threatening when applied to a woman of their own cast.

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Don Emmert // Getty Images

Untitled

- Creative person: Jean-Michel Basquiat
- Yr: 1982

Jean-Michel Basquiat's meteoric rise from Brooklyn graffiti creative person to critically acclaimed painter is the stuff of legend. The youthful Neo-expressionist lived hard and died at the tender age of 27 from a heroin overdose. In December 2018, 1 of Basquiat'due south untitled works set a record at Sotheby's, selling for a $110.5 million. The staggering selling price spurred the possessor of some other Basquiat painting to have the work authenticated. An ultraviolet light examination revealed that the painting included elements drawn by Basquiat in invisible ink.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Flaming June

- Artist: Sir Frederic Leighton
- Year: 1895

"Flaming June," of the languid beauty in the transparent orangish wearing apparel, was painted past esteemed British artist Frederic Leighton at the shut of the 19th century. The painting disappeared soon later, only to reemerge in the early on 1960s when information technology was supposedly discovered in a chimney by a laborer working at a construction site. Considered highly unfashionable at the time, the painting failed to make reserve when information technology came to auction. It was acquired soon after by Puerto Rico'southward Museo de Arte de Ponce, where it remains to this solar day.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

At the Moulin Rouge

- Artist: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
- Year: 1892–95

Born to wealth and privilege, Toulouse-Lautrec abandoned his aristocratic roots in favor of the working-grade Montmartre district and its colorful nightlife. The artist appears to accept been afflicted with a genetic disorder affecting growth and bone development; he walked with a cane and reached an adult height of just 4 feet, 8 inches tall. Taunted for his physical appearance, he self-medicated with alcohol, notably absinthe. "At the Moulin Rouge" depicts the globe in which Toulouse-Lautrec felt most at ease. In addition to entertainers such every bit cherry-headed chanteuse Jane Avril and dancer May Milton (with the verdigris-tinted complexion), the slice too includes a self-portrait of the creative person in the company of his cousin, Gabriel Tapié de Céleyran.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

The Ambassadors

- Artist: Hans Holbein the Younger
- Year: 1533

The most in-demand portrait painter of his era, Hans Holbein spent a considerable amount of time at the courtroom of Henry Viii. "The Ambassadors" depicts Jean de Dinteville, the French ambassador to England, and his friend, George de Selve, both in their belatedly 20s; de Selve, the bishop of Lavaur, served equally ambassador to both the Holy Roman emperor and the pope.

The painting is scattered with allegorical components, including a lute with broken strings—perhaps symbolic of Henry Eight's intermission with Rome so that he could divorce Catherine of Aragon and ally his mistress, Anne Boleyn. The blurry, black-and-white object that bisects the bottom of the limerick is, in fact, a homo skull, representing mortality. Hitting apply of anamorphosis, it can but be viewed from an acute angle, forcing observers to view the painting from a diversity of perspectives.

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Ben Stansall // Getty Images

Daughter With Balloon

- Artist: Banksy
- Year: 2006

In 2002, the stenciled image of a girl reaching toward a carmine, heart-shaped balloon appeared on a staircase leading to London's Waterloo Bridge. Attributed to the elusive artist Banksy, several other examples popped upward around London in subsequent years. In 2018, a 2006 version of the painting was auctioned at Sotheby's for the princely sum of $i.4 million, automatically shredding itself by means of a device subconscious by the artist within the frame the moment the gavel hit the block. Moments after the incident, Banksy posted an Instagram video depicting phone staff staring in shock at the mutilated work.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Judith Slaying Holofernes

- Artist: Artemisia Gentileschi
- Yr: 1610

Historically, it hasn't been easy for women artists to break into the large time, only Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi did but that, exercising her demons in the process. Sexually assaulted at eighteen, Gentileschi angrily confronted her attacker in a public trial which ultimately prepare him free. She channeled her ensuing rage into her work, notably "Judith Slaying Holofernes," which depicts determined One-time Testament heroine Judith severing the head of the drunken Babylonian general.

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Paul Vicente // Getty Images

Myra

- Artist: Marcus Harvey
- Year: 1995

When Marcus Harvey's massive painting of Britain's most despised adult female—'60s child killer Myra Hindley—debuted at the 1997 Sensation exhibition at London'south Royal Academy of Arts, to say it was met with controversy would be an understatement. 4 members of the Academy resigned in protest and the painting was vandalized repeatedly.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Nocturne in Black and Gold, the Falling Rocket

- Artist: James Abbott McNeill Whistler
- Year: 1875

What could be and so objectionable about a painting of fireworks over a picturesque London park? Quite a lot, plain. Whistler, a proponent of the aesthetic movement, failed to impress revered Victorian art critic John Ruskin, with his serial of paintings referred to as his "nocturnes." Ruskin savaged Whistler's piece of work—besides as the painting'due south hefty request price of 200 guineas (a republic of guinea was a money equal to about one-quarter ounce of golden, minted between 1663–1814 in Bang-up Great britain). Whistler retaliated by taking Ruskin to court, suing him for libel. Whistler emerged triumphant but the ordeal broke both men, bankrupting Whistler and causing Ruskin to resign his Oxford professorship.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Salvator Mundi

- Creative person: Leonardo da Vinci
- Year: 1500

Believed for years to be the product of his atelier, or even a copy of a lost piece of work by the Renaissance master, "Salvator Mundi" sold at sale in November 2017 for a cool $450.3 million after scholars reached a consensus that the painting was the work of da Vinci. Idea to be bound for the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the modest console disappeared from public view immediately after sale at Christie's. It is believed to be in the possession of a Saudi prince (possibly Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud), either locked away in a Swiss banking company vault, or displayed on a luxury yacht somewhere on the high seas.

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The Two Fridas

- Artist: Frida Kahlo
- Year: 1939

Mexican creative person Frida Kahlo has developed an almost cult-similar following in recent years, but took a dorsum seat to husband and fellow-creative person Diego Rivera during her lifetime. Kahlo'south piece of work is infused with a deeply personal iconography and references a life of physical and emotional ache. "The Two Fridas," portrays the creative person before and later her painful separation from Rivera; on the left equally a bride with an eviscerated center, and on the right dressed in the traditional Mexican costume she favored during happier times with Rivera.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Eatables

The Ghent Altarpiece

- Creative person: Hubert and Jan van Eyck
- Year: c. 1432

Gear up aflame past Calvinists, hacked autonomously by avaricious dealers, and repeatedly stolen, "The Ghent Altarpiece" is arguably the well-nigh resilient painting in the history of art. Brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck'due south Early on Netherlandish polyptych, equanimous of 12 panels, was created for St. Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium. In 1934, i of the smaller panels was stolen and never recovered. Several years later, Hitler developed an interest in the painting and had it transported to Germany, where it was rescued from a salt mine by the military unit composed of art historians known equally The Monuments Men.

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Sailko // Wikimedia Commons

Juan de Pareja

- Artist: Velázquez (Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez)
- Year: 1650

A masterpiece of the Spanish Baroque, Velázquez's introspective portrait of his atelier assistant, Juan de Pareja, was met with adulation from contemporaries. An artist in his own correct, Pareja wasn't Velázquez'southward assistant past choice—he was the artist's slave. Shortly after the painting was finished, Pareja was freed and went on to piece of work equally a painter in Madrid.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga

- Artist: Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)
- Twelvemonth: 1787–88

Vicente Joaquín Osorio de Moscoso y Guzmán, count of Altamira, commissioned this tender portrait of his immature son, Manuel, from court painter Francisco Goya. Dressed in a red silk romper with white cuffs and collar, the elaborately dressed child poses with a menagerie of family pets, including a magpie. The image immortalized the little boy who passed away just a few years subsequently it was painted.

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Demoiselles d'Avignon

- Artist: Pablo Picasso
- Twelvemonth: 1907

An icon of Cubism, Pablo Picasso's daring group portrait depicting an unabashed grouping of Spanish prostitutes was met with a tepid response from colleagues and critics akin. A anarchism of apartment, geometric planes, Picasso drew inspiration both from African fine art and that of ancient Iberia.

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The Persistence of Memory

- Creative person: Salvador Dali
- Yr: 1931

Surrealist Salvador Dali subverts reality with this mesmerizing image of deflated timepieces scattered over a desert landscape. The composition defies logic, evoking a dream-like state. Dali employed the "paranoiac-critical method" in his artistic process, self-inducing a delusional country.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Immature Sick Bacchus

- Artist: Caravaggio
- Year: 1593

The God of Wine in Caravaggio's canvass has a distinctly greenish tinge, suggesting that he's imbibed a bit too much of the fermented grape. A possible self-portrait, the unusual representation of the Roman deity may have been sparked past Carravagio's hospitalization for an unknown illness.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Dancer Making Points

- Artist: Edgar Degas
- Year: 1878–80

Degas' "Dancer Making Points"—valued at $ten million—disappeared from reclusive copper heiress Huguette Clark'due south Fifth Avenue home, inexplicably surfacing in New York's David Findlay Gallery shortly afterward. The notoriously individual Clark realized the painting was missing, but declined to study it to authorities. When it was revealed that Herbert Bloch of H&R Cake fame had purchased it, a compromise was reached with Clark whereby the painting was donated to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Portrait of the Boy Eutyches

- Artist: Unknown
- Yr: c. 100–150 A.D.

"Portrait of the Boy Eutyches" is just 1 of hundreds of remarkably life-like paintings produced in the ancient Egyptian Fayum region. Noted for their big, expressive eyes, these panels were painted with encaustics (hot wax tinted with pigments). Roman Egypt was a cultural melting pot, and the Fayum portraits reflect the cultural crossroads in which they were created. The encaustic process used by the Romans was adult past the ancient Greeks, and the resulting portraits were placed over the faces of the mummified dead—a distinctively Egyptian tradition.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

A Dominicus on La Grande Jatte

- Artist: Georges Seurat
- Year: 1884

It took Seurat two years to finish his best-known work, pieced together from dozens of sketches the artist fabricated of working-class Parisians. Critics panned the 7-by-10-foot painting when information technology was kickoff exhibited in 1886, dubious of the complicated theory of light and colour underpinning Seurat'south pioneering pointillism. Over the form of the next century, popular opinion buoyed the painting to cult condition, inspiring Stephen Sondheim to pen the hit Broadway musical "Lord's day in the Park with George."

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The Son of Man

- Creative person: René Magritte
- Year: 1946

The works of the Belgian painter René Magritte are frequently caput-scratchers, and "The Son of Man"—a self-portrait of the artist with his confront obscured past a behemothic apple tree—is no exception. The apple was one of the artist'southward favorite motifs, just its significant is uncertain. The title chosen by Magritte is possibly more illuminating, referencing Jesus Christ. Some critics take called the piece a surrealist interpretation of the transfiguration of Jesus.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Eatables

The Nude Maja

- Artist: Francisco Goya
- Twelvemonth: 1797–1800

Goya painted two versions of the Maja—one naked, the other fully clothed. The painting is believed to have been commissioned by Spanish Prime Minister Manuel de Godoy and was intended to supplement his existing collection of nudes. In 1814, the Inquisition confiscated the painting. Today, it hangs next to its companion in Madrid's Museo del Prado.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Tennis at Newport

- Creative person: George Bellows
- Yr: 1919

A departure from his gritty paintings of pugilists, George Bellows' "Lawn tennis at Newport" depicts a tony tournament in Newport, Rhode Isle. Bathed in an otherworldly low-cal, the painting focuses on the spectral images of the spectators, as opposed to the players. A fellow member of the early 20th-century Ashcan School, American artist Bellows was instrumental in the organization of the profoundly influential 1913 Armory show in New York.

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Bride of the Wind

- Artist: Oskar Kokoschka
- Twelvemonth: 1914

A love letter to his mistress, Oskar Kokoschka's most famous work depicts the artist entwined with his muse, Alma Mahler—the widow of composer Gustav Mahler. The celebrated expressionist was and so down-hearted when Mahler ended their passionate matter, he deputed a life-size doll in her paradigm.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Freedom Leading the People

- Artist: Eugène Delacroix
- Year: 1830

While Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People" may exist familiar to modern viewers from the cover of Coldplay's 2008 release,"Viva la Vida," the exuberant canvas was originally intended to gloat the July Revolution of 1830. Dominating the composition is the central effigy of a adult female holding the tricolor—considered to exist the primeval known depiction of Marianne, the female personification of the Democracy of France.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

The Sleepers

- Artist: Gustave Courbet
- Year: 1866

Painted for the Turkish diplomat Halil Şerif Pasha, Courbet's bluntly erotic canvas sidestepped the Paris Salon, where it well-nigh certainly would have been met with condemnation. Pasha was an avid collector of Western paintings—notably those showcasing the female form—purchasing works by realists Delacroix and Ingres in add-on to Courbet.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Washington Crossing the Delaware

- Artist: Emanuel Leutze
- Year: 1851

Non merely was the iconic "Washington Crossing the Delaware" painted almost 75 years after the Revolutionary State of war, but information technology was also painted past German artist Emanuel Leutze in Düsseldorf. Leutze had spent time in the U.S. and painted the scene with the promise that it would inspire European revolutionaries.

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Allie_Cauflield // Flickr

I and the Village

- Creative person: Marc Chagall
- Twelvemonth: 1911

An ethereal, dream-like romanticism infuses Russian expat Marc Chagall'southward vision of life on the shtetl in "I and the Village." Heavy on symbolism, the painting demonstrates a Cubist influence, to which the young Chagall was exposed while living in Paris.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

The Blue Boy

- Artist: Thomas Gainsborough
- Year: 1770

Gainsborough'due south "Blueish Boy" was an immediate hit when information technology first debuted at London's Majestic University of Arts and continues to be reproduced for pop consumption. Believed to be a portrait of Jonathan Buttall, whose father was a friend of Gainsborough, Buttall owned the painting until bankruptcy forced him to sell information technology.

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Campbell'south Soup Cans

- Creative person: Andy Warhol
- Year: 1962

The panels composing Andy Warhol'south "32 Campbell's Soup Cans" were nigh separated for all eternity when they were first exhibited at Los Angeles' Ferus Gallery. The paintings were an immediate hitting, and owner Irving Blum sold v of them earlier coming to the shrewd realization that the canvases would be of even greater value as a consummate gear up. Blum tracked down the paintings that had sold (including one belonging to actor Dennis Hopper), and reunited them.

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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons

Mona Lisa

- Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
- Year: 1503

Leonardo da Vinci'south woman of mystery has intrigued viewers for centuries. Traditionally identified as Italian noblewoman Lisa Del Giocondo, countless hypotheses have been put along as to the sitter'due south identity likewise as explanations for her seemingly enigmatic grin. All-encompassing multi-spectral imaging conducted by Lumiere Technology in 2006, which uncovered years of varnish, didn't shed any lite as to the reasons behind the Mona Lisa's facial expression, but information technology did reveal that her grin was originally broader than it appears today.

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