Master Artist List Photograph Art Works by Famous People

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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 complicated than they appear at get-go glance and difficult to decipher if the viewer doesn't speak the same tongue. Iconography—the symbolic language of a given work of art—can exist sophisticated and complex, reflecting the collective consciousness or drawn from the artist's personal experience. Why would someone eschew the written word in favor of pigment and canvass? 20th-century American artist Edward Hopper appears to have had the answer. "If I could say information technology in words," he said, "there would be no reason to paint."

The stories told by works of art—and nigh them—are, quite literally, the stuff of novels. Johannes Vermeer'southward "Girl with a Pearl Earring" inspired the novel of the same name by author Tracy Chevalier. The book was subsequently turned into a motion-picture show starring Scarlett Johansson. Almost xl years afterward Irving Stone wrote his biographical account of the life of Michelangelo, Dan Brown'southward "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's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The book centers around the fictionalized theft of Dutch artist Carel Fabritius' eponymous painting subsequently an explosion rocks New York's Metropolitan Museum of Fine art. Ironically, Fabritius died in a devastating gunpowder explosion in 1654, shortly after completing his most memorable work. The success enjoyed by Tartt's book elevated "The Goldfinch" to rock star condition, mobbed by crowds determined to take hold of a glimpse of the tiny bird tethered by a delicate concatenation. [Note: Fabritius' painting is non featured in Stacker's gallery.]

Stacker curated this list of some of the earth'due south most famous images and the fascinating stories behind them. Scroll through the list and observe out which paintings scandalized Paris, were looted by the Nazis, and inspired a hit Broadway musical.

Y'all may also like: The 51 women who have won the Nobel Prize

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Christina'due south World

- Artist: Andrew Wyeth
- Year: 1948

"Christina'due south World" continues to fascinate more than than 70 years afterwards it was beginning painted. The faceless woman 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'due south pose is non one of romantic languor; she suffered from a muscle-wasting disorder—perchance Charcot-Marie-Molar disease—and was known to drag herself across the family homestead.

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Arnolfini Portrait

- Artist: January van Eyck
- Twelvemonth: 1434

Painted past Dutch master Jan van Eyck, this early on Netherlandish panel 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'due south wedding, or commemorate another issue, such as a shrewdly negotiated marriage contract? Was the bride pregnant, or simply dressed in the latest fashion? And what are the mysterious figures depicted in the convex mirror? The unorthodox placement of van Eyck's signature direct above it suggests one of the men may be the artist himself.

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American Gothic

- Artist: Grant Wood
- Year: 1930

Grant Wood spent years searching for inspiration in Europe. The work that would make him famous, still, was painted after his render to the heartland. A national icon and leading exponent of regionalism, "American Gothic" depicts what appears to be a Low-era farmer and his weathered wife. Grant intended the couple to stand for father and daughter; in reality, they were neither. The human holding the pitchfork was Wood's dentist, Byron McKeeby, flanked by the creative person's sister, Nan Wood Graham.

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Cyclops

- Artist: Odilon Redon
- Year: 1914

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

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Death of Marat

- Artist: Jacques-Louis David
- Yr: 1793

The pallid figure haemorrhage out in Jacques-Louis David'south 1793 neoclassical masterpiece is none other than Jean-Paul Marat, the French revolutionary famously stabbed to decease in the bath by political adversary Charlotte Corday. David gravitated toward radical politics, aligning himself with the Jacobin ideologies of Marat and Maximilien Robespierre. In postal service-revolutionary French republic, he rose to the position of court painter nether Napoléon Bonaparte.

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Frescoes, Villa of the Mysteries

- Artist: Unknown
- Yr: c. first century B.C.

In 1909, archeologists working in the aboriginal Roman city of Pompeii unearthed a villa buried under 30 feet of volcanic ash. Preserved within was a room, measuring approximately 225 square feet, containing a series of beautiful however baffling frescoes. The images describe more than two dozen, life-size figures. At the centre of the activeness is a clothesless woman, shown flogged in one scene while dancing and playing the cymbals in another. Most scholars agree that the cycle represents a Dionysian initiation cult.

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Girl with a Pearl Earring

- Creative person: Johannes Vermeer
- Year: 1665

A masterpiece of the Dutch Aureate Age, Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" has transfixed viewers with her wistful gaze always since the painting resurfaced in the late 19th century. Trivial, however, is known almost the young woman who modeled for the portrait. It has been suggested that the girl was Vermeer's daughter or mistress. While this may be the case, the image wasn't intended to stand for an bodily person. The turban worn by the sitter indicates that the piece was intended as a "tronie," an idealized image cloaked in exotic wearable.

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Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

- Artist: Edouard Manet
- Year: 1863

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

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Ophelia

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

Pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais, in truthful Pre-Raphaelite mode, painted directly from life whenever possible. Much of the exuberant foliage found in "Ophelia" can be found in Shakespeare'south "Village" and was painted en plein air. Millais, however, didn't subject his 19-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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The Gross Clinic

- Creative person: Thomas Eakins
- Year: 1875

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

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Christ in the Storm on the Body of water of Galilee

- Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn
- Year: 1633

Purchased by fine art enthusiast Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1898, Rembrandt's only painted seascape occupied a identify of prominence in the Boston museum Gardner erected in her proper name until March 18, 1990, when it was stolen, along with over a dozen important works valued at approximately half a billion dollars. Although the finger has oftentimes been pointed at now-deceased Boston career criminal Whitey Bulger, the thieves have never been caught, and the whereabouts of the missing artwork remains unknown.

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Jack the Ripper's Sleeping accommodation

- Creative person: Walter Sickert
- Twelvemonth: 1908

Walter Sickert, noted for his moody portraits and dimly lit domestic interiors, may take harbored a secret darker than his paintings. It has been argued that disconcerting works such every bit "Jack the Ripper'south Chamber" and "The Camden Town Murder" may reflect some connection betwixt the artist and the grisly Whitechapel butcher—either equally an accomplice or the murderer himself.

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Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear

- Artist: Vincent van Gogh
- Year: 1889

Vincent van Gogh is famous for having severed his own ear; the strained relationship with fellow postal service-impressionist Paul Gauguin that precipitated the creative person'southward self-mutilation is not most as well known. Van Gogh spent 1888 working in the South of France and was joined in October of that year past Gauguin. Their friendship deteriorated, and van Gogh didn't react well to the news of Gauguin's impending departure. The troubled creative person cut off his ear, wrapped in paper, and reportedly gave it to a local prostitute for safekeeping. "Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear" depicts van Gogh in his studio, with the correct side of his head wrapped in textile. 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 artist's personal response to the horrific bombing inflicted past 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 vicious conflict—both the Spanish Civil State of war and the dawn of World War II. Picasso expressly forestall the exhibition of his masterwork in Espana until the country became a republic. While his homeland never met that demand, the painting was seen—behind bullet-proof glass—at the Prada in Madrid in 1981, six years after the decease of dictator Francisco Franco.

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The Scream

- Artist: Edvard Munch
- Year: 1893

Popularly known as "The Scream," Norwegian artist Edvard Munch's expressionist masterpiece is frequently interpreted every bit a primal response to the excessive pressures of modernistic life. Originally titled "The Shriek of Nature," the image was created with an entirely unlike intent, as related by Munch himself, "I evening I was walking along a path, the urban center was on ane side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the lord's day 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 picture, painted the clouds equally actual 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 later on. Ironically, a 1910 version of "The Scream" was taken in broad daylight from the Munch Museum in 2004. It, besides, was eventually recovered despite fears it had been destroyed.

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Two Tahitian Women

- Artist: Paul Gauguin
- Year: 1899

A leading mail service-impressionist and frenemy of Vincent van Gogh, Gauguin abased 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 countless immature girls in his Polynesian pleasure palace dubbed "The House of Orgasm."

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Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer

- Artist: Gustav Klimt
- Year: 1907

I of a handful of paintings seized by the Nazis from the family domicile of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, this glittering portrait by fin-de-siecle artist Gustav Klimt depicts the Viennese sugar magnate's wife—art enthusiast and order hostess Adele Bloch-Bauer. After the war, the portrait turned upward in the land-run Galerie Belvedere. Maria Altmann, Adele'south niece, spent years fighting for the painting'southward return, finally triumphing in 2006. The incredible story was made into a pic, "Woman in Gold," starring Helen Mirren every bit Altmann. Both patron and muse, Bloch-Bauer is the only sitter Klimt painted twice.

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Lascaux Cavern Paintings

- Creative person: Unknown
- Yr: c. 15,000–17,000 B.C.

In 1940, eighteen-year-old Marcel Ravidat opened a window to the afar past when he fell into a hole while out walking with his dog in the Dordogne region of French republic. The hole led to a cave covered with approximately 6,000 Paleolithic images depicting animals, enigmatic symbols, and a lone human form. The purpose of the paintings, created with mineral pigments and charcoal, is obscure only may be linked to some sort of ceremonial rite.

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Primavera

- Creative person: Sandro Botticelli
- Year: 1477–1482

Christened "Primavera" by pioneering art historian Giorgio Vasari in 1550, Boticelli'due south mysterious masterwork originally lacked a championship. Although its precise meaning remains enigmatic, "Primavera" is an allegorical work inspired by classical mythology, depicting the transformation of the nymph Chloris into Flora, the goddess of spring. 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 unit.

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Portrait of Madame Ten

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

John Singer Sargent's moody portrait of Virginie Avegno Gautreau, the American wife of a French broker, outraged critics when information technology was first exhibited at the Paris Salon 1884. Sargent had hoped the portrait would make his career. The painting, however, set off a scandal of such magnitude that Sargent exiled himself to England. What was it that had and so offended Parisian loftier society? While the epitome's overt sexuality was expected for a mythological heroine and tolerable for a prostitute moonlighting as an artist's model, it was downright threatening when applied to a adult female of their ain cast.

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Untitled

- Artist: Jean-Michel Basquiat
- Year: 1982

Jean-Michel Basquiat's meteoric ascent from Brooklyn graffiti artist to critically acclaimed painter is the stuff of fable. The youthful Neo-expressionist lived hard and died at the tender age of 27 from a heroin overdose. In Dec 2018, one of Basquiat's untitled works set up a record at Sotheby's, selling for a $110.v one thousand thousand. The staggering selling price spurred the owner of another Basquiat painting to have the work authenticated. An ultraviolet calorie-free examination revealed that the painting included elements fatigued by Basquiat in invisible ink.

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Flaming June

- Artist: Sir Frederic Leighton
- Year: 1895

"Flaming June," of the languid dazzler in the transparent orangish apparel, was painted by esteemed British artist Frederic Leighton at the close of the 19th century. The painting disappeared soon subsequently, only to reemerge in the early on 1960s when it was supposedly discovered in a chimney by a laborer working at a construction site. Considered highly unfashionable at the fourth dimension, the painting failed to make reserve when it came to auction. Information technology was caused soon later on by Puerto Rico'due south Museo de Arte de Ponce, where information technology remains to this twenty-four hour period.

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At the Moulin Rouge

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

Born to wealth and privilege, Toulouse-Lautrec abandoned his aristocratic roots in favor of the working-class Montmartre district and its colorful nightlife. The creative person appears to have 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, eight inches tall. Taunted for his physical advent, he self-medicated with booze, notably absinthe. "At the Moulin Rouge" depicts the globe in which Toulouse-Lautrec felt most at ease. In addition to entertainers such as red-headed chanteuse Jane Avril and dancer May Milton (with the verdigris-tinted complexion), the slice also includes a cocky-portrait of the artist in the company of his cousin, Gabriel Tapié de Céleyran.

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The Ambassadors

- Creative person: Hans Holbein the Younger
- Twelvemonth: 1533

The almost 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 administrator to England, and his friend, George de Selve, both in their late 20s; de Selve, the bishop of Lavaur, served every bit ambassador to both the Holy Roman emperor and the pope.

The painting is scattered with allegorical components, including a lute with broken strings—possibly symbolic of Henry 8's pause with Rome so that he could divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry his mistress, Anne Boleyn. The blurry, black-and-white object that bisects the bottom of the composition is, in fact, a human skull, representing mortality. Hitting employ of anamorphosis, it can only be viewed from an acute angle, forcing observers to view the painting from a variety of perspectives.

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Girl With Balloon

- Artist: Banksy
- Year: 2006

In 2002, the stenciled image of a girl reaching toward a reddish, middle-shaped balloon appeared on a staircase leading to London's Waterloo Span. 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'south for the princely sum of $1.iv million, automatically shredding itself by means of a device hidden by the creative person inside the frame the moment the gavel hit the block. Moments afterward the incident, Banksy posted an Instagram video depicting telephone staff staring in stupor at the mutilated work.

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Judith Slaying Holofernes

- Creative person: Artemisia Gentileschi
- Year: 1610

Historically, it hasn't been easy for women artists to pause into the big time, simply Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi did just that, exercising her demons in the process. Sexually assaulted at 18, Gentileschi angrily confronted her assailant in a public trial which ultimately fix him gratis. She channeled her ensuing rage into her work, notably "Judith Slaying Holofernes," which depicts determined Old Testament heroine Judith severing the head of the drunken Babylonian general.

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Myra

- Artist: Marcus Harvey
- Year: 1995

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

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Nocturne in Black and Gold, the Falling Rocket

- Artist: James Abbott McNeill Whistler
- Yr: 1875

What could exist so objectionable near a painting of fireworks over a picturesque London park? Quite a lot, obviously. Whistler, a proponent of the artful move, failed to impress revered Victorian fine art critic John Ruskin, with his series of paintings referred to as his "nocturnes." Ruskin savaged Whistler'south piece of work—as well every bit the painting's hefty asking cost of 200 guineas (a guinea was a money equal to almost ane-quarter ounce of gold, minted between 1663–1814 in Bully 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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Salvator Mundi

- Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
- Year: 1500

Believed for years to be the production of his atelier, or even a copy of a lost work by the Renaissance chief, "Salvator Mundi" sold at sale in November 2017 for a absurd $450.3 1000000 after scholars reached a consensus that the painting was the work of da Vinci. Idea to be bound for the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the small panel disappeared from public view immediately afterward sale at Christie'due south. It is believed to be in the possession of a Saudi prince (mayhap Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud), either locked away in a Swiss bank vault, or displayed on a luxury yacht somewhere on the high seas.

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The 2 Fridas

- Artist: Frida Kahlo
- Year: 1939

Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has developed an almost cult-like following in recent years, only took a back seat to husband and fellow-artist Diego Rivera during her lifetime. Kahlo's work is infused with a deeply personal iconography and references a life of physical and emotional anguish. "The 2 Fridas," portrays the creative person before and afterwards her painful separation from Rivera; on the left as a helpmate with an eviscerated centre, and on the correct dressed in the traditional Mexican costume she favored during happier times with Rivera.

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The Ghent Altarpiece

- Artist: Hubert and Jan van Eyck
- Yr: c. 1432

Fix aflame by Calvinists, hacked autonomously by avaricious dealers, and repeatedly stolen, "The Ghent Altarpiece" is arguably the most resilient painting in the history of art. Brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck'south Early on Netherlandish polyptych, composed of 12 panels, was created for St. Bavo'south Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium. In 1934, one of the smaller panels was stolen and never recovered. Several years later, Hitler developed an involvement in the painting and had it transported to Germany, where it was rescued from a salt mine by the war machine unit composed of fine art historians known as The Monuments Men.

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Juan de Pareja

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

A masterpiece of the Spanish Baroque, Velázquez's introspective portrait of his atelier assistant, Juan de Pareja, was met with applause from contemporaries. An artist in his own right, Pareja wasn't Velázquez'south banana by pick—he was the artist'due south slave. Presently after the painting was finished, Pareja was freed and went on to work as a painter in Madrid.

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Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga

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

Vicente Joaquín Osorio de Moscoso y Guzmán, count of Altamira, deputed this tender portrait of his young son, Manuel, from court painter Francisco Goya. Dressed in a ruby 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 but a few years afterwards it was painted.

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Demoiselles d'Avignon

- Artist: Pablo Picasso
- Year: 1907

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

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The Persistence of Retentiveness

- Artist: Salvador Dali
- Year: 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 land. Dali employed the "paranoiac-critical method" in his artistic procedure, self-inducing a delusional state.

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Immature Sick Bacchus

- Creative person: Caravaggio
- Twelvemonth: 1593

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

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Dancer Making Points

- Artist: Edgar Degas
- Year: 1878–80

Degas' "Dancer Making Points"—valued at $10 one thousand thousand—disappeared from reclusive copper heiress Huguette Clark's Fifth Avenue dwelling house, inexplicably surfacing in New York's David Findlay Gallery shortly afterward. The notoriously private Clark realized the painting was missing, but declined to report it to authorities. When information technology was revealed that Herbert Bloch of H&R Block fame had purchased it, a compromise was reached with Clark whereby the painting was donated to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas Metropolis.

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Portrait of the Boy Eutyches

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

"Portrait of the Boy Eutyches" is just one of hundreds of remarkably life-similar paintings produced in the aboriginal Egyptian Fayum region. Noted for their large, 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 developed 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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A Sunday on La Grande Jatte

- Artist: Georges Seurat
- Yr: 1884

Information technology took Seurat two years to finish his best-known work, pieced together from dozens of sketches the artist made of working-class Parisians. Critics panned the 7-past-ten-foot painting when information technology was first exhibited in 1886, dubious of the complicated theory of low-cal and color underpinning Seurat'south pioneering pointillism. Over the course of the next century, popular opinion buoyed the painting to cult condition, inspiring Stephen Sondheim to pen the hit Broadway musical "Sunday in the Park with George."

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The Son of Man

- Artist: René Magritte
- Year: 1946

The works of the Belgian painter René Magritte are oftentimes head-scratchers, and "The Son of Man"—a cocky-portrait of the artist with his face obscured past a behemothic apple—is no exception. The apple tree was one of the creative person's favorite motifs, but its meaning is uncertain. The title chosen by Magritte is perhaps more than illuminating, referencing Jesus Christ. Some critics have called the piece a surrealist estimation of the transfiguration of Jesus.

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The Nude Maja

- Artist: Francisco Goya
- Twelvemonth: 1797–1800

Goya painted two versions of the Maja—1 naked, the other fully clothed. The painting is believed to have been deputed by Castilian Prime Government 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'due south Museo del Prado.

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Tennis at Newport

- Artist: George Bellows
- Year: 1919

A deviation from his gritty paintings of pugilists, George Bellows' "Tennis at Newport" depicts a tony tournament in Newport, Rhode Island. Bathed in an otherworldly light, the painting focuses on the spectral images of the spectators, equally opposed to the players. A member of the early on 20th-century Ashcan Schoolhouse, American creative person Bellows was instrumental in the system of the greatly influential 1913 Armory testify 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 well-nigh famous piece of work depicts the creative person entwined with his muse, Alma Mahler—the widow of composer Gustav Mahler. The celebrated expressionist was and then down-hearted when Mahler ended their passionate thing, he commissioned a life-size doll in her paradigm.

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Liberty Leading the People

- Artist: Eugène Delacroix
- Year: 1830

While Delacroix'southward "Freedom Leading the People" may be familiar to modern viewers from the cover of Coldplay'southward 2008 release,"Viva la Vida," the exuberant canvas was originally intended to celebrate the July Revolution of 1830. Dominating the limerick is the key figure of a woman holding the tricolor—considered to be the earliest known depiction of Marianne, the female personification of the Republic of France.

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The Sleepers

- Artist: Gustave Courbet
- Twelvemonth: 1866

Painted for the Turkish diplomat Halil Şerif Pasha, Courbet's frankly erotic canvas sidestepped the Paris Salon, where it most certainly would accept been met with condemnation. Pasha was an gorging collector of Western paintings—notably those showcasing the female form—purchasing works by realists Delacroix and Ingres in addition to Courbet.

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Washington Crossing the Delaware

- Creative person: Emanuel Leutze
- Year: 1851

Not simply was the iconic "Washington Crossing the Delaware" painted nearly 75 years after the Revolutionary War, but it was also painted by German creative person 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

- Artist: Marc Chagall
- Year: 1911

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

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The Blue Boy

- Artist: Thomas Gainsborough
- Twelvemonth: 1770

Gainsborough'southward "Blue Boy" was an immediate hit when information technology first debuted at London'due south Royal 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 endemic the painting until defalcation forced him to sell information technology.

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Campbell's Soup Cans

- Creative person: Andy Warhol
- Twelvemonth: 1962

The panels composing Andy Warhol'southward "32 Campbell'southward Soup Cans" were nigh separated for all eternity when they were first exhibited at Los Angeles' Ferus Gallery. The paintings were an firsthand striking, and owner Irving Blum sold 5 of them before coming to the shrewd realization that the canvases would be of even greater value as a complete set up. Blum tracked down the paintings that had sold (including 1 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'due south woman of mystery has intrigued viewers for centuries. Traditionally identified equally Italian noblewoman Lisa Del Giocondo, endless hypotheses have been put forth as to the sitter's identity as well equally explanations for her seemingly enigmatic smiling. Extensive multi-spectral imaging conducted past Lumiere Technology in 2006, which uncovered years of varnish, didn't shed any light as to the reasons behind the Mona Lisa'south facial expression, but information technology did reveal that her smiling was originally broader than it appears today.

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