His Most Famous Work Was of Art Was Completed in What Year

Since the emergence of the Italian Renaissance, the history of Western art began a fascinating class through dissimilar stylistic genres. While 15th-century painting focused on portraying the platonic, the subsequent movements explored many other aesthetics and ideas, oft in reaction to their historical predecessor. And although there are many remarkable paintings to written report from these different art movements, we've narrowed downwardly the expansive listing to xx iconic works that span from the end of the 15th century all the way to the offset one-half of the 1900s.

Amongst this list of masterpieces are some that are so well known they've become a part of pop culture, as well as others that, while famous in fine art circles, may not exist as familiar. For example, René Magritte's Surrealist painting Treachery of Images, which features a rendering of a dark-brown pipe accompanied past the recognizable phrase "This is non a pipe," has been referenced in motion-picture show too as video games. Similarly, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa continues to inspire authors and filmmakers from around the earth. On the other mitt, some paintings that accept eluded the same attention include Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Impressionist gem, Bal du Moulin de la Galette, and Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase.

Want to brush up on your art history knowledge? Scroll downwards to have a short-listed tour of 30 of Western art history's most famous paintings.

Brush up on your art history knowledge by learning near these famous paintings.

Northern Renaissance

Jan Van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434

Born in what is now Kingdom of belgium, artist January van Eyck was an early primary of the oil medium and used information technology to create meticulously detailed compositions. His nigh prominent work, The Arnolfini Portrait , remains an icon of the Northern Renaissance—encapsulating many of the aesthetic ideals and technical innovations of the fourth dimension menstruation.  It depicts a wealthy merchant—presumed to be Giovanni di Nicolau di Arnolfini—and his wife in a lavishly decorated room which showcases their opulent wealth.

Fun fact: On the dorsum wall of the room is aconvex mirror that shows a reflection of 2 people, one of whom is very likely Van Eyck. The mirror itself is thought to suggest the eye of God observing the scene.

Italian Renaissance

Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, c. 1484–vi

Created past Sandro Botticelli in the Early Renaissance (or the Quattrocento), The Birth of Venus is a stylistic depiction of the mythological Roman goddess, Venus. Information technology is one of the first Renaissance paintings to display Classical inspiration and a prominent nude female figure.

Fun fact: The nudity depicted in The Nascence of Venus was unusual—and rather daring—at the time.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, c. 1495–1498

Leonardo da Vinci, "The Last Supper," 1495–8 (Photograph: Wikimedia Eatables, Public domain)

Since its completion at the end of the 15th century, The Concluding Supper has captivated audiences with its impressively big scale, unique composition, and mysterious subject thing. Leonardo da Vinci's patron, Ludovico Sforza, asked him to paint Jesus' final repast every bit described in the Gospel of John in the New Attestation of the Bible.

Fun fact: Interestingly, Leonardo opted to illustrate the moment Jesus tells his followers that one of them volition betray him, placing much of the painting's focus on the figures' individual expressive reactions.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Mona Lisa, c. 1503–1506

Near anybody is familiar with the Mona Lisa 's enchanting smile. Painted in the High Renaissance past polymath Leonardo da Vinci, it exhibits naturalistic painting techniques equally well as a smokey background using sfumato.

Fun fact: The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, but information technology seems the thief made the painting famous. Newspapers spread the story of the crime worldwide, sparking international interest in the painting. When the artwork finally returned to the Paris museum two years later, it became celebrated as a masterpiece.

Raphael, The Schoolhouse of Athens, 1509–1511

The Schoolhouse of Athens is one of the iv wall frescoes Raphael painted in the Stanza della Segnatura, in the Papal Palace. It is considered a masterpiece for how information technology merges art, philosophy, and science into one painting. Among the many figures depicted in the piece are Greek philosophers Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates, and mathematicians Euclid and Pythagoras.

Fun fact: Plato's gesture toward the heaven is thought to indicate his Theory of Forms. This philosophy argues that the "existent" world is not the concrete 1, but instead a spiritual realm of ideas filled with abstract concepts and ideas. Conversely, Aristotle's outstretched paw is a visual representation of his belief that knowledge comes from feel. Empiricism, as it is known, theorizes that humans must accept concrete show to support their ideas and is very much grounded in the physical world.

Michelangelo, The Sistine Chapel ceiling, 1508–1512

Renaissance artist Michelangelo spent four years painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for Pope Julius Ii. Information technology is not simply renowned for its incredible scale, merely also for its complex composition and Classical inspirations.

Fun fact: Michelangelo was reluctant to accept upwards the chore. When he was asked by Pope Julius II to paint the ceiling, he made it very clear that he hated painting and preferred sculpture. He even wrote a verse form expressing his frustrations.

Baroque

Caravaggio, The Calling of Saint Matthew, 1599–1600

Caravaggio, "The Calling of St. Matthew," 1599–1600 (Photo: Wikipedia, Public domain)

Michelangelo Merisi—meliorate known as Caravaggio—was a masterful Italian Baroque painter who pushed boundaries, both in his creative and personal life. His work, The Calling of St. Matthew , depicts an informal, natural gathering of figures with a dramatic use of light and shadow—the trademark of his manner. Dressed in contemporary clothing, the characters announced lifted from a genre scene rather than a traditional religious painting.

Fun fact: The identity of Matthew in the painting is nevertheless debated. While nigh believe information technology is the bearded man pointing to himself, others believe that the disguised human is really directing the viewer'due south attending to the homo slumped over the table.

Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas, 1656–7

Spanish artist Diego Velázquez was the court painter for King Philip Iv and known for his expressive portraits which captured the physical likeness and personality of his subjects. Las Meninas is his about revered piece of work and still lauded by art historians today for its circuitous design. It shows the infanta Margaret Theresa surrounded by ladies in waiting, a chaperone, a bodyguard, a chamberlain, and even Velázquez himself.

Fun fact: The Rex and Queen are included in the painting. To a higher place the princess' head, there's a dark wooden frame. Within it is her begetter and mother, King Philip IV of Spain and Mariana of Austria.

Dutch Golden Age

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Night Scout, 1642

In the 17th century, Dutch artists became inspired by Northern Renaissance painting techniques in an era known as the Dutch Aureate Age. Rembrandt van Rijn'southward The Nighttime Sentinel is a massive grouping portrait in which the figures are virtually life-size. It showcases the artist'due south dramatic use of light and shadow.

Fun fact: The painting is viewed by effectually iv,000 to v,000 visitors daily at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Johannes Vermeer, Daughter With a Pearl Earring, c. 1665

Another of the most acclaimed paintings to emerge from this period is Johannes Vermeer'due south enticing portrait, Girl With a Pearl Earring . It portrays an anonymous woman wearing "exotic" blue-and-yellowish article of clothing and sitting before a stark black groundwork.

Fun Fact: Daughter with a Pearl Earring is sometimes nicknamed the "Mona Lisa of the North." This is partially due to the bailiwick's captivating expression, and considering of the mystery surrounding the slice itself.

Rococo

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing, c. 1767

Following the extravagance and ability of Baroque fine art came the lighthearted and flirtatious Rococo move, which blossomed in 18th-century France before spreading to other European countries. The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard exemplifies the aesthetic of this decorative mode, featuring a whimsical narrative, pastel colors, and fluid forms.

Fun fact: The Swing was commissioned by the Baron de Saint-Julien, who wanted a flirtatious portrait of his mistress. The Businesswoman was very articulate in his salacious intentions, specifically asking that in the painting his mistress was pushed on a swing past a bishop, while he (the Baron) looked up his mistress's dress. Fragonard did make i omission from the original request and exchanged the effigy of a bishop with the more than acceptable character of a cuckolded married man.

Neoclassical

Jacque-Louis David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps, 1801–1805

As the preeminent creative person of the Neoclassical fashion, Jacques-Louis David produced art that was unlike the Rococo status quo—with few colors, minimalist only balanced compositions, and depictions of classical subject affair. When Napoleon rose to power, David aligned himself with the ruler of France and made art in support of the new regime. His equestrian portrait Napoleon Crossing the Alps has go the best-known image of Napoleon, portraying the emperor every bit he leads his regular army through the Great St. Bernard Pass.

Fun fact: David fabricated five versions of this portrait betwixt 1801–1805, with minor differences between them. The first version featured Napoleon wearing an ochre-colored greatcoat, whereas all of the subsequent versions depict him wrapped in a red cape.

Romanticism

Théodore Géricault, The Raft of The Medusa, 1818–nine

The Romantic art movement emphasized emotion, the sublimity of nature, and the private. Théodore Géricault's The Raft of The Medusa depicts a historical shipwreck off the coast of modern-solar day Mauritania, where sailors survived treacherous conditions to notice a safe haven. The painting'southward employ of scale and drama makes information technology a cornerstone of French Romanticism.

Fun fact: The Raft of The Medusa painting is huge, measuring around sixteen anxiety by 23.5 feet. The raft itself was even bigger, measuring 23 anxiety by 66 feet.

Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830

Liberty Leading the People is a dramatic large-scale painting by French artist Eugène Delacroix. Created during the tumultuous French Revolution, it captures the spirit of the people's insurgence.

Fun fact: The woman in the composition is known as "Marianne." She has been the personification of the French Commonwealth ever since the get-go French Revolution of 1789.

Realism

James McNeill Whistler, Whistler's Female parent, 1871

Whistler's Mother (as well known as System in Grayness and Blackness No.1) is a portrait of the artist James McNeill Whistler's mother, 67-year-old Anna McNeill Whistler. In addition to showcasing Whistler'southward focus on color, which he explored through shape, form, and limerick, the austere painting besides illustrates the artist's perception of his pious mother, whose presence in London—previously the setting of his Bohemian lifestyle—he described as a "general upheaval" in a letter to beau artist and friend Henri Fantin-Latour.

Fun fact: Equally a business firm laic in "fine art for art'due south sake," Whistler entitled the portrait Arrangement in Gray and Black No.1 because he did non believe the identity of the subject was important to audiences. Even so, the picture is best known past its colloquial proper noun, Whistler's Mother.

Realism—Impressionism

Édouard Manet, Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe, 1863

Manet's large-scale masterpiece, Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (or The Luncheon on the Grass), bridges the gap betwixt the Realist and Impressionist art movements with its modern arroyo to style and subject matter. Featuring a nude adult female picnicking in the visitor of ii well-dressed men, information technology derives inspiration from Classical paintings of female nudes while placing it in a contemporary setting.

Fun fact: The clothed men in the painting were Manet'southward relatives—his brother, Eugène Manet, and his future brother-in-law, Dutch sculptor Ferdinand Leenhoff. The nude woman is Victorine-Louise Meurent, a popular muse of Parisian painters during the belatedly 1800s. She was nicknamed "La Crevette" (The Shrimp) because of her cherry hair and rosy complexion.

Édouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882

Completed in 1882, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère was Manet's terminal major work and the culmination of his unique—and to some, controversial—approach to painting. Set in a crowded bar, the work portrays a somber barmaid attending to a gentleman in a top hat. Manet renders the master figures, objects, and interior with expressive brushstrokes and close attending to the details.

Fun fact: This painting is based on a real-life nightclub in Paris chosen the Folies-Bergère. In the tardily 19th century, this institution was incredibly popular among artists as well equally middle and upper-class Parisians for its assortment of entertainment including cabaret, ballet, and acrobatics to name a few.

Impressionism

Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, 1872

Impression, Sunrise depicts a hazy blue-hued seascape dotted with small boats and a vivid orange sun. In fact, its radical use of expressive brushstrokes to portray a sunrise is what sparked the Impressionist art movement and named its creator, Claude Monet, the "Begetter of Impressionism."

Fun fact: The painting depicts the harbor of LeHavre in France, but Monet felt there wasn't enough particular to championship the painting after the location. Therefore, the name Impression, Sunrise was given. Monet titled most of his paintings with "Impression" for this reason.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Bal du Moulin de la Galette, 1876

The Bal du moulin de la Galette , or the Trip the light fantastic toe at the Moulin de la Galette, is amidst Renoir'south most celebrated pieces. Like many other Impressionist works, information technology was painted en plein air, and offers a glimpse into life and leisure during France's Belle Époque.

Fun fact: The subjects in Bal du moulin de la Galette were young man artists, scholars, and close friends to Renoir. The painter asked them to bring together him at Maison Fournaise to pose for the limerick.

Post-Impressionism

Georges Seurat, A Sun Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884–6

French artist and color theorist Georges Seurat was one of the inventors of Pointillism, a painting technique that applies paint to the canvas using small dots of color. His massive magnum opus, A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte displays his mastery of the unique style.

Fun fact: Seurat was just 26 years old when he completed this painting.

Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Nighttime, 1889

While the Impressionist movement was preoccupied with portraying low-cal in its painting, the Postal service-Impressionist movement focused on color. And few artists are every bit renowned for their use of color as Vincent van Gogh. The Starry Dark was created late into the Dutch painter's brusk career and depicts the view from his window in the asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

Fun fact: This was not Van Gogh'south first Starry Night. The year earlier, in 1888, the artist painted his original Starry Dark, sometimes known as Starry Night Over the Rhône.

Expressionism

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893

One of the pioneers of Norwegian Expressionism, Edvard Munch's stylistic arroyo to carrying emotion, particularly feelings of anguish, is best displayed in his iconic masterpiece, The Scream .

Fun fact: This painting inspired the killer'south mask in Wes Craven's movie franchise, Scream. The managing director said of the painting: "Information technology's a classic reference to just the pure horror of parts of the 20th century, or perhaps just human being existence."

Vienna Secession

Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, 1907–8

Gustav Klimt, "The Osculation," oil and gilt leaf on canvas, 1907–1908 (Photo: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt was famous for his dazzling utilize of golden and his masterpiece The Kiss is no different. Made in the Vienna Secession art motion—which is closely related to Art Nouveau—this intimate portrait captures a tender moment betwixt a pair of lovers. He uses a flat, two-dimensional composition to raise the luster of the gold leaf.

Fun fact: Love—whether romantic, platonic, or familial—is a mutual theme in Klimt's work. "Whoever wants to know something virtually me," he said, "should await attentively at my pictures and at that place seek to recognize what I am and what I want."

Cubism

Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907

Few artists can avowal a portfolio as numerous and various equally Pablo Picasso. A pioneer of several different styles, he is perhaps best known for his works in Cubism. And while Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is often considered to be a proto-Cubist painting, it withal exhibits an interest in shapes, perspective, and simplification of forms.

Fun fact: Henri Matisse was Picasso's rival for years, and when Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was revealed, Matisse publicly criticized the painting. He believed it undermined modern fine art.

Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, 1912

Although Marcel Duchamp's painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 was initially rejected past the Cubists as being too Futurist in style, the piece of work was subsequently recognized as an example of both movements and a modernistic masterpiece. Like the Cubists, it utilizes fragmentation and simplification of shapes, and like the Futurists it portrays movement.

Fun fact: Duchamp'due south brothers hated the piece and tried to censor it. Duchamp had hoped to debut the painting in the Salon des Indépendants's leap exhibition of Cubist works. However, it was rejected past the committee, and the creative person'south brothers urged him to withdraw the work or paint over the piece. Duchamp refused to modify his artwork and later recalled, "I said nothing to my brothers. Merely I went immediately to the show and took my painting home in a taxi. It was really a turning point in my life, I can assure you. I saw that I would not exist very much interested in groups after that."

Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937

Painted towards the terminate of the Cubist art move, Pablo Picasso's Guernica is ane of the most prominent examples of anti-war fine art. It captures the anguish of both people and animals that is acquired by unnecessary violence.

Fun fact: The main subjects in the painting are women. One powerful figure is depicted screaming in agony as she holds a expressionless baby in her artillery. Another holds her arms in the air holding an oil lamp, signifying hope.

Surrealism

René Magritte, The Treachery of Images, 1929

René Magritte'southward Surrealist paintings are known for their unique sense of irony and wit. One of his most famous pieces, The Treachery of Images, insists that the pipe depicted "is non a pipe" because information technology is just a representation of i.

Fun fact: The painting received some bad reviews from critics who thought it suggested the thought of nihilism. In an interview, Magritte defended himself by stating, "The famous piping. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could y'all stuff my pipe? No, it'south just a representation, is it non? So if I had my picture show 'This is a pipage,' I'd accept been lying!"

Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Retentivity, 1931

The Persistence of Memory was painted at the tiptop of the Surrealist art motion and is considered to be Salvador Dalí's about iconic work. It displays outlandish bailiwick matter evocative of a dreamscape. Even today, the melting clock is synonymous with the Castilian artist's name.

Fun fact: Dalí was probably hallucinating when he painted the piece. Around the time of the artwork'south creation, the surrealist was practicing his "paranoiac-critical method." Dalí would effort to enter a land of self-induced psychotic hallucinations so that he could create what he chosen "mitt-painted dream photographs."

20th-Century American Fine art

Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930

Featuring a stoic portrait of a farmer and his daughter, Grant Wood's American Gothic offers a fascinating glimpse into life in the rural U.s.. While many have misconstrued its significant and misinterpreted its subject matter since its debut in 1930, this depiction of pocket-size town life remains 1 of art history's biggest icons.

Fun fact: The house in the painting is based on a real-life structure that Wood came across in Iowa. Known as the Dibble House, this apprehensive dwelling house was built in 1881 in a Gothic Revival way calledCarpenter Gothic. In addition to its Gothic elements, withal, Forest was drawn to its characteristically "rural" appearance, typified past its small stature, cream-colored walls, and shingled roof. When he spotted the home, it immediately defenseless his eye—and sparked his imagination.

Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942

Nighthawks offers a glimpse into artist Edward Hopper'due south perceptions of modern American life—specially, in New York City. Dissimilar his contemporaries who opted to capture the metropolis's vivid lights, buzzing temper, and booming industry, still, Hopper instead focused on the prevalent yet underrepresented loneliness of its residents.

Fun fact: His wife, Josephine or "Jo," often wrote detailed annotations for Hopper'southward preparatory drawings. For Nighthawks, she said, "Night + brilliant interior of cheap eatery. Bright items: cherry forest counter + tops of surrounding stools; calorie-free on metal tanks at rear right; brilliant streak of jade dark-green tiles 3/4 across canvass—at base of operations of glass of window curving at corner. Lite walls, dull yellow ocre [sic] door into kitchen right."

Want to see these masterpieces in person? Bank check out our guide on where to find some of the most famous art.

This article has been edited and updated.

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