The meaning and history of famous paintings: what they show, where the originals hang, and how each one is recreated by hand in oil on canvas.
The Conversion of Saint Paul is one of two frescoes painted by Michelangelo for the Cappella Paolina in the Vatican, depicting the blinding vision…
The Doni Tondo is the only completed panel painting universally attributed to Michelangelo, depicting the Holy Family in a circular format with a…
The Separation of Light from Darkness is the first of the nine Genesis panels in the Sistine Chapel ceiling, depicting the primordial moment of…
The Prophet Isaiah is one of seven Hebrew prophets painted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, shown in a moment of interrupted reading as a putto…
The Deluge is the largest narrative panel in the Sistine Chapel ceiling program, depicting the survival and suffering of humanity during the great…
The Last Judgment is a monumental fresco covering the entire altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, depicting the second coming of Christ and the final…
The Sistine Chapel Ceiling is a complete fresco program covering the vault of the papal chapel in Rome, containing nine central narrative scenes…
The Creation of Adam is the central and most widely recognized panel from the Sistine Chapel ceiling, depicting the moment at which God reaches…
From the series that defined the concept of serial painting, this canvas captures the haystacks of Giverny in the warm light of late summer.
Painted from a rented room opposite the cathedral facade, this canvas from the Rouen Cathedral series records the stone surface transformed by…
Painted from the bank of the lily pond at Giverny, this canvas presents the arched wooden bridge that Monet had constructed as a central element…
An ambitious early work painted entirely outdoors, this large canvas presented the challenge of rendering figures in natural light at monumental…
Painted alongside Renoir at a popular bathing spot on the Seine, this canvas is among the earliest works to fully demonstrate the Impressionist…
From the Poplars series painted along the Epte river, this canvas exploits the vertical rhythm of the trees and their reflections to create a…
Painted during the productive years at Argenteuil, this canvas captures the Seine with the confidence and directness that defined Monet work in…
Widely regarded as the finest snow scene in the Impressionist tradition, this canvas captures the quality of winter light with a subtlety and…
One of the most celebrated works from the Water Lilies series, this canvas reduces the world to the surface of a pond and the sky reflected within it.
Caravaggio portrays the death of the Virgin Mary with an unsparing naturalism that reportedly led to the rejection of the work by its original…
