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Painting story
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte is the defining achievement of Pointillism, depicting Parisians at leisure on a Seine island through millions of…
Painting Stories
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.
Painting story
American Gothic
American Gothic presents two figures standing before a white Gothic Revival farmhouse in Iowa, rendered with meticulous Flemish-influenced…
Painting story
The School of Athens
The School of Athens is a monumental fresco depicting the great philosophers and scientists of ancient Greece gathered beneath a soaring classical…
Painting story
A Bar at the Folies-Bergere by Edouard Manet
Edouard Manet painted A Bar at the Folies-Bergere in 1882, his final major work, constructing a brilliantly disorienting scene of modern Parisian…
Painting story
La Grenouillere by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Renoir painted this vibrant riverside scene at the popular bathing spot on the Seine in 1869, capturing the shimmer of sunlit water with bold,…
Painting story
Las Meninas
Las Meninas is a large-scale court painting that uses perspective and reflection to create one of the most complex and debated compositions in the…
Painting story
The Birth of Venus by Botticelli
The Birth of Venus shows the goddess arriving on a scallop shell, blown ashore by Zephyrus, the west wind, and his companion Aura, and met on the…
Painting story
Starry Night Over the Rhone by Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh painted Starry Night Over the Rhone directly from observation on the banks of the Rhone River in Arles, producing a nocturnal…
Painting story
Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 by James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler painted this restrained and elegantly composed portrait of his mother Anna in 1871, creating a work that became one…
Painting story
The Hay Wain
John Constable painted The Hay Wain as a large-scale celebration of the Suffolk countryside he had known since childhood, producing a work of…
Painting story
Venus of Urbino by Titian
Titian painted the Venus of Urbino for Guidobaldo della Rovere, depicting a reclining nude woman who meets the gaze of the viewer with calm…
Painting story
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Girl with a Pearl Earring is an intimate portrait from the Dutch Golden Age that has captivated viewers for over three centuries with its quiet…
Painting story
The Night Watch
The Night Watch is a monumental group portrait of a civic militia company that transformed the conventions of Dutch portrait painting through its…
Painting story
The Scream by Munch
The Scream shows a figure on a bridge above the Oslo fjord, hands pressed to its head under a sky of blood-red bands, while two friends walk on.…
Painting story
The Sick Child by Edvard Munch
Painted between 1885 and 1886, The Sick Child is a harrowing and deeply personal meditation on dying youth, grief, and helpless love, drawn…
Painting story
The Dance of Life by Edvard Munch
Painted between 1899 and 1900 for the Frieze of Life cycle, The Dance of Life is a panoramic allegory of the stages of womanhood and desire, set…
Painting story
Melancholy by Edvard Munch
Painted in 1894 to 1895, Melancholy is a study of brooding male introspection set against the undulating shoreline and water of the Oslofjord,…
Painting story
Young Girls at the Piano by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Commissioned by the French state in 1892, this tender depiction of two girls sharing a moment at the piano became the first Renoir painting to…
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Curated collectionsOdyssey, Magic and Witchcraft, Famous Women, Landscapes and more.Artists A to ZEvery painter in the catalogue, with an archive of their works.Art movementsRenaissance to Expressionism: what defines each and who led it.Top 50 most famous paintingsThe ranked list, with the story behind every entry.
