Despite the advancements of photography, film, and digital technology, painting continues to be a longstanding form of artistic expression due to its ancient roots. Numerous artworks created over thousands of years are considered “timeless classics” and are well-known to the public. These are predominantly made by renowned artists throughout history.
It raises the issue of which combination of talent, genius, and circumstance is responsible for producing a masterpiece. Maybe the easiest way to determine it is by identifying it visually, no matter the location. We definitely have our own views on what meets the standard, and we share them in our compilation of the greatest paintings ever. Engage in debate with each other.
Top famous paintings
1. Leonardo Da Vinci, Mona Lisa, 1503–19
Da Vinci’s captivating picture, which was painted between 1503 and 1517, has been plagued by two inquiries ever since its creation: Why is she smiling, and who is the subject? Over time, several explanations have been put forth to explain the former: She is identified as the mother of Leonardo, Caterina, a figure Leonardo made up from his childhood memories of her; she is the wife of the Florentine trader Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo (hence the work’s other title, La Gioconda); and lastly, it is a self-portrait in drag. Regarding that renowned grin, its mysterious nature has been driving people insane for years. Whatever the cause, Leonardo’s use of atmospheric perspective allows Mona Lisa’s uncanny peaceful expression to blend in with the idealized background that fades into the distance.
2. Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665
The 1665 study of a young woman by Johannes Vermeer is strikingly realistic and strikingly contemporary—almost like a photograph. This introduces the question of whether Vermeer created the image using a camera obscura, a pre-photographic technology. Apart from that, nobody knows who the sitter was, though some have theorized that she was Vermeer’s maid. She appears to be trying to make a personal connection with the viewer through the ages as he paints her staring over her shoulder and locking her eyes. Technically, Girl is not a portrait; rather, it is an illustration of a Dutch headshot known as a tronie, which is intended more as a still life of the subject’s features than as a try at a resemblance.
3. Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889
Vincent Van Gogh’s most popular painting, The Starry Night was created by Van Gogh at the asylum in Saint-Rémy, where he’d committed himself in 1889. Indeed, The Starry Night seems to reflect his turbulent state of mind at the time, as the night sky comes alive with swirls and orbs of frenetically applied brush marks springing from the yin and yang of his personal demons and awe of nature.
4. Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, 1907–1908
Gustav Klimt’s depiction of intimacy in The Kiss, an opulent work of fin-de-siècle art, combines elements of Symbolism and Vienna Jugendstil, the Austrian interpretation of Art Nouveau. Klimt presents his subjects as legendary people transformed into contemporary beings by lavish surfaces adorned with trendy graphic elements. The piece is a pinnacle of the artist’s Golden Period, which spanned 1899 to 1910 and was marked by his frequent use of gold leaf, a technique that was sparked by his visit to the legendary Byzantine mosaics at the Basilica di San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy, in 1903.Gustav Klimt’s depiction of intimacy in The Kiss, an opulent work of fin-de-siècle art, combines elements of Symbolism and Vienna Jugendstil, the Austrian interpretation of Art Nouveau.
5. Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, 1484–1486
Created for Lorenzo de Medici, Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus was the first extended, secular nude painting since antiquity. The Goddess of Love is said to have been fashioned after Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci, who is said to have received favors from both Lorenzo and Giuliano, his younger brother. The personification of spring is portrayed wearing a cloak and being blown ashore on a gigantic clamshell by the wind gods Zephyrus and Aura. Not unexpectedly, Venus enraged Savonarola, the Dominican monk who spearheaded a fundamentalist campaign against the Florentine’s secular inclinations. During his crusade, there was the notorious “Bonfire of the Vanities” in 1497, where books, artwork, and cosmetics were among the “profane” items burned on a pyre.
6. James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, 1871
Whistler’s Mother, or actually Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 as it is officially named, illustrates the artist’s desire to create art for the sake of creating art. The painting, which James Abbott McNeill Whistler created in his London studio in 1871, transforms the formality of portraiture into a type of essay. The image depicts Whistler’s mother Anna as one of numerous components trapped in a right-angled configuration. Her somber look complements the composition’s stiffness, and it’s funny that the picture came to represent motherhood in spite of Whistler’s formalist objectives.
7. Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait, 1434
This piece, created during the Northern Renaissance, is considered one of the first paintings done in oils and is highly important. It is said to depict an Italian merchant and a woman, who may or may not be his wife, in a full-length double portrait. In 1934, Erwin Panofsky, a renowned art historian, suggested that the artwork is, in fact, a marriage agreement. One thing that can be confidently stated is that the artwork is among the earliest examples of an interior portrayed with orthogonal perspective, giving the impression of a seamless connection between the space and the observer; it gives the sensation of being able to enter the painting.
8. Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1503–1515
This magical three-part artwork is typically seen as an early precursor to Surrealism. Honestly, it is the depiction of a medieval artist from the later period who had faith in the actual existence of God, the Devil, Heaven, and Hell. Of the three scenes shown, the left panel displays Christ introducing Eve to Adam, while the right panel shows the horrors of Hell; it is uncertain if the middle panel represents Heaven. In Bosch’s passionate portrayal of Hell, a large pair of ears holding a knife shaped like a penis assaults the damned, while a bug king with a bird-like beak and a chamber pot hat sits on a throne, consuming the doomed before expelling them. The abundance of symbolism in this has mostly resisted explanation, which could explain why it is so popular.
9. Georges Seurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884–1886
Georges Seurat’s iconic painting portrays a suburban working-class scene far from the center of Paris, capturing the essence of La Belle Epoque. Seurat frequently focused on this environment as his main theme, which set him apart from the bourgeois depictions of other Impressionist artists of his time. Seurat rejected the capturing of the moment like Manet, Monet, and Degas, opting instead for the eternal quality of Greek sculpture. This is precisely what you will see in this procession of figures resembling a frieze, depicting Seurat’s intention of blending classical landscape with modern form through their static poses.
10. Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, the foundational artwork of 20th-century art, marked the beginning of the modern era through its bold departure from the representational norms of Western painting, inspired by African masks observed by Picasso at Paris’s ethnographic museum at the Palais du Trocadro. The compositional DNA of it also consists of El Greco’s The Vision of Saint John (1608-14), which is currently displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The women shown are really sex workers in a brothel in the artist’s hometown of Barcelona.
