by Evelyn J. Mocbeichel
There are certain paintings most of us recognize instantly, whether from school days, news segments or history books. Certain styles, techniques or subjects can be attributed to the creator because we know what that particular artist favored. It used to be a trend to display large “coffee table” editions of books, whether they were about travel, mythology, history, or paintings done by world famous artists. They usually had beautiful photographs of the subject matter and lovely to occasionally browse through. These books often just became decorative table artifacts and rarely opened.
Some world famous paintings are in museums around the world that most people will never get to see, unless heading off to the Louvre in Paris, British Museum in London or the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, to name a few of the more popular ones. Adults may have an appreciation for fine art, but it can be a wonderful tradition if they pass along this knowledge to young children. For instance, a friend has her children enrolled in a Montessori based preschool and the children are already learning to recognize famous paintings. Each week their teacher hangs up several prints on the bulletin board of a certain artist to show the students the style this person is known to paint. They begin to recognize who was famous for painting ballerinas or western scenery. Additional lessons are created by using art picture flash cards where the child sees a painting and names the artist. Impressive! Think about the world famous artists you may know and whose works you can name.
Everybody recognizes Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, considered the masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance period. Even a song, Mona Lisa, was a hit by American singer, Nat King Cole in 1950 that described her smile. While Mona Lisa inspired a song, another painting inspired a Broadway play. French post-Impressionist artist, Georges Pierre Seurat’s painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte was the centerpiece for a 1984 musical called Sunday in the Park with George. The music and lyrics were by Stephen Sondheim, with a plot revolving around George, a fictionalized Seurat who immerses himself in painting this masterpiece. Well known are the florals by Georgia O’Keefe or her paintings of the desert southwest. How about the distinct “pop art” of Andy Warhol, whose career reached its peak in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s? Can you imagine his painting as simple as Campbell soup cans became an iconic picture, as well as his self portrait and images of Marilyn Monroe’s face? How many artists can you name by their artwork?
PAINTING:
- The Starry Night
- American Gothic (farm couple, man holds pitch fork)
- Whistler’s Mother
- Girl with the Pearl Earring (It’s so lifelike, looks like a photograph!)
- The Last Supper
- Still life with Fifteen Sunflowers
- The Ballet Class (and also a bronze sculpture of a ballerina)
- The Water Lilies
- Woman with a Parasol
- Washington Crossing the Delaware
Answers: 1) Vincent van Gogh; 2) Grant Wood, American artist; 3) James Abbott McNeill Whistler; 4) Dutch artist, Johannes Vermeer (Try to stream the 2003 film of the same name to learn about Vermeer’s inspiration for this painting. It stars Colin Firth & Scarlett Johansson); 5) Leonardo Da Vinci; 6) Vincent van Gogh; 7) Edgar Degas, French impressionist painter; 8) By impressionist Claude Monet (This one is in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City) Monet also painted Haystacks; 9) Also a Claude Monet, a painting of his wife Camille and their son Jean Monet strolling on a windy day; 10) German-American artist Emanuel Leutze.
To learn more about the most famous paintings in the world and how they are ranked, or learn what they look like if you are unfamiliar, visit www.timeout.com/newyork/art/top-famous-paintings-in-art-history-ranked
