Vanitas Still Life
1630 · Mauritshuis, The Hague
A toppled glass, a lamp still smoking, a watch and a skull, all painted in browns and greys so the light does the work.
★ 6.1
The Art canon
Sourced and hung.
Every work chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 704 works or filter by movement, subject, place, and artist.
Browse all 704 works or filter by movement, subject, place, and artist.
Violin and Candlestick
1910 · San Francisco MOMA, San Francisco
Brown and grey planes rebuild a violin into a lattice, painted while Braque and Picasso were working almost as one person.
★ 6.1
Pigeon with Peas (La Pigeon aux Petits Pois)
1911 · Stolen
Stolen from the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris in 2010 and never recovered, so it survives here only as a photograph.
★ 6.3
Basket of Fruit
1599 · Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, Italy
The leaves are curling and worm-eaten and the fig has burst. Caravaggio painted the rot as carefully as the ripeness and called it enough.
★ 7.3