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.
Bull's Head

Bull's Head

1942 · Musee Picasso, Paris

A bicycle saddle and a set of handlebars, joined. Picasso joked that someone might one day turn it back into a bicycle.

★ 6.7
Great Hall of the Bulls

Great Hall of the Bulls

Artist unknown
17000 BC · Lascaux, France

Painters worked here by lamplight seventeen thousand years ago. Four boys found the cave in 1940, and it was sealed again in 1963.

★ 8.6
Ishtar Gate

Ishtar Gate

Artist unknown
575 BC · Pergamon Museum, Berlin

Bulls and dragons stride across glazed brick in deep blue, raised for Nebuchadnezzar around 575 BC and rebuilt from the original bricks in Berlin.

★ 9.0