Luncheon of the Boating Party
1881 · Phillips Collection, Washington, District of Columbia
Fourteen of Renoir's friends linger over the wreckage of lunch above the Seine, his future wife among them, cooing at a dog on the table.
★ 8.8
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.
Family of Saltimbanques
1905 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
Circus people stand together in an empty landscape without looking at each other. The Rose Period at its largest and most wistful.
★ 7.5
Woman Holding a Balance
1665 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
The scales in her hand are empty and perfectly level, and the painting on the wall behind her is a Last Judgment.
★ 7.4
Ginevra de Benci
1478 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
A juniper bush stands behind her as a pun on her name. The panel was later cut down at the bottom, taking her hands with it.
★ 7.2
Breezing Up (A Fair Wind)
1876 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
A man and three boys heel a catboat over into open water, painted in the centennial year and read ever since as the country's optimism.
★ 7.2
A Young Girl Reading
1776 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
For once Fragonard is not being naughty. A girl in yellow reads, and the ruff at her wrist is a few flicks of impasto.
★ 6.9
The Human Condition
1933 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
A canvas on an easel shows exactly the landscape it is standing in front of, and therefore hides it completely.
★ 6.9
The Boating Party
1894 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
A dark-suited oarsman fills the foreground with his back while the water rises behind with no horizon, a design taken from Japanese prints.
★ 6.7
The Houses of Parliament, Sunset
1903 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
Monet painted Westminster across the river again and again because what he actually wanted was the fog, not the building.
★ 6.6
The Sacrament of the Last Supper
1955 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
The room is a twelve-sided glass chamber and a torso hovers over the table. Dalí called this sort of thing nuclear mysticism.
★ 6.5
The Peaceable Kingdom
1833 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
Hicks was a Quaker preacher and sign-painter who returned to Isaiah's prophecy about sixty times. Penn signs his treaty in the background.
★ 6.3
The Interior of the Pantheon
1734 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
Light drops through the oculus onto the coffered dome while tourists stand about looking small. Painted for Grand Tourists to take home.
★ 6.3
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt (David)
1510 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
The Virgin offers the Child a bunch of grapes, which stand for the wine of his death, in an exactly observed Flemish wood.
★ 6.1
A Girl with a Watering Can
1876 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
She stands in a garden in a blue dress holding a watering can, and Renoir spends the rest of the canvas on light.
★ 6.1
Death and the Miser
1500 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
Death comes through the door while an angel points to the crucifix and a demon offers one more bag of gold. The man has not chosen.
★ 5.9
The Shipwreck
1772 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
Masts splintering, survivors in the surf, and the whole thing arranged for people who wanted to feel terror from a safe distance.
★ 5.7
Circe and Her Lovers in a Landscape
1525 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
An enchantress sits in a wood ringed by deer, dogs, owls and a stork, which may be men she has transformed. Dossi leaves it unresolved.
★ 5.7
The Last of the Buffalo
1888 · Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
Bierstadt painted this vast hunt as the herds were nearing extinction, with skulls and bones already lying across the foreground.
★ 5.4
Deer in the Forest I
1913 · Phillips Collection, Washington, District of Columbia
The deer have almost dissolved into the crystalline planes of the wood, which is exactly what Marc was after.
★ 5.2
The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew
1311 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
The brothers pause with the net still trailing fish through green water, caught between the work and the man on the shore.
★ 4.9
The Rebuke of Adam and Eve
1626 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia
Adam points at Eve, Eve points at the serpent, and the first sin turns into an ordinary comedy of passing the blame.
★ 4.4
Melancholy
1874 · Phillips Collection, Washington, District of Columbia
A woman slumped back on a sofa, and Degas reads the whole state of mind off the slope of her shoulders.
★ 4.2