Where Do We Come From What Are We Where Are We Going
1898 · Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Boston
Gauguin thought he was dying and meant this to be his last work, reading right to left from a sleeping infant to an old woman.
★ 8.5
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.
The Slave Ship
1840 · Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Boston
Turner took the Zong case, where a slaver threw its human cargo overboard for the insurance money, and set it under his most beautiful sunset.
★ 8.2
Three Beauties of the Present Day
1793 · Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Boston
Three famous women of 1790s Edo on mica ground, their faces nearly identical, so you have to read them from the tilt of an eye.
★ 7.8
Paul Revere
1768 · Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Boston
Copley painted the silversmith in his shirtsleeves at the bench with a teapot in his hand, which was not how gentlemen were usually shown.
★ 7.1
St. Luke Drawing the Virgin
1440 · Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Boston
Luke was the patron saint of painters, and van der Weyden ran the Brussels painters' guild, so this is a tribute to the trade.
★ 6.7
St. Francis Standing
1660 · Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Boston
No landscape, no story, just a man in patched brown wool holding a skull and one shaft of light finding him in the dark.
★ 6.3
Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (Cole)
1828 · Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Boston
Eden on one side of the rock arch, blasted wilderness on the other, and Cole lets the landscape carry the entire moral argument.
★ 5.4