The Dance (Matisse)
1909 · Museum of Modern Art, New York City
Five figures wheel in a ring against blue and green, reduced to three colors and the strain of holding hands at speed.
★ 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.
Bal du Moulin de la Galette
1876 · Musee d'Orsay, Paris
Sunlight comes through the trees in patches over a Montmartre dance floor, a big ambitious canvas given over entirely to a Sunday afternoon.
★ 8.5
The Three Dancers
1925 · Tate Modern, London
Picasso's classical calm breaks here into something jagged and violent, the limbs flung out almost crucified, set off by the death of an old friend.
★ 7.2
The Dance of Life
1900 · National Gallery (Oslo), Oslo
A woman in white waits, a woman in red dances, a woman in black stands apart. Three ages of love on a midsummer shore.
★ 7.1
Parnassus
1497 · Louvre, Paris
The Muses dance to Apollo's lyre while Venus's cuckolded husband fumes at his forge off to the left. Painted for Isabella d'Este's study.
★ 6.1
The Old Plantation
1795 · Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, Williamsburg
Enslaved people dancing and making music beside their cabins, with African instruments and dress. Attributed to a South Carolina slaveholder.
★ 4.3