Terracotta Army
Artist unknown
210 BC · Emperor Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum, Xi'an
Thousands of life-size clay soldiers in battle formation, no two faces alike, guarding an emperor's tomb since 210 BC.
★ 9.6
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 Night Watch
1642 · Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
A militia company surges out of the shadow with a dog barking and a girl glowing among the men. Varnish, not night, made it dark.
★ 9.2
The Surrender of Breda
1635 · El Prado, Madrid
The Spanish general stops the defeated Dutchman from kneeling and lays a hand on his shoulder. Spaniards still call the picture The Lances.
★ 8.8
The Tempest
1508 · Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice
A soldier, a nursing woman, and lightning over the town beyond. Nobody has explained what connects them, and Giorgione died young leaving few certain works.
★ 8.6
Bayeux Tapestry
Artist unknown
1077 · Musee de la Tapisserie de Bayeux, Bayeux
Seventy meters of wool telling the conquest of England like a strip cartoon. Not a tapestry at all, and probably stitched by English hands.
★ 7.9
Meagre Company
1637 · Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Hals left this militia portrait unfinished and another painter finished the right-hand figures, a join you can still see if you look.
★ 6.3
Artillerymen (Kirchner)
1915 · Guggenheim, New York City
Naked conscripts showering in a barracks under a mounted officer, painted after the army service that broke Kirchner down.
★ 5.7
Prisoners from the Front
1866 · Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
A Union officer faces three captured Confederates and the two halves of the country study each other. Homer had covered the war as an illustrator.
★ 5.6
Artillerymen (Rousseau)
1893 · Guggenheim, New York City
A regiment posed around its cannon like a group photograph that has gone charmingly rigid. Rousseau was a customs officer painting in his spare time.
★ 4.8