5th Symphony
1808
Four notes, then half an hour that never lets up. It premiered in an under-rehearsed, freezing four-hour concert that nobody enjoyed.
★ 9.3
Browse by time · decade
1800s
1800 – 1809
Showing 98 works across all media from the 1800s
Faust, Part One
1808 · 176 pages
Having learned everything and felt nothing, a scholar bets the devil that no moment will ever satisfy him. Then Mephistopheles introduces him to a girl named Gretchen, and Goethe follows the damage down.
★ 9.2
The Phenomenology of Spirit
1807 · 595 pages
Hegel tracks the mind from bare sensation to full self-knowledge, each stage collapsing under its own contradictions into the next. His fight between master and slave has been argued over ever since.
★ 8.2
The Nude Maja
1800 · El Prado, Madrid
Not a goddess but a real woman looking straight back, which is why the Inquisition took an interest. Goya painted a clothed version too.
★ 7.6
Charles IV of Spain and His Family
1800 · El Prado, Madrid
Goya put himself at an easel in the shadows, as Velázquez had, and painted the royal family looking vacant, pompous or merely plain.
★ 7.2
Coronation of Napoleon
1807 · Louvre, Paris
Napoleon has already crowned himself and is now crowning Josephine, with the pope seated behind him and reduced to a spectator.
★ 7.2
The Valpincon Bather
1808 · Louvre, Paris
A bare back seen from behind under even light, with a striped turban wound round the head. Ingres returned to this view all his life.
★ 7.2
The Clothed Maja
1800 · El Prado, Madrid
The same woman, same cushions, same pose, now dressed. It is thought to have hung in front of the nude and slid aside.
★ 6.9
Oedipus and the Sphinx
1808 · Louvre, Paris
Oedipus leans in close to answer the riddle, and a previous contestant's foot is lying at the bottom edge as a warning.
★ 6.5
Perseus with the Head of Medusa
1806 · Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
When Napoleon carried off the Apollo Belvedere, the Vatican put this on the empty pedestal, a modern work judged fit for the company.
★ 5.9