Attractions · Going Out · Regions · Worldwide
50 works of art to see before you die
In an interesting article for The Guardian, Jonathan Jones takes a look at 50 works of art you really ought to see. I’m ashamed to say I’ve seen only a few of them. Making the list are, in no particular order:
- Piero della Francesca The Baptism of Christ (1450s), National Gallery, London
- Antony Gormley The Angel of the North (1998), Gateshead
- Masjid-i Shah (now Masjid-i Imam) Mosque (largely 1612-1630) Isfahan, Iran
- JMW Turner Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway (exhibited 1844), National Gallery, London
- Claude Monet Nymphéas (1914-1926), Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris
- Robert Smithson Spiral Jetty (1970), Great Salt Lake, Utah
- Tikal (AD300-AD869), Late Classic Maya site, Guatemala
- Jackson Pollock One: Number 31, 1950, Museum of Modern Art, New York
- John Constable The Hay Wain (1821), National Gallery, London
- The Alhambra (mostly 14th century), Granada
- Mark Rothko The Rothko Chapel (paintings 1965-66; chapel opened 1971), Houston, Texas
- Matthias Grünewald The Isenheim Altarpiece (1509-1515), Musée Unterlinden, Colmar
- Masaccio The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise (c. 1427), Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence
- Edvard Munch The Scream (1893), National Gallery, Oslo
- Giotto Fresco cycle in the Scrovegni Chapel (1305-1306), Padua
- Vincent van Gogh The Starry Night (1889), Museum of Modern Art, New York
- Terracotta Army of the First Qin Emperor (c. 210BC), Shaanxi province, China
- Sandro Botticelli Primavera (1481-1482), Uffizi Gallery, Florence
- Stonehenge (2950BC-1600BC), Salisbury Plain, UK
- Limbourg brothers Les Très Riches Heurs du Duc de Berry (1413-1416), Musée Condé, Chantilly
- The Book of Kells (c. AD800), Trinity College Library, Dublin
- Ishtar Gate (c. 575BC), Pergamon Museum, Berlin
- Pieter Pauwel Rubens Descent from the Cross (1611-1614), Antwerp Cathedral
- Hieronymous Bosch The Garden of Earthly Delights (1505-1510), Prado, Madrid
- Jan van Eyck The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin (c. 1435), Musée du Louvre, Paris
- Jan Vermeer View of Delft (c. 1660-1661), Mauritshuis, the Hague
- Caravaggio The Burial of St Lucy (1608), Museo di Palazzo Bellomo, Syracuse, Sicily
- Rembrandt Aristotle with a Bust of Homer (1654), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- Francisco Goya The Third of May 1808 (1814), Prado, Madrid
- Edouard Manet The Dead Torero (1864), National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
- Paul Cézanne Mont Sainte-Victoire from Les Lauves (1904-1906), Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
- Michelangelo Sistine Chapel ceiling and altar wall frescoes (1508-1541), Rome
- Leonardo da Vinci The Adoration of the Magi (c. 1481), Uffizi Gallery, Florence
- Pablo Picasso, Guernica (1937), Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid
- Titian Danaë (1544-1546), Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples
- Raphael The School of Athens (1510-1511), Stanza della Signatura, Vatican Palace, Rome
- Parthenon Sculptures (Elgin Marbles) (c. 444BC), British Museum, London
- Henri Matisse The Dance (1910), Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
- Théodore Géricault The Raft of the Medusa (1819), Louvre, Paris
- Katsushika Hokusai Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (1829-1833), series of woodblock prints, copies in major museums worldwide
- Pieter Bruegel the Elder Hunters in the Snow (1565), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
- Ice Age paintings (about 30,000 years old) in the Chauvet Cave, Ardèche
- Richard Serra Torqued Ellipses (1996), includes works on permanent view at the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao
- Jasper Johns Flag (1954-1955), Museum of Modern Art, New York
- Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi The Annunciation (1335), Uffizi Gallery, Florence
- Jean-Antoine Watteau Gilles (1718-1719), Louvre, Paris
- Hans Holbein, The Dead Christ (1521-1522), Kunstmuseum, Basel
- Diego Velázquez Las Meninas (1656), Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
- Funerary Mask of Tutankhamun (1333BC-1323BC), Egyptian Museum, Cairo
- San Rock Art, South African National Museum, Cape Town, and at open air sites
Paul Johnson
Paul Johnson is Editor of A Luxury Travel Blog and has worked in the travel industry for more than 30 years. He is Winner of the Innovations in Travel ‘Best Travel Influencer’ Award from WIRED magazine. In addition to other awards, the blog has also been voted “one of the world’s best travel blogs” and “best for luxury” by The Daily Telegraph.
Did you enjoy this article?
Receive similar content direct to your inbox.
Have seen about 14 of these, some artworks definitely have more impact in real life! I’d have to add a trip to the Miro Foundation in Barcelona, it’s such a brilliant gallery and the paintings really have to be seen first hand.