Famous paintings

Despite the large number of paintings in museums and art galleries around the world, only a few cuadros have been recognized as true classical works, some of them transcending time to become true treasures of our humanity.

But what makes a painting famous, the author, the period, or the critique? In Kuadros, we have made a selection of the most famous paintings in history.

Famous painting number 1: The Mona Lisa - Leonardo Da Vinci - 1503–19

The most famous painting in the world is that of a woman with an enigmatic smile. This portrait has two unresolved questions: Who is the subject, and why is she smiling?

Theories exist that attempt to dispel the doubts: that she is the wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo; another theory indicates that the painting represents Leonardo's mother, Caterina; and finally, that it is a self-portrait of the master.

About the smile, Sigmund Freud once said that he thought the mysterious gesture of The Mona Lisa came from a memory, perhaps unconscious, of Caterina's smile, but experts are not sure.

The famous cuadro now resides in the Louvre Museum in Paris, where it continues to be admired to this day.

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Famous painting number 2: The Last Supper - Leonardo Da Vinci - 1495-1498

Leonardo Da Vinci managed to express in a single famous painting the great mystery that entered the minds of the apostles about who would betray their Master.

Leonardo Da Vinci is the only artist who appears twice in this list of famous paintings. The Last Supper represents the last time Jesus broke bread with his disciples before his crucifixion.

The famous cuadro has survived two threats of war: Napoleon's troops used the wall of the refectory where the fresco was painted for target practice. It was also exposed to the elements for several years when the bombing of World War II destroyed the roof of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.

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Famous painting number 3: Girl with a Pearl Earring - Johannes Vermeer - 1665

The study of Johannes Vermeer from 1665, Girl with a Pearl Earring was created of a young woman. This famous painting is surprisingly real and remarkably modern, almost like a photograph. The model is unknown, although it has been speculated that the subject could have been Vermeer’s maid.

The master represents her looking over her shoulder, connecting with the viewer as if trying to establish an intimate connection across the centuries.

Along with Van Gogh, Johannes Vermeer was a master of light. This is shown in this famous cuadro, in the softness of the girl's face and the glints of light on her moist lips. And, of course, the famous shining pearl.

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Famous painting number 4: The Birth of Venus - Sandro Botticelli - 1484-1486

The Birth of Venus is a famous painting that shows the goddess of love and beauty arriving on earth, on the island of Cyprus, born from the sea's dew and carried by the winds.

The goddess stands on a giant shell, as pure and perfect as a pearl. Of evident importance in this painting is Venus's nudity. Sandro Botticelli painted a dark line around the contours of her body, which made it easier to see her body shapes against the background, emphasizing her milky skin color.

The theme of The Birth of Venus was taken from the writings of the ancient poet Homer. While it is not a famous cuadro that employed innovations of Renaissance perspective, the elegance of the classical theme would have intrigued the wealthy Florentines who sponsored this type of work.

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Famous painting number 5: The Starry Night - Vincent Van Gogh - 1889

The Starry Night is one of the most recognized famous paintings in the world.

It is a magnificent work of art, and the fact that it resonates with so many people is a testament to how its beauty is timeless and universal.

Van Gogh had conceived of the blue night sky sprinkled with yellow stars for many months before painting The Starry Night. The painting presented some technical challenges he wanted to confront: the use of contrasting color and the complications of painting outdoors at night, a theme he repeatedly mentioned in letters to family and friends as a promising but problematic matter.

This famous cuadro could be described as a mix of invention, memory, and observation combined with the use of boldly contrasting shapes and colors by Van Gogh. This combination has made the work as compelling for later generations of viewers as for other artists.

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Famous painting number 6: The Scream - Edvard Munch - 1893

The Scream, the glory of Edward Munch, is much more than a famous painting; it is truly an icon of modern art, a Mona Lisa for our time.

While Leonardo da Vinci evoked a Renaissance ideal of serenity and self-control, Munch defined how we live in our modernity, shaken by anxiety and uncertainty. The painting of a sexless, twisted creature, with a fetus-like face, with its mouth and eyes wide open was evoked by a vision that had captured him while walking one night in his youth with two friends at sunset. As he later recounted, the "air turned to blood" and the "faces of my comrades turned a whitish-yellow." Vibrating in his ears was "a huge infinite scream that pierces nature."

One of the reasons why the famous cuadro The Scream remains so relevant is because of its universal meaning. Any human being on this planet can look at The Scream and still feel something.

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Famous painting number 7: The Kiss - Gustav Klimt - 1907 - 1908

The Kiss by Gustav Klimt goes beyond being a famous painting; it is the archetype of tenderness and passion in art.

This bright and colorful scene of love represents the pinnacle of his golden period, where his father's occupation as a goldsmith inspired his taste for the mineral.

In the painting, both figures symbolically blend into a golden state of perfection. The dominant male force is represented by the powerful cloak of black and gray masculine blocks, softened by the female figure. Through two figures covered in densely patterned fabrics, Klimt was able to evoke a moment of intense sensual pleasure.

Klimt painted The Kiss at a critical moment in his career: in the midst of an artistic panic. He had just received scathing criticism for his paintings of philosophy, medicine, and jurisprudence at the University of Vienna.

In this famous cuadro from the early 20th century, Klimt was making a general allegorical statement about love as the central element of human existence. The Austrian state purchased The Kiss for the newly founded Moderne Galerie, and the painting has been in the Belvedere collections ever since.

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Famous painting number 8: Las Meninas - Diego Velázquez - 1656

For over 350 years, art lovers have been fascinated by Las Meninas. This famous oil painting by Diego Velázquez is a splendidly nuanced representation of life at the court of King Philip IV of Spain. Las Meninas is perhaps one of the most important paintings in the entire history of Western art, still influencing artists today.

The large canvas shows Margaret Theresa, the king's daughter, surrounded by her entourage while Velázquez stands behind an easel painting her portrait. Las Meninas is a group portrait located in a specific place filled with identifiable figures. The aesthetic values of the painting are evident: the setting is one of the most realistic spaces in Western art.

The famous cuadro Las Meninas shows a complex and playful interaction between painter, model, and viewer. Who is looking at whom? And why? It is an unresolved mystery that delights art lovers.

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Famous painting number 9: The Creation of Adam - Michelangelo - 1508 - 1512

The most famous work of the renowned artist Michelangelo is a famous painting that covers a section of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel: you have to look up to see it.

The scene depicts God and Adam with their arms extended and their fingers almost touching. God creates Adam and points to the child Christ as the savior of Adam. It could be said that this is a much more intimate portrait of God in which he is shown in a state that is not untouchable and detached from Man, but accessible to him.

Michelangelo created four panels within the Sistine Chapel, which represent episodes from the Christian book of Genesis, and these extracts are still very well known among the ongoing population of Christians, which remains numerous throughout Europe and much of the majority of other continents.

The Creation of Adam has become a famous cuadro, an iconic image that almost everyone recognizes, without necessarily knowing who the original artist was or what the real meaning of the piece was.

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Famous painting number 10: The Arnolfini Portrait - Jan van Eyck - 1434

The Arnolfini Portrait is one of the most famous and intriguing paintings in the world.

A richly dressed man and woman stand in a private room. In the mirror, we see four people: the Arnolfini couple and two other figures. Several details suggest that this is a wedding portrait, but there is no consensus on this. In the Middle Ages, it was customary to celebrate a wedding in a limited circle, with two witnesses and no priest. A candle burns in the chandelier. This may refer to the eye of God or the flame of marriage. The dog in front represents fidelity, marital loyalty, and the commitment of partners to each other.

Many people mistakenly believe that Mrs. Arnolfini is pregnant. She holds part of her gown with her left hand, seemingly to better display her large belly to the viewer. It is "normal" for her to have a large belly. By the late Middle Ages, it was fashionable to have a large belly.

This famous cuadro is one of the first representations of interiors that use an orthogonal perspective to create a sense of space that feels contiguous to that of the viewer; the viewer feels it as a place to which they can enter.

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