10 Famous Paintings to See in the World

This painting has been described as one of the most popular and controversial paintings in Western art. Although the complex meaning of the composition remains a mystery, the painting is a celebration of love, peace, and prosperity.

This is the most famous portrait in the world. Mona Lisa’s famously enigmatic smile has fascinated viewers for centuries. Leonardo captured the sitter turning towards the viewer in a natural movement that brings the painting to life.

Van Gogh’s paintings of Sunflowers are among his most famous. He did them in Arles, in the south of France, in 1888 and 1889. The sunflower paintings had a special significance for Van Gogh: they communicated ‘gratitude’, he wrote.

This painting by Bruegel is filled with detail. Yet it is not the sum total of details that make the picture important, rather its overall effect. In a manner both virtuosic and consistent, Bruegel evokes the impression of permanent cold in this first and most prominent winter landscape of European painting.

This is one of Titian’s most famous works and it depicts the emblematic figure of a young bride about to be dressed to take part in the celebration of the ritual known in Venice as "il toccamano".

In his best-known and largest painting, Georges Seurat depicted people from different social classes strolling and relaxing in a park just west of Paris on La Grande Jatte, an island in the Seine River.

The Swing is Fragonard's most famous work, and one of the most emblematic images of eighteenth-century art. A young woman wearing a lovely pink silk frock is tantalizingly positioned mid-air on a swing between her elderly husband on the right and her young lover on the left.

Henri Matisse considered Bathers by a River to be one of the five most “pivotal” works of his career, and with good reason.

Discovered in the Uffizi’s deposits in 1913 and attributed to Caravaggio by art historian Roberto Longhi, the masterpiece belongs to the painter's early career in Rome, when he was under the patronage of Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte. Along with the “Medusa” (inv. 1890 n. 1351), it was donated by Cardinal del Monte to Ferdinando I de' Medici on the occasion of his son Cosimo II’s wedding in 1608.

In American Gothic, Grant Wood directly evoked images of an earlier generation by featuring a farmer and his daughter posed stiffly and dressed as if they were, as the artist put it, “tintypes from my old family album.”

This is Vermeer’s most famous painting. Johannes Vermeer is one of the most famous Dutch painters of the 17th century. In this painting, he managed to create a calm, almost timeless atmosphere.