A jack of all trades, da Vinci, undoubtedly a genius, produced some of the most famous images in European Art including his paintings ‘Mona Lisa’, ‘The Last Supper’, and his drawing ‘Vitruvian Man.’
The painter, sculptor, and architect, who even wrote poetry, Michelangelo is best known for the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. However, he mostly thought of himself as a sculptor and some of his most famous works include ‘David’, ‘Bacchus’, ‘Pietà’ and ‘Moses’.
The Dutch painter is said to be one of the greatest storytellers in the history of art with his exceptional ability to capture people and their various moods. He was also a great portrait artist, with nearly 80 portraits attributed to him. Rembrandt is best known for his largest and most famous painting ‘The Night Watch’.
Vermeer is known for his paintings of domestic interior scenes of middle-class life and notably was forgotten for two centuries before his rediscovery in the 19th century. He is most famously known for his painting ‘The Girl with the Pearl Earring’.
The French painter is considered one of the founders of impressionism and his work is also seen as an antecedent of modernism. His most famous work was ‘Water Lilies’, a series of 250 oil paintings which occupied Monet for three decades of his life. Notably, Monet painted the series whilst almost blind.
Van Gogh’s technique of painting thick brush strokes made up of bright colours squeezed straight from the tube continues to inspire artists over a century later. He created 2,000 artworks in his life, including 860 oil paintings and is mostly famously known for his paintings, The Starry Night’, ‘Self-Portrait’, and ‘Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers’.
The Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, and ceramicist pushed boundaries over and over again to reinvent his artistic style. He is best known for his painting ‘Guernica’ which was regarded by many in the art world, at the time, as the most powerful anti-war piece in art history.
Known for his surreal and obscure works, Dalí would tap into his subconscious by inducing a state of paranoia to come up with links between everyday objects and the surreal. His work contributed greatly to the surrealism movement of the 20th century. One of Dalí’s most famous works is ‘The Persistence of Memory’.
The Norwegian artist is most famously known for painting ‘The Scream’, which has become a universal symbol of anxiety. However, his career was more than just one painting as his work was also generally acknowledged as the precursor to Expressionism.