100 Greatest Paintings of All Time (pics)

Glad to see some Salvador Dali paintings there :) :) :)

Seriously, greatest artist of all time.

Many thanks for posting this list. But where are the great American pictures, e.g., Hopper's "Nighthawks", Grant's "American Gothic", Wyeth's "Christina's World"?

I think the Bosch is usually called "The Garden of Earthly Delights". And it's only the central section of the triptych that has that name. The left section is called "The Earthly Paradise" and the right section "Hell".

I believe this picture is the Cranach - 24 on the list.

And I think this picture is the Goya - 46

Damn it, the pictures have started disappearing from their hosting sites, and I'm too lazy to fix it.

This is awesome Luke. I am in awe of these paintings, especially after so thoroughly experiencing the albums on Scaruffi's list. So much more emotion occurs to me to be pouring out of these art works, than I've ever felt before.

This time around I was newly and overwhelmingly captivated by Klimt's The Kiss (#8) and then realized why: it's the painting equivalent to one of my favorite albums, Rock Bottom. I think Klimt is my favorite painter. His style is astonishingly beautiful and unique. Each of his paintings seems to be celestial, possessing a cosmic beauty--as if some profound connection with the universe is taking place--in addition to the forms portrayed.

It's great that you took yourself the time to update this! However, I'd like to point out a few inaccuracies:

#3 - This actually show only about 1/4th of the whole Beethovenfries. The whole thing can be scrolled through here: http://www.secession.at/beethovenfries/d.html

#7 - This is only the central panel of the Last Judgement triptych. Here's the whole painting, unfortunately in much smaller scale, though: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/9941/BoschJudgment.jpg

#10 - This is NOT the Nimphée that Scaruffi refers to (the picture you display pales in comparison), which actually consists of eight paintings, which hang in the two oval rooms of the Orangerie museum in Paris (this is an absolutely amazing place, which no photo can do evidence to. Seeing the Nimphées was definitely one of the most profound experience with art I've had so far. To give you an idea of what it's like, here's a link: http://www.musee-orangerie.fr/nympheas.html)

#21 - Here again Scaruffi probably refers to multiple paintings, namely the first three found on this website: http://www.intermonet.com/oeuvre/rouen.htm

#63 - #64 - Here you just swapped the pictures.

That's all I can think of for now. Once again, great job!

All right, might as well start an IRL count :)

Seen of Scaruffi's 100 greatest paintings:

Klimt: The Virgin (1913) - National Gallery, Prague
Monet: Nimphee (1926) - Orangerie, Paris
Monet: Cathedrale de Rouen, Musee National d'Orsay, Paris
Cranach: Flugelaltar mit dem Jungsten Gericht (1524), Berlin
Van Eyck: Madonna in the Church (1425) - Gemaldegalerie Berlin
Leonardo: Gioconda/ Mona Lisa (1505) - Louvre, Paris
Bruegel: Dutch Proverbs (1559) - Gemaldegalerie, Berlin
Rubens: St Agustine, National Gallery, Prague
Renoir: Bal du Moulin de la Galette (1876) - Musee d'Orsay, Paris
Van Eyck: Rinaldo e Armida, Louvre, Paris
Van Eyck: The Virgin of Ivers (1435) - Louvre, Paris
Veronese: Nozze di Cana (1563) - Louvre, Paris
Paolo Uccello: Battaglia di San Romano/Part III (1456) - Louvre
Holbein: Nikolaus Kratzer (1528) - Louvre, Paris
Holbein: Georg Gisze (1532) - Louvre, Paris
Rubens: Debarquement de Marie de Medicis (1625) - Louvre

Only 16/100, I'll have to improve on this...

The picture of Bruegel's "Toren van Babel" you listed is the version which is in Rotterdam and not in Vienna. And what the heck happened to Monet's "Cathedral de Rouen"?
However, thanks for visualizating scruffi's list.

Great stuff! Last time i looked, with link from Scaruffi's site, The Last Supper was not the Leonardo Da Vinci version but some pale imitation.

yea i agree; dali was my favourite painter as well, i love his surreal style; i've got a collection of all his paintings in two big books :)

Strangely, I linked to your website because I saw on the recent activity page you deleted the link, and it looked interesting. I need to poke around it some more, but I was interested particularly in the religion section. When I was on listology more a few years ago, I seem to remember you defined yourself as a Christian. You probably say something about this somewhere else on one of your lists, but am I right? At what point did you begin defining yourself as an atheist?

By the way, the site is easy to use, and your essays are very readable. I'll say more when I have time to linger there.

Johnny Waco

Hi, I like your list of paintings - very varied. However, 20 - Rubens Adoration of the Magi has the wrong picture. The right picture is http://www.museodelprado.es/en/ingles/educacion/educacion-propone/prueba...
I copied the link from the page you got the list from. What I really want to know (and its driving me nuts) is who painted the picture at #20 and what is its title please?

a great list, especially Carvaggio's Davide/ Galea...but coulda used some Toulouse Lautrec

Hi, #20 is The Adoration of the Magi (ca. 1570) by Pieter Aertsen not Rubens. This is the center panel of what was a triptych (the left panel is extant also) and is owned by the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. It was on exhibit at the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht in fall 2008, not sure if it's still there or back in Amsterdam.

Lousy List. 11 Klimts? Want colour? Look at Turner "Slave Ship...Typhoon coming on."

I updated the list with better, high resolution pictures:
http://www.scaruffi.com/art/greatest.html

It should be noted that there is a significant bias here... the artists chosen are working, for the most part, in a very similar vein, and dealing with specific themes. I appreciate this quite a bit, but you will find many 'great' painters working outside of this tradition.

I suppose the most notable absence is that of just about anything abstract or non-representational. Perhaps this list should have a different name, as it is quite more specific than 'Painting' in general, and it should not be taken as representative of such.

Wow! Fantastic list! Thank you for supplying all the images. One of my favorite lists on this site.

Dali, Klimt and Bruegel seem over represented while some artists are conspicuous by their complete absence, like Picasso, Cezanne, Gauguin, Kandinsky.

As someone who has interned curating Renaissance Art at a mid-sized museum, I have to say I am a bit perturbed. Everyone one of these paintings is from the Western Art tradition and dates from the renaissance to about 1950. I agree with martinac that certain artists are overrepresented, but its impossible to compare art from such different eras. Perhaps you could compare these artists' influence, but then clearly this list would not hold. Even from this flawed perspective, I am still surprised, to be honest, that the following artists (and/or paintings) are omitted:

Before 1800:

Caravaggio - Bacchus
Anything by Titian
Raphael - School of Athens, etc.
Anything by Velazquez

After 1800:

Rene Magritte - probably "Ce N'est Pas Une Pipe"
Max Beckmann
Jackson Pollock
Pablo Picasso
Paul Gauguin
Henri Matisse
Paul Cezanne

Many thanks for posting this list,can some one tell me where to find Hopper's "Nighthawks", Grant's "American Gothic", Wyeth's "Christina's World"? think the Bosch is usually called "The Garden of Earthly Delights".

Thanks
CW

Removed spam link - jw