Themes in art

Collection · 40 works

Famous Paintings

Five centuries of the pictures the world keeps coming back to, from Leonardo's smile to Pollock's skein of paint, and why each one earned its place.

Aesthetic · 36 works

Dark Academia

Candlelight, Greek tragedy, a skull on the bookshelf: the paintings and sculptures behind the internet's most literary aesthetic, and how to bring them home.

Collection · 15 works

Famous Van Gogh Paintings

Ten years, some 860 oil paintings and a single unmistakable way of seeing.

Collection · 32 works

Famous Monet Paintings

Sixty years of light on water, snow, stone and his own garden: Claude Monet's most famous paintings and why they matter.

Collection · 15 works

Greek Statues

Marble gods, bronze athletes and the painted statues we now see as white: a guide to Greek sculpture and its long afterlife.

Theme · 13 works

Fallen Angels in Art

From medieval battles in heaven to Cabanel's weeping Lucifer and Stuck's glowing eyes: how artists turned the first rebel into a tragic hero.

Theme · 13 works

Danse Macabre

Popes, kings, merchants and children led hand in hand to the grave by grinning dead: the medieval image that still sets the pace for how we picture mortality.

Collection · 15 works

Caravaggio Paintings

Dirty feet, real faces and a light that cuts like a blade: how one violent painter remade European art in fifteen years.

Collection · 26 works

Famous Sculptures

From Michelangelo's David to Canova's kiss, the most famous sculptures and statues in the world, and what to look for when you stand in front of them.

Aesthetic · 32 works

Light Academia

White marble, linen, poetry in the garden: the sunlit paintings and sculptures behind light academia, and how to bring their warmth into your own rooms.

Theme · 16 works

Memento Mori & Vanitas

Skulls on desks, guttering candles, jeweled skeletons and a smear across Holbein's floor: how artists for two thousand years have reminded us that we will die.

Collection · 16 works

Goya's Black Paintings

Fourteen images an old, deaf painter made for his own walls, and never meant anyone else to see.

Theme · 16 works

Angels & Demons in Art

From Bernini's marble angels in Rome to Cabanel's weeping Lucifer, how artists have given bodies to beings that have none.

Collection · 23 works

Famous Paintings of Women

The Mona Lisa, Ophelia, Liberty and the Lady of Shalott: the women of art history, who painted them, and who they really were.

Theme · 21 works

Greek Mythology in Art

Venus rising from the sea, Icarus falling, Saturn eating his children: how painters and sculptors have retold the Greek myths for two and a half thousand years.

Theme · 8 works

The Catacomb Saints

Anonymous bones from Rome, dressed in gold and gems by nuns, and sent north to stand in for the saints the Reformation had smashed.

Theme · 29 works

Death in Art

Skeletons, deathbeds, martyrs and islands of the dead: how artists have looked at the one subject no one escapes.