By Beatriz Esquivel
The digital era has made access to art easier than ever. Works that would have only been available for us to see through photographs are now available in high resolution. However, just like book enthusiasts prefer the touch of paper to screens, when it comes to art, seeing a painting in person and in full color is a much more enriching and exciting experience than seeing it through a reproduction.
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That task of galleries and museums is to put art within everyone’s reach, even when it belongs to private collections and loans to an exhibitions: itinerant exhibits are also vital to access paintings.
Which are the most iconic paintings in History that you must see in person? Here’s a list of 100 works that are totally worth traveling to see. You’ll be able to see them in all of their splendor in some of the biggest and most equipped museums that cover human history through their art:
Galería Uffizi, en Florence, Italy
1. Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (c. 1485)
2. Leonardo da Vinci, Annunciation (c. 1472)
3. Caravaggio, Sacrifice of Isaac (c. 1603)
4. Titian, Venus of Urbino (c. 1534)
5. Paolo Uccello, The Battle of San Romano (c. 1435-1440)
6. Artemisa Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes (1620)
7. Michelangelo, Doni Tondo (c. 1505-1506)
8. Boticelli, Primavera (c. 1477-1482)
9. Filippino Lippi, The Adoration of the Magi (c. 1496)
10. Lorenzo Lotto, Susanna and the Elders (1517)
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The Vatican, Rome, Italy
11. Raphael, The School of Athens (1509-1511)
12. Pietro Perugino, Decemviri Altarpiece (1495-1496)
13. Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel Ceiling (1508-1512)
14. Michelangelo, The Last Judgement (1536-1541)
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Museé du Louvre, Paris, France
15. Leonardo da Vinci, The Mona Lisa (1503)
16. Jacques-Louis David, The Coronation of Napoleon (1806-1807)
17. Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading The People (1830)
18. Théodore Géricault, The Charging Chasseur (1812)
19. Paolo Veronese, The Wedding At Cana (1563)
20. Caravaggio, Death of the Virgin (1606)
21. Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa (1818-1819)
22. Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii (1784)
23. Raphael, St. Michael (1518)
24. Jan van Eyck, Madonna of Chancellor Rolin (1435)
25. Jacques-Louis David, Portrait of Madame Récamier (1800)
26. Johannes Vermeer, The Astronomer (c. 1668)
27. Jacques-Louis David, The Intervention of the Sabine Women (1799)
28. Rosso Fiorentino, Pietà (1540)
29. Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of a Black Woman (1800)
30. Rembrandt, Bathsheba at Her Bath (1654)
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Musee d’Orsay, Paris, France
31. Renoir, Bal du Moulin de la Galette (1876)
32. Berthe Morisot, The Cradle (1872)
33. Gustave Courbet, L’origin du monde (The origin of the World) (1866)
34. Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners (1857)
35. Vincent Van Gogh, Self-portrait (1889)
36. Edgar Degas, The Ballet Class (1871-1874)
37. James McNeill Whistler, Whistler’s Mother (1871)
38. Vincent Van Gogh, Starry Night Over the Rhône (1888)
39. Claude Monet, Women In the Garden (1867)
40. Manet, Olympia (1863)
41. Mary Cassatt, Girl in the Garden (1880-1882)
42. Paul Cézanne, The Card Players (1890-1895)
43. Frédéric Bazille, Studio In Rue de la Condamine (1870)
44. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane Avril Dancing (1892)
45. Paul Cézanne, A Modern Olympia (1874)
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National Gallery, London, England
46. Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna of the Rocks (1508)
47. Johannes Vermeer, Lady Standing at a Virginal (1672-1673)
48. Sandro Botticelli, Venus and Mars (1483)
49. John Constable, The Hay Wain (1821)
50. Jan van Eyck, Arnolfi Portrait (1434)
51. Hans Holbein the Younger, The Ambassadors (1533)
52. Diego Velázquez, Rokeby Venus (c. 1647-1651)
53. Bronzino, Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time (1540-1546)
54. Titian, Diana and Actaeon (1556-1559)
55. Paul Cézanne, The Bathers (1906)
56. Rubens, Samson and Delilah (1609-1610)
57. Diego Velázquez, Christ in the House of Martha y Mary (1618)
58. Caravaggio, Boy Bitten by a Lizard (1593-1594)
59. Rembrandt, Belshazzar’s Feast (1635)
60. Vincent Van Gogh, The Sunflowers (1888)
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Tate Modern, London, England
61. Sir John Everett Millais, Ophelia (1851-1852)
62. Pablo Picasso, Bust of a Woman (1909)
63. Roy Lichtenstein, Whaam! (1963)
64. John Constable, Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (1831)
65. David Hockney, A Bigger Splash (1967)
66. Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych (1962)
67. Salvador Dalí, Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937)
68. Henri Matisse, The Snail (1953)
69. Francis Bacon, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of Crucifixion (c. 1944)
70. Piet Mondrian, Composition with Yellow, Blue, and Red (1937-1942)
71. Wassily Kandinsky, Cossacks (1910-1901)
72. Edvard Munch, Sick Child (1907)
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Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, United States
73. Lee Bontecou, Untitled (1961)
74. Roy Lichtenstein, Drowning Girl (1963)
75. Willem de Kooning, Woman I (1950-1952)
76. Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair (1940)
77. Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory (1931)
78. Kazimir Malevich, White on White (1918)
79. Henri Matisse, Piano Lesson (1916)
80. Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907)
81. René Magritte, The Lovers (1928)
82. Henri Rousseau, The Sleeping Gypsy (1897)
83. Amadeo Modigliani, Reclining Nude (1919)
84. Gustav Klimt, Hope II (1907-1908)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), Nueva York, United States
85. Johannes Vermeer, Portrait of a Young Woman (1665-1667)
86. Claude Monet, La Grenouillère (1869)
87. John Singer Sargent, Madame X (1883-1884)
88. Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates (1787)
89. El Greco, View of Toledo (1598-1599)
90. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Princesse de Broglie (1851-1853)
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Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain
91. Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights (1503-1515)
92. Rogier van der Weyden, Descent from the Cross (c. 1443)
93. Francisco de Goya, The Nude Maja (1797-1800)
94. Caravaggio, David with the Head of Goliath (1599)
95. Rembrandt, Artemisa (1634)
96. Diego Velázquez, Las meninas (The Ladies in Waiting) (1656)
97. Raphael, Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary (1515)
98. Diego Velázquez, Christ Crucified (1632)
99. Rubens, Las Three Greece (1630-1635)
100. Francisco de Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son (1819)
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Translated by Santiago González
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