100 Paintings Every Educated Person Is Supposed to Know

In order to be considered a well-educated and versatile person, you should have general knowledge in different areas. Over the course of history, people have created thousands of great works of art. Every person should know at least a few of them in order to not confuse a Monet with a Manet and to be able to distinguish between Lady with an Ermine and Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Bright Side wants to test your knowledge with a list of some of the most famous works of all time that had a huge influence on art. Remember them!

Ancient art

© National Museum and Research Center of Altamira  

• Chauvet Horses, 31,000 BP

• Altamira Bison, 15,000 BP

13th-15th centuries

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• Chen Rong, Nine Dragons, 1244

• Andrei Rublev, Trinity, 1427

• Robert Campin, Mérode Altarpiece, 1427

• Jan Van Eyck, Arnolfini Portrait, 1434

• Rogier van der Weyden, Portrait of a Woman with a Winged Bonnet, 1440

• Andrea Mantegna, Lamentation of Christ, 1480

• Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, 1485

• Leonardo da Vinci, Lady with an Ermine, 1490

• Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna Litta, 1490

• Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, 1498

16th century

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• Leonardo da Vinci, Salvator Mundi, 1500

• Hieronymus Bosch, The Last Judgment, 1482

• Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1510

• Giorgione, Sleeping Venus, 1510

• Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam, 1512

• Raphael, The Triumph of Galatea, 1514

• Raphael, Sistine Madonna, 1512

• Matthias Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece, 1516

• Titian, Sacred and Profane Love, 1514

• Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, 1517

• Titian, Danaë, 1546

• Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Fall of the Rebel Angels, 1562

• Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Tower of Babel, 1563

• Paolo Veronese, The Wedding Feast at Cana, 1563

• Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Hunters in the Snow, 1565

17th century

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• El Greco, View of Toledo, 1600

• Caravaggio, The Entombment of Christ, 1603

• Caravaggio, The Beheading of St. John the Baptist, 1608

• Pieter Paul Rubens, The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus, 1618

• Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, 1632

• Rembrandt, The Night Watch, 1642

• Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas, 1656

• Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid, 1658

• Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665

• Rembrandt, The Return of the Prodigal Son, 1669

18th century

© Web Gallery of Art  

• Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing, 1767

• John Singleton Copley, Watson and the Shark, 1778

• Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784

• Jacques-Louis David, Death of Marat, 1793

19th century

© Musée du Louvre   © wikipedia  

• Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Grand Odalisque, 1814

• Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, 1818

• Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1819

• Théodore Géricault, The 1821 Derby at Epsom, 1821

• Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, 1823

• Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830

• Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, 1833

• Karl Bryullov, The Last Day of Pompeii, 1833

• Gustave Courbet, Le Désespéré, 1843-1845

• Ivan Aivazovsky, The Ninth Wave, 1850

• Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners, 1857

• Francesco Hayez, The Kiss, 1859

• Édouard Manet, The Luncheon on the Grass, 1863

• Édouard Manet, Olympia, 1863

• Vasily Perov, Troika, 1866

• James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black, 1871

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• Claude Monet, Impression, 1872

• Ilya Repin, Barge Haulers on the Volga, 1873

• Claude Monet, Woman with a Parasol, 1875

• Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Dance at Le moulin de la Galette, 1876

• Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881

• Édouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882

• Ivan Kramskoi, Portrait of a Woman, 1883

• Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters, 1885

• Georges Seurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1886

• Vasily Surikov, Boyarina Morozova, 1887

• Valentin Serov, Girl with Peaches, 1887

• Vincent van Gogh, The Night Café, 1888

• Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889

• Mikhail Vrubel, The Demon Seated, 1890

• Mikhail Nesterov, The Vision to the Youth Bartholomew, 1890

• Paul Gauguin, Woman Holding a Fruit, 1893

• Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893

• Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral, 1894

• Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge, 1895

• Sir Frederic Leighton, Flaming June, 1895

• Edgar Degas, Blue Dancers, 1899

• Henri Rousseau, The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897

• Camille Pissarro, Boulevard Montmartre à Paris, 1897

• Paul Gauguin, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, 1898

• Victor Vasnetsov, Bogatyr, 1898

20th century

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• Cézanne, The Bathers, 1905

• Pablo Picasso, Girl on the Ball, 1905

• Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, 1908

• Henri Matisse, Spanish Woman with a Tambourine, 1909

• Henri Matisse, Dance, 1910

• Petrov-Vodkin, Bathing of a Red Horse, 1912

• Wassily Kandinsky, Composition 7, 1913

• Kazimir Malevich, Black Square, 1915

• Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition, 1916

• Marc Chagall, Over the Town, 1918

• Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930

• Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red Blue and Yellow, 1929

• Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory, 1931

• Diego Rivera, The Flower Carrier, 1935

• Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937

• Jackson Pollock, One: Number 31, 1950

• Mark Rothko, No 1 (Royal Red and Blue), 1954

• René Magritte, The Son Of Man, 1964

Of course, this list can and should be expanded. What paintings would you add to this list?

Preview photo credit wikipedia