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Famous Paintings Guide: From the Mona Lisa to Guernica

From the Mona Lisa to Guernica, here are 15 paintings beloved around the world, with who painted them, when, where they hang today and why they matter.

Mona Lisa

Artist: Leonardo da Vinci · Year: c. 1503–1519 · Location: Louvre Museum (Paris, France). Widely regarded as the most famous painting in the world, known for its mysterious smile that seems to shift depending on the viewing angle, and for "sfumato," a technique that softens outlines into hazy transitions. It is a small oil painting on a poplar wood panel, roughly 77 by 53 centimeters, and it became a global celebrity partly after it was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 and recovered two years later.

The Last Supper

Artist: Leonardo da Vinci · Year: 1495–1498 · Location: Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Milan, Italy). A mural capturing the stir among Jesus's disciples at the moment he announces that one of them will betray him during their final meal together. Leonardo did not use traditional fresco; he experimented with paints on a dry wall, which is one reason the surface began deteriorating early and has needed repeated restoration. The wall is roughly 4.6 by 8.8 meters.

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Artist: Johannes Vermeer · Year: c. 1665 · Location: Mauritshuis (The Hague, Netherlands). A striking work showing a girl turning to glance back over her shoulder at the viewer, sometimes nicknamed "the Mona Lisa of the North" for its enigmatic mood.

The Birth of Venus

Artist: Sandro Botticelli · Year: c. 1485 · Location: Uffizi Gallery (Florence, Italy). Depicts the moment Venus, goddess of love and beauty, is born from the sea atop a large shell — considered one of the defining paintings of the Renaissance.

The Starry Night

Artist: Vincent van Gogh · Year: 1889 · Location: Museum of Modern Art, MoMA (New York, USA). Painted in June 1889 during Van Gogh's stay at a mental health asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, the night sky is based on the view from his window, but the village below was largely imagined. It is oil on canvas, about 73.7 by 92.1 centimeters, marked by intense color and dynamic, swirling brushwork.

Water Lilies Series

Artist: Claude Monet · Years: 1890s–1920s · Location: Musée de l'Orangerie and various museums worldwide (France and elsewhere). A series of roughly 250 paintings Monet made over 30-plus years, repeatedly depicting the pond in his own garden at Giverny — representative of the Impressionist pursuit of capturing shifting light and color. The large panels at the Orangerie in Paris were arranged in oval rooms and opened to the public in 1927, shortly after Monet's death.

The Scream

Artist: Edvard Munch · Year: 1893 · Location: National Museum of Norway and Munch Museum (Oslo, Norway). Depicts a figure screaming with hands pressed to its face beneath a blood-red sky, widely known as a symbol of modern anxiety and isolation. Munch made more than one version in different media between 1893 and 1910; a pastel version sold at auction in 2012 for about 119.9 million US dollars, then a record, while the others are in Norwegian museums.

The Angelus

Artist: Jean-François Millet · Years: 1857–1859 · Location: Musée d'Orsay (Paris, France). Depicts a farming couple pausing their fieldwork at dusk for evening prayer, conveying reverence toward simple rural life.

Guernica

Artist: Pablo Picasso · Year: 1937 · Location: Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain). A large-scale work, about 3.5 by 7.8 meters, depicting in a Cubist style the horror of the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica on 26 April 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso painted it in Paris within weeks for the Spanish pavilion of the 1937 World's Fair, and it has hung in Madrid since 1992. It is regarded as a symbol of anti-war art condemning the brutality of war.

The Persistence of Memory

Artist: Salvador Dalí · Year: 1931 · Location: Museum of Modern Art, MoMA (New York, USA). A defining Surrealist work showing melting clocks set within a dreamlike landscape, regarded as expressing the relativity of time and the world of the unconscious.

American Gothic

Artist: Grant Wood · Year: 1930 · Location: Art Institute of Chicago (USA). Depicts a farmer holding a pitchfork alongside his daughter in front of a Gothic-style farmhouse, widely known as a symbol of the diligence and conservative values of America's rural Midwest.

Campbell's Soup Cans

Artist: Andy Warhol · Year: 1962 · Location: Museum of Modern Art, MoMA (New York, USA). Depicts 32 varieties of Campbell's soup cans lined up side by side — a defining work of Pop Art, which took mass-produced consumer goods as its subject matter.

The Night Watch

Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn · Year: 1642 · Location: Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam, Netherlands). A very large group portrait of a civic militia company led by Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, famous for its dramatic light, sense of movement and the way it turns a formal group portrait into a scene in motion. The canvas was trimmed on its edges in the 18th century when it was moved, and it is among the Dutch Golden Age's defining works.

Las Meninas

Artist: Diego Velázquez · Year: 1656 · Location: Museo del Prado (Madrid, Spain). A complex court scene showing the young Infanta Margarita Teresa with her attendants, the painter himself working at a large canvas, and a mirror at the back reflecting the king and queen. Critics have long debated who the viewer is meant to be and where the real subject lies, and it is often cited as one of the most analyzed paintings in Western art.

The Kiss

Artist: Gustav Klimt · Year: 1907–1908 · Location: Belvedere (Vienna, Austria). An embracing couple wrapped in richly patterned, gold-decorated robes, painted in oil with gold leaf during Klimt's so-called Golden Period. It is the best-known work of the Vienna Secession and Art Nouveau era, and a popular image of intimacy and decoration.

Why Are These Works Called Famous Paintings?

A famous painting is one that captures not just outstanding technique but the spirit of its era or a universal human emotion, resonating with a broad audience across time. The works introduced here are so widely known around the world that even people who have never set foot in a museum have likely encountered them as images at least once.

How to look at a famous painting

It helps to slow down and ask three questions: where does the light come from, where does the eye travel first, and what is the artist leaving out? In the Mona Lisa the soft edges ask you to fill in the expression; in Guernica the flat, fragmented forms and the lack of color heighten the sense of shock; in The Starry Night the rhythm of the brushstrokes is the subject as much as the sky. Reading the museum label for the date and context, then looking again, often changes what you notice. Comparing works from the same period, such as Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, makes the differences in technique much clearer.

Seeing the originals: practical advice

Reproductions cannot show scale, surface and color accurately. The Mona Lisa is far smaller than most people expect, while The Night Watch and Guernica are far larger than their photographs suggest. Famous works at busy museums can have long queues, so check the museum's official site for opening hours, timed-entry tickets and whether the work is on display or loaned out. Some works, such as The Last Supper, are viewed in small timed groups because of conservation concerns. Collections change as pieces travel for exhibitions or conservation, so confirm the current location before planning a trip around a single painting.

Details that vary between sources

Dates, titles and sizes of old paintings are sometimes given differently by different sources, because an artist may have worked on a piece for years or a title may have been added later. The Mona Lisa is commonly dated to about 1503 with work continuing to about 1519, and The Scream exists in several versions, so "where it is" depends on which version you mean. The entries here follow the dates and holdings usually given by major museums; when precision matters, check the museum's own collection page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can these paintings actually be seen in person?

Yes, most are held in major museums around the world and open to the public. Availability can be affected by traveling exhibitions or conservation schedules, though, so it's best to check the museum's official information before visiting.

Why is the Mona Lisa so famous?

Several things combined: Leonardo's technique, the ambiguous expression, its place in a royal and later national collection, and the 1911 theft that made headlines around the world. Fame feeds on itself, and today the painting is a global icon as much as a work of art.

Is The Scream a single painting?

No. Munch produced several versions between 1893 and 1910 in different media, including tempera, crayon and pastel, and also made prints. The pastel version sold at auction in 2012, and the others are in Norwegian collections.

Is a broader overview of art movements available?

Yes — see our Art History Explained guide for an overview of art movements from the Renaissance through contemporary art.