Table of Contents

Introduction: A Touch of Strangeness

Ashurbanipal Hunting Lions (c. 645–635 BC)
Parthenon Sculptures (c. 444 BC)
Terracotta Army of the First Qin Emperor (c. 210 BC)
Villa of the Mysteries murals (c. 60–50 BC)
Laocoön and his Sons (c. 27 BC–AD 68)
Trajan’s Column (AD 113), Apollodorus of Damascus
The Book of Kells (c. AD 800)
Travellers among Mountains and Streams (c. 1000), Fan K’uan
Bayeux Tapestry (c. 1077 or after)
The Universal Man (c. 1165), Hildegard of Bingen
The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (c. 1427), Masaccio
Ghent Altarpiece (1430–32), Jan van Eyck
The Descent from the Cross (1430–32), Rogier van der Weyden
The Annunciation (c. 1438–47), Fra Angelico
The Lamentation over the Dead Christ (c. 1480), Andrea Mantegna
The Birth of Venus (c. 1482–85), Sandro Botticelli
Mona Lisa (c. 1503–6), Leonardo da Vinci
The Garden of Earthly Delights (1505–10), Hieronymus Bosch
Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes (1508–12), Michelangelo
The School of Athens (1510–11), Raphael
Isenheim Altarpiece (1512–16), Matthias Grünewald
Bacchus and Ariadne (1520–23), Titian
Self-Portrait (1548), Catharina van Hemessen
Crucifixion (1565–87), Tintoretto
The Supper at Emmaus (1601), Caravaggio
The Ecstasy of St Teresa (1647–52), Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Las Meninas (1656), Diego Velázquez
Girl with a Pearl Earring (c. 1665), Johannes Vermeer
Self-Portrait with Two Circles (c. 1665–69), Rembrandt van Rijn
An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768), Joseph Wright of Derby
The Nightmare (1781), Henry Fuseli
The Third of May 1808 (1814), Francisco Goya
The Hay Wain (1821), John Constable
Rain, Steam, and Speed - The Great Western Railway (1844), J. M. W. Turner
Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (Portrait of the Artist’s Mother) (1871), James Abbott
McNeill Whistler
The Thinker (1880–1904), Auguste Rodin
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882), Édouard Manet
Bathers at Asnières (1884), Georges Seurat
The Scream (1893), Edvard Munch
The Large Bathers (1900–6), Paul Cézanne
Group IV, No. 7, Adulthood (1907), Hilma af Klint
The Kiss (1907), Gustav Klimt
Dance (1909–10), Henri Matisse
Water Lilies (1914–26), Claude Monet
Fountain (1917), Marcel Duchamp
American Gothic (1930), Grant Wood
The Persistence of Memory (1931), Salvador Dalí
Guernica (1937), Pablo Picasso
L’Égypte de Mlle Cléo de Mérode: cours élémentaire d’histoire naturelle (1940), Joseph Cornell
Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940), Frida Kahlo
One: Number 31 (1950), Jackson Pollock
Study after Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953), Francis Bacon
Brillo Boxes (1964), Andy Warhol
Backs and Fronts (1981), Sean Scully
Betty (1988), Gerhard Richter
Maman (1999), Louise Bourgeois
The Artist is Present (2010), Marina Abramovic

Sources and Further Reading
Acknowledgments
Picture Credits
Index

About the Author

Kelly Grovier is a feature writer for BBC Culture and the author of several acclaimed studies of art, including 100 Works of Art That Will Define Our Age, Art Since 1989 and On the Line, all published by Thames & Hudson. His writings have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, The Independent, the Sunday Times, the Observer, the RA Magazine and Wired magazine. His history of London's Newgate Prison, The Gaol, was a BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week'. He is co-founder of the scholarly journal European Romantic Review.

Reviews

'Finally, a book that asks, with a restless and sensitive eye, what it is that makes masterpieces sing across the centuries. A highly enjoyable history of art that is also a fascinating meditation on excellence' - Jonathan Jones, art critic

'Grovier makes the case for the endless depths of interpretative potential in any great work of art. There is, indeed, always more to see' - Times Literary Supplement