What are the most ICONIC paintings in human history - not limited to American history or European history but the history of the known world?
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MadMadMax (
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November 14th, 2013
Sadly I see no way of posting images within answers so I assume one would use links to sites containing images.
What do you think the most iconic fine at paintings in the history of world are?
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44 Answers
This ukioe of Mt. Fuji is one that never ceases to amaze me. I swear I can feel the water’s spray.
It is a wood block print, so I am unsure whether that qualifies for a painting.
Mona Lisa
The Last Supper
Little known fact: The Last Supper is one of the most common things found in the dump.
Don’t think we need to post an image or link for this question.
What do you actually mean by iconic, @MadMadMax? Let’s have a working definition before we go too far. The word is typically used these days to mean something other than its actual definition.
Presuming, as @Jeruba pointed out, that you’re using the vernacular definition of “widely recognizable”...
American Gothic
Starry Night
The Last Supper
And yes, it did take all of my willpower not to post links to my favourite homages/parodies of each.
English definition of “iconic”
adjective
Extremely famous and enduringly popular beyond the vogue, especially being considered to exemplify an idea, particular opinions or a particular time…...
Fun fact – people hated The Last Supper when it was first made. For one, DaVinci was playing around with a new fresco technique, and the painting started crumbling almost immediately. And then they built a door through it.
Just can’t please some people, huh?
I’m kind of struggling with this. I keep thinking of favourite pieces of art, and then going “Oh, wait, that’s not a painting”. Ha!
The last supper was a fresco on the wall of a monastery refectory and they needed a door to a newly built kitchen area. It was less discontent and more practicality.
There is so little of Leonard’s original imagery left, it’s indecipherable by the uninitiated. Numerous artists of varying degrees of talent attempted to fix it over and over through the years leaving their style and changing or constructing images for thos that that simply were no longer there. During it’s restoration, most of it was remove and it was repainted—leaving very little of the master’s hand or eye to see.
Andy Warhol’s Campbells soup can has become and Iconic American image.
The Mona Lisa IS the most Iconic image in Western European history.
@ragingloli If you got to post a link to it, it’s not iconic.
Cool, yes. Iconic, not so much.
@Nimis
I only know one of the paintings on @Hawaii_Jake‘s list, so they can not be iconic either.
@ragingloli Really? That’s surprising.
Can I ask which one?
If it is only paintings, I must say the Mona Lisa… If drawings were accepted I might go for the vitruvian man drawing..
@Hawaii_Jake I thought your list was great. I would say the only one missing is Mona Lisa. If @ragingloli isn’t familiar with those I wonder if you and I see it through an American lens of some sort? Or, if @ragingloli hasn’t studied art in any fashion.
@Hawaii_Jake LOL. It just made me wonder if our American text books emphasize different pieces of art than text books in other countries. All the paintings you mentioned would be in a Art History 101 class here. Except maybe the Rothko, but I am partial to Rothko, my grandfather had a similar style/period for many years, and Rothko is like eating comfort food to me.
To be a truly iconic painting I feel that most people should recognize it without ever opening an art book, or taking a class..
These are some that stick in my mind in addition to some already mentioned:
Sistine Chapel
Michelangelo’s David (if you were including statues)
Monet’s sunset paintings
Cezanne’s still lifes
Hals’ Laughing Cavalier
Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights
Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
“To be a truly iconic painting I feel that most people should recognize it without ever opening an art book, or taking a class..”
Bingo! :)
^^Or need to post a link like @Nimis said earlier.
I hope this okay to do. Here is the same question asked on Quora and the answers we came up with there. It’s interesting – while many have focused on the same ones, we’ve left out some great iconic work. Take a look and let me know what you think.
Also if a link to a different site is not cool, it’s good for me to know so I don’t make that mistake again:
https://www.quora.com/Art-History/What-are-the-most-iconic-paintings-in-human-history
@Hawaii_Jake The picture you called Clocks is actually called The Persistence of Memory.
Wow this got hit with a lot of removed answers. It was such a positive question. I can’t imagine what was pulled.
The guidelines for General are very strict – you could ask a moderator to have it moved to Social, where off-topic answers are less likely to be removed. I’m not sure if they can un-remove the modded answers, though. But maybe they can.
I was given that opportunity by the mods but I’m new and didn’t understand the ramifications. I’m not sure I do now but I will ask them to move this to social immediately.
Thank you Glacial for the help.
@Hawaii_Jake
Salvador Dali was the coolest man that ever lived.
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