“Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realising it.” - Vincent van Gogh
In the art world, some artists immediately come to mind, no matter where you are.
Their pieces are not just unforgettable, but their influence on art has transcended time. While we could never do justice to all the amazing painters throughout history, here are some of the best whose influence is still felt today.
Some of their pieces are still considered the best paintings ever.
Here, we've arranged them by birth order, starting with the first to be born, Sandro Botticelli, the Renaissance painter.
Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510)
- Place of Birth: Florence, Italy
- Place of Death: Florence, Italy
- Style: Early Renaissance
- Famous Paintings: The Birth of Venus (1484-1486), Primavera (1482), Adoration of the Magi (1475-1476)
Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi was an Italian Renaissance painter commonly known as Botticelli. Like many of his contemporaries, he learned to paint in Italian painting workshops.
Pope Sixtus IV tasked Botticelli with painting the Sistine Chapel in 1481. However, many of his works, such as The Birth of Venus, Primavera, and Adoration of the Magi, are also very famous.
He was famous for his art in his own right, but Cosmo Rosselli, Domenico Ghilandaio, and Pietro Perugino helped him.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
- Place of Birth: Vinci, Italy
- Place of Death: Amboise, France
- Style: High Renaissance
- Famous Paintings: Mona Lisa (1503-1506), The Last Supper (1495-1498), Vitruvian Man (1490)
For many, Leonardo da Vinci is the most famous Renaissance painter and arguably the most famous painter ever. His works are regularly considered to be among the best paintings in the world.
However, da Vinci was more than an incredibly talented artist. Leonardo was a man of science. He extensively studied human anatomy and reproduced some of the most accurate drawings produced at the time.
He was not just an artist, but also an engineer, botanist, inventor, writer, sculptor, architect, musician, poet, and philosopher. His talents knew no bounds, and he excelled in every field he ventured into.
In the world of art, he's certainly most famous for his paintings, such as the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, and Vitruvian Man.
Michelangelo (1475-1564)
- Place of Birth: Caprese, Italy
- Place of Death: Rome, Italy
- Style: High Renaissance, Mannerism
- Famous Paintings: The Creation of Adam (1512), The Last Judgment (1536-1541), The Sistine Chapel Ceiling (1508-1512)
Like da Vinci, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was another Italian High Renaissance Artist. He's often referred to as Michelangelo and is most famous for his many religious paintings, including the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Beyond painting, he was also an accomplished sculptor, with “David”, a marble carving that you can visit in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence, Italy.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
- Place of Birth: Siegen, Germany
- Place of Death: Antwerp, Belgium
- Style: Baroque
- Famous Paintings: The Descent from the Cross (1612-1614), The Massacre of the Innocents (1611-1612), The Garden of Love (1633)
Moving away from the Italian Renaissance artists, we now have the incredible Flemish painter Rubens.
As was typical for artists for centuries, Rubens also predominantly painted religious portraits and scenes.
At the time, Rubens' workshop was legendary, and his contemporaries would have all loved to have plied their trade there.
Many consider Rubens to be one of the finest Baroque painters. Among his most famous works are The Descent from the Cross, The Massacre of the Innocents, and The Garden of Love.
Rembrandt (1606-1669)
- Place of Birth: Leiden, Netherlands
- Place of Death: Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Style: Baroque
- Famous Paintings: The Night Watch (1642), The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632), The Jewish Bride (1665-1669)
When it comes to artists, we typically refer to most by their last names, with Michelangelo and Rembrandt being the apparent exceptions.
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, to use his full name, was a Dutch Baroque and Dutch Golden Age painter.
Some of his most famous paintings include his self-portraits, which he inspired by Caravaggio's chiaroscuro techniques and applied to his own works.
Francisco Goya (1746-1828)
- Place of Birth: Fuendetodos, Spain
- Place of Death: Bordeaux, France
- Style: Romanticism, Rococo
- Famous Paintings: The Third of May 1808 (1814), Saturn Devouring His Son (1823), The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (1799)
Francisco Goya was a hugely famous Spanish Rococo painter. His paintings regularly depicted Spanish life at the time.
Claude Monet (1840-1926)
- Place of Birth: Paris, France
- Place of Death: Giverny, France
- Style: Impressionism
- Famous Paintings: Impression, Sunrise (1872), Water Lilies series (1896-1920), Woman with a Parasol (1875)
Claude Monet is a French artist famous for his Impressionist paintings, an artistic movement he was instrumental in creating.
Ironically, the Impressionist movement got its name somewhat sarcastically from an art critic describing Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise. The style would ultimately be characterised by loose brushwork that captured moments in time like the initial work.
He was active in the Parisian art scene at the time and studied at the Académie Suisse there, too. However, Monet later moved to Giverny, where he regularly painted scenes from his beautiful garden, including the Water Lilies series.
Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
- Place of Birth: Paris, France
- Place of Death: Paris, France
- Style: Impressionism (debated)
- Famous Paintings: The Ballet Class (1874), The Absinthe Drinker (1876), L'Absinthe (1876)
For the sake of simplicity, we'll categorise the French artist Degas as an Impressionist, although the classification of his work is a matter of debate in the art world.
Degas initially studied law but became far more interested in painting, spending time in the Louvre, Paris, copying some of the other most famous works.
His most famous paintings included a lot of movement and dancing, which isn't necessarily what most art historians consider quintessential of the Impressionist art movement.
Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
- Place of Birth: Paris, France
- Place of Death: Paris, France
- Style: Realism, Impressionism
- Famous Paintings: Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863), Olympia (1863), A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882)
Let's stay in France for a bit. Edouard Manet is another famous French artist, not to be confused with the similarly named Monet.
Much like Monet, Manet was also supposed to study law. However, he found painting far more interesting and would ultimately learn to paint from Thomas Couture.
Manet also helped create the Impressionism movement, painting portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and examples of life in Paris as part of the movement.
An active member of Paris' artistic and cultural scene, he regularly spent time with famous intellectuals like Charles Baudelaire and Émile Zola.
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
- Place of Birth: Aix-en-Provence, France
- Place of Death: Aix-en-Provence, France
- Style: Post-Impressionism
- Famous Paintings: The Basket of Apples (1893), Mont Sainte-Victoire (1887), The Card Players (1894-1895)
We're still in France, but we've started to move away from Impressionism. The French artist Paul Cézanne was born in the south of the country but, like many other artists at the time, found fame in the capital city of Paris. However, his southern roots were evident in his paintings, which regularly feature the landscapes of Aix-en-Provence, where he grew up.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
- Place of Birth: Limoges, France
- Place of Death: Cagnes-sur-Mer, France
- Style: Impressionism, Realism
- Famous Paintings: Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (1876), Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881), The Swing (1876)
Pieere-Auguste Renoir was a French painter who was an active member of the Impressionist movement before he started moving towards Realism. He painted nudes, portraits, landscapes, still lifes, etc.
Even when rheumatism started affecting his ability to paint, he'd attach paintbrushes to his wrists to continue creating art.
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
- Place of Birth: Paris, France
- Place of Death: Atuona, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia
- Style: Post-Impressionism, Primitivism
- Famous Paintings: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1897), The Yellow Christ (1889), Spirit of the Dead Watching (1892)
Paul Gauguin was born in Paris and was one of France's most exotic painters, taking inspiration from both Impressionism and Japanese prints.
He lived in French Polynesia, much closer to New Zealand than France. However, many of his paintings are in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, which isn't quite as close.
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)
- Place of Birth: Zundert, Netherlands
- Place of Death: Auvers-sur-Oise, France
- Style: Post-Impressionism
- Famous Paintings: Starry Night (1889), Sunflowers (1888), The Bedroom (1888)
The Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh is most famous for his still lifes and landscapes. He also lived in relative obscurity as an artist while alive but gained much fame and recognition after his death.
Edvard Munch (1863-1944)
- Place of Birth: Loten, Norway
- Place of Death: Oslo, Norway
- Style: Symbolism, Expressionism
- Famous Paintings: The Scream (1893), The Madonna (1894-1895), The Sick Child (1885-1886)
Edvard Munch was a Norwegian painter and printmaker whose works influenced the development of German Expressionism in the early 20th century. Munch's most famous work, The Scream, is one of the most recognisable images in art history.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
- Place of Birth: Málaga, Spain
- Place of Death: Mougins, France
- Style: Cubism, Surrealism
- Famous Paintings: Guernica (1937), Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), The Weeping Woman (1937)
The Spanish artist Pablo Picasso was born in Spain and is most famous for his Cubism. He studied art at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona and eventually moved to France. In Paris, he and George Braque helped create the Cubist movement.
A divisive figure, both in his personal and artistic life, Picasso was an accomplished painter whose Surrealist and Cubist works didn't often showcase much of his technical ability as an artist.
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
- Place of Birth: Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, USA
- Place of Death: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
- Style: American Modernism
- Famous Paintings: Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 (1932), Black Iris III (1926), Sky Above Clouds IV (1965)
Georgia O'Keeffe was an American artist known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of American Modernism". Her style and subject matter set her apart from other artists, making her one of the most influential figures in American art.
Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
- Place of Birth: Figueres, Spain
- Place of Death: Figueres, Spain
- Style: Surrealism
- Famous Paintings: The Persistence of Memory (1931), The Elephants (1948), The Burning Giraffe (1937)
The Surrealist painter Salvador Dali's paintings regularly depicted dreamlike and psychedelic paintings. His most famous painting is undoubtedly "The Persistence of Memory", which most people will recognise from its depiction of clocks melting.
Dali also regularly styled his moustache, creating self-portraits depicting how he could style his facial hair.
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)
- Place of Birth: Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico
- Place of Death: Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico
- Style: Surrealism, Magic Realism
- Famous Paintings: The Two Fridas (1939), Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940), The Broken Column (1944)
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter known for her many self-portraits, often depicting symbolic portrayals of physical and psychological pain. Though she was associated with the Surrealist movement, her work is influenced greatly by Mexican heritage and personal experiences, including her turbulent relationship with fellow artist Diego Rivera.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987)
- Place of Birth: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
- Place of Death: New York City, New York, USA
- Style: Pop Art
- Famous Works: Campbell's Soup Cans (1962), Marilyn Diptych (1962), Eight Elvises (1963)
Andy Warhol was an American artist and leading figure in the Pop Art movement. He explored the relationship between artistic expression, culture, and advertisement. He's most famous for his iconic images of consumer goods and celebrities, often reproduced with mechanical precision to reflect the mass-production techniques of the modern world.
Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988)
- Place of Birth: Brooklyn, New York, USA
- Place of Death: New York City, New York, USA
- Style: Neo-Expressionism, Primitivism
- Famous Paintings: Untitled (1981), Hollywood Africans (1983), Dustheads (1982)
Here we have the most recent of our famous artists, but not one of the greatest artists living today.
Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist, who became one of the most influential figures in the Neo-Expressionist movement. He initially started as a graffiti artist going by the name "SAMO". Basquiat left a profound legacy, and his work continues to command high prices at auctions and significant influence in contemporary art.
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