Muscles, morals, and mongrels help to illustrate the stratification of social class in Victorian England.
Work + leisure
What’s that dog yapping about? This mischievous woman throws caution—and her slipper—to the wind.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing
Singer Sargent’s evocative canvas turns a sweet, ordinary scene into a symphony of shapes and colors.
John Singer Sargent, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose
Take part in the celebration of an athlete’s victory—this life-size bronze is a hinge between the Archaic and Classical.
Charioteer of Delphi
Join the birds and soar through this frozen landscape. On the pond below, playful scenes warm the air.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hunters in the ...
Coiled with athletic energy, balance, and the promise of movement, see the potential of an idealized human body.
Myron, Discobolus (Discus Thrower)
Achilles and Ajax, heroes of the Trojan War, break from battle to play a friendly game that hints at a tragic future.
Exekias, Attic black figure amphora with Ajax ...
Representing women who entered the workforce during WWII, Rosie is strong, determined, and eating a ham sandwich.
Norman Rockwell, Rosie the Riveter
Look closely to see bloody wounds and a lifetime of scars on this defeated athlete.
Apollonius, Boxer at Rest (or The Seated ...
Seurat sought to bring science to the methods of Impressionism with new, methodical approaches to color.
Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte ...
The subject looks through opera glasses, but she herself is the object of another man’s gaze—not to mention ours.
Mary Cassatt, In the Loge
Toulouse-Lautrec invites us into the nocturnal world of the nightclub, where classes mix under the electric lights.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge
Degas is off to the races, where class issues are in the foreground.
Edgar Degas, At the Races in the Countryside
Though often thought of as a simple image of American values, this painting resists easy interpretation.
Grant Wood, American Gothic
Mary Cassatt, an artist and close friend Degas, is the subject of this painting about the act of seeing.
Edgar Degas, Visit to a Museum
Homer’s fisherman just wants to bring his halibut safely to his ship—but as usual, nature is ruining everything.
Winslow Homer, The Fog Warning (or Halibut ...
This sentimental scene of a quiet moment of prayer in the fields reflects a nostalgia for religion in modern France.
Jean-François Millet, L’Angélus
Sander documented German people from all walks of life, but the goals of his project remain unclear.
August Sander, Portraits
Rosa Bonheur defies the patriarchy, one masterfully painted ox at a time.
Rosa Bonheur, Plowing in the Nivernais (or ...
The wild dancing nymphs on the exterior of the Opéra had little in common with the ballerinas performing there.
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