Choosing the best paintings is a difficult task, since there are so many influential and popular works of art throughout history. Read on to see if you agree with us, that these paintings are among the world's finest...
Leonardo da Vinci - The Mona Lisa
The Mona Lisa is on display at the Louvre in Paris, where six million people flock to see it every year. Depicting a young lady with a slight smile, shrouded in an air of mystery, it was painted by the famous Italian Renaissance artist, Leonardo da Vinci.
Debate has continued for many years on the identity of the woman. The consensus is that she was Lisa del Giocondo, wife of a wealthy Florence resident called Francesco del Giocondo. The painting took many years to complete, with historians believing da Vinci began painting it in 1503, not finishing it until 1519, shortly before his death.
© Pixabay
Vincent van Gogh - Starry Night
The famous masterpiece depicts the view from Vincent van Gogh's window in Saint-Rémy in 1889. Despite it showing the view by night, with the sky full of bright stars, it was actually painted from memory during the day. It is currently on display in New York's Museum of Modern Art.
A Post-Impressionist painter, The Dutch artist was 36 when he completed Starry Night. He died just one year later, in July 1890, committing suicide by shooting himself with a revolver. His death followed years of mental illness, during which time he had cut off part of his own left ear with a razor in 1888 while he was drinking heavily.
Rembrandt van Rijn - The Night Watch
The Night Watch, a portrait of military men, was painted by famous Dutch artist Rembrandt in 1642. Also known as The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq, it is currently on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Renowned for its chiaroscuro, which means its shading of light and dark, it was also unusual in its day because it depicted motion - most military portraits in the 17th century were static.
The artist, who died in 1669, aged 63, was famed for his Biblical scenes, for portraits of his contemporaries and for his gritty self-portraits, which created a biography of his life. He always painted himself without vanity and his self-portraits were considered to be among his greatest triumphs.
Edvard Munch - The Scream
This is one of the most frightening paintings by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, who followed the Expressionism art movement. It was painted in or around 1893 on cardboard, using pastel and oil. Depicting a screaming person, it has been interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of the human race.
Broad bands of bright colour and simplified forms reduce the agonized figure to a screaming skull, apparently having an emotional crisis. The painting is on display at The National Gallery in Oslo. An 1895 pastel version of The Scream, which the artist painted between 1893 and 1895, sold at auction for $119.9 million on 2nd May 2012.
Johannes Vermeer - Girl with a Pearl Earring
Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer painted Girl with a Pearl Earring in or around 1665. It is sometimes referred to as the Dutch Mona Lisa. Great mystery has always surrounded the painting, as nothing is known of the identity of the young lady, who is wearing a large pearl earring.
Born in October 1632, the artist specialised in interior domestic scenes of middle-class life in the 17th century. Girl with a Pearl Earring is considered his masterpiece. It is painted in oil on canvas and is currently on display in the Mauritshuis Gallery of The Hague in the Netherlands, where it has been exhibited since 1902.
Such great mystique surrounded the identity of the girl that Tracy Chevalier's 1999 fictional historical novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring, suggested she was a servant called Griet who agreed to pose as a model, wearing Vermeer's wife's earrings. The novel was made into a film in 2003 and a play in 2008.
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