Dating to around 1485, the “Birth of Venus” depicts the Roman goddess Venus standing nude atop a giant scallop shell as if she herself were a perfect pearl. The Italian artist painted Venus in his other work “Primavera,” though in that painting the goddess of love and beauty is fully clothed.

American artist Edward Hopper painted “Nighthawks” in 1942. Hopper sought to convey the loneliness of city living in this work, which depicts three customers at a diner counter who appear completely disengaged. Though Hopper was inspired by a restaurant on New York City’s Greenwich Avenue, the painting depicts a fictitious location.

Among Rene Magritte’s most recognizable works is “The Son of Man,” depicting a man wearing a bowler hat whose face is obscured by a green apple. Magritte actually painted the work as a self-portrait, despite the fact that only slivers of his face are visible. Apples appeared in several of Magritte’s other paintings, including in 1952’s “The Listening Room.”

“The Garden of Earthly Delights” is a late 15th-century painting by Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch. It is a triptych — meaning the work is composed of three distinct panels — and depicts the Garden of Eden on its left, the painting’s namesake garden within its center panel, and hell within the rightmost panel. This painting has been displayed at Madrid’s Prado Museum since 1939.

In 1871, American artist James McNeill Whistler painted his mother in a work that many have simply come to refer to as “Whistler’s Mother.” However, the name of the painting is actually “Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1” — an appropriate title given its prominent grey and black coloration. Whistler also designed the golden frame to reflect his mother’s wedding band.

Publicly displayed for the first time in 1930 at the Art Institute of Chicago, “American Gothic” made American artist Grant Wood instantly famous. An Iowa native, Wood was inspired by a quaint wooden farmhouse he saw visiting the small town of Eldon. The people in the painting are actually his sister and his dentist, whom he used as models for the project to represent a farmer and his daughter.

Da Vinci’s “Ginevra de' Benci” was owned by the royal family of Liechtenstein for over 250 years, until Prince Franz Josef put it on the market in 1967. The National Art Gallery’s director had been eyeing the piece for decades and leapt at the opportunity — he paid a record-setting $5 million for the portrait.

In 1884, pointillist painter Georges-Pierre Seurat created his masterpiece titled, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” The painting depicts a Parisian summer day, with individuals enjoying activities along the River Seine. It was critically derided at first, though it found renewed popularity over the years, as well as a permanent home at the Art Institute of Chicago.

“The School of Athens” helped propel Italian Renaissance painter Raphael to a new level of fame, and this fresco is considered to be among his most famous works. The painting depicts ancient thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle rapt in debate. Raphael even snuck a self-portrait of himself into the painting, wearing a black beret in the painting’s lower right.

One of the most famous examples of surrealism, Salvador Dali's “The Persistence of Memory” shows a barren landscape of grotesquely limp clocks. Though the scene itself appears otherworldly and dreamlike, the rocky cliffs in the background were inspired by Dali's native region of Catalonia, Spain. It has been a part of the collection at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) since 1934.

Johannes Vermeer produced only 36 paintings in his lifetime, a low number compared to the output of his artistic peers. The subject of “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” completed in 1665, is meant to be ambiguous and generic; he did not wish to represent any specific woman. Instead, it’s known as a “tronie” — a Dutch word for a character or type of person.

Completed in 1937, one of Picasso’s most famous paintings, “Guernica,” was the artist’s strongest political statement. It depicts the devastating bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, highlighting the suffering of innocent civilians. The painting is massive — 11 feet tall and over 25 feet wide — and was painted with minimal color to maximize its drama.

After finishing “Napoleon Crossing the Alps,” Jacques-Louis David became the emperor's primary court painter. Though he clearly liked the portrait, Napoleon famously refused to sit for it, forcing David to use one of his sons as a model. It was completed over the span of four months, from October 1800 to January 1801.

Leonardo da Vinci began painting his iconic work “The Last Supper” in 1495. In the centuries that followed, the famous mural was unfortunately treated with neglect. In 1652, a portion was removed to create a doorway underneath where it hung, removing a chunk that depicted Jesus’s feet. The painting later survived bombings during World War II, and is currently displayed in Milan, Italy, at the Santa Maria delle Grazie.

Japanese artist Hokusai's most memorable work, “Under the Great Wave off Kanagawa” — despite being dominated by the giant, turbulent wave that gives the painting its title — is in fact part of a series called “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji.” Hokusai began work on the celebrated series in 1830, when he was 70 years old.

In 1519, Leonardo da Vinci gave the “Mona Lisa” to his friend King Francois I. In the 1700s, King Louis XIV took the painting with him to Versailles, and eventually the masterpiece made its way to the Louvre for protection. After Napoleon Bonaparte ascended to power in the 1800s, the painting was temporarily moved from the Louvre to Napoleon’s bedroom.

Frida Kahlo de Rivera was best known for her self-portraits and use of bright colors. Her painting “Self-Portrait With Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird” was completed in 1940. In this painting, it is thought the dark-colored animals and lifeless bird pendant were a metaphor for her pain and suffering after a bus accident when she was 18.

Oscar-Claude Monet, founder of the French Impressionist style and one of the world’s most famous artists, had a favorite subject: water lilies. In fact, he created more than 250 water lily paintings in his lifetime. The paintings were inspired by real water lilies at Monet’s garden in Giverny, France. The artist once said, "My finest masterpiece is my garden.”

Van Gogh painted “Starry Night,” now one of the most recognizable paintings in the world, while staying in an institution in the French town of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. The painting was loosely based on the view from his window. However, the exact landscape is a work of the artist's imagination, as are the colorful, impressionist whirls.

One of the most iconic images in art history, the “Creation of Adam” was painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City by Italian artist Michelangelo in 1511. The panel depicts the biblical story of God creating Adam in the Book of Genesis. The focal point of the piece is God’s finger almost connecting with Adam’s.