Whether or not art is at the forefront of your mind when you travel, no trip is complete without taking in at least one visual masterpiece. From London to St. Petersburg, New York to Jerusalem, these 13 paintings simply cannot be missed.
On view at the National Gallery of Australia, David Hockney’s A Bigger Grand Canyon (1998) tackles one of America’s most expansive natural wonders in 60 individual oil paintings. Boasting a fiery color palette and fluid perspectives, this 24-foot-wide landscape is paradigmatic of the beloved English artist’s bold and sunny oeuvre.
The ceiling of the magnificent Palais Garnier boasts one of modernist painter Marc Chagall’s most astounding works of art: a 2,600-square-foot (241.5-square-meter) masterpiece commemorating great composers, actors, and dancers. Executed over the course of eight months in Chagall’s Parisian studio spaces, the project, completed in 1964, required over 400 pounds of paint to complete.
Gustav Klimt, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907 | Neue Galerie New York. Acquired through the generosity of Ronald S. Lauder, the heirs of the Estates of Ferdinand and Adele Bloch-Bauer, and the Estée Lauder Fund
Marking the grand finale of Gustav Klimt’s ‘Golden Phase,’ this gilded masterpiece (1907) is the first of two spectacular depictions the artist would paint of Adele Bloch-Bauer. Klimt’s staggering portrait of his friend and possible lover also comes with one of art history’s most infamous back stories. Stolen by Nazi art thieves, unlawfully claimed by the Austrian government and subsequently at the center of a fierce legal battle, Adele was ultimately sold for a record-breaking $135 million to hang in the Neue Galerie for the public to behold.
Amedeo Modigliani, Female Nude, c.1916 | © The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London
A highlight of The Courtauld Gallery in London, Female Nude (c. 1916) is a prime example of the elegant, elongated figures which define Amedeo Modigliani’s oeuvre, inspired by the aesthetic of African and Oceanic sculpture. The subject’s features are soft yet textured, captured in a seductive pose.
Inside Madrid’s Museo del Prado is one of history’s most whimsical works of art. When Hieronymus Bosch completed the masterpiece over 500 years ago, The Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1515) both terrified and delighted God-fearing viewers with its strange hybrid creatures and alien vessels. Five centuries later, the surreal dreamscapes of Bosch’s time-tested triptych still enrapture onlookers from around the world.
Johannes Vermeer , Girl with a Pearl Earring, c. 1665 | © Mauritshuis, The Hague
Few faces are as timeless as that of Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665), whose mysterious gaze has captivated audiences for over 300 years. On view at the Mauritshuis, the girl’s radiant portrait—Vermeer’s unquestionable magnum opus—stands as an enduring icon of the Dutch Golden Age.
Plein 29, 2511 CS Den Haag, Netherlands
Want more art for your travels? Have a look at The One Artwork You Must See in These Bucket List Cities!
