1. Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci
No doubt the famous painting in the world, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is exhibited at The Louvre since 1797. It has the reputation of being “the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world.” Of all the 6,000 paintings in the museum, 90% of the people line up to see Da Vinci’s greatest masterpiece. Its viewing averages 1,500 people per hour with every person staring for around three minutes.
Created in 1503, this stunning painting was reportedly commissioned by Italian cloth merchant Francesco del Giocondo. It was the portrait of his wife, Lisa Gherardini. Its alternative title is La Gioconda. Da Vinci created a new formula that was followed by succeeding artists, which involved a half-length portrait, hands joined in the foreground and a three-quarter view of a portrait against a landscape background. And then there’s the enigmatic smile of Mona Lisa, an obsession of 19th-century art critics.
People’s fascination with the Mona Lisa started way back with Surrealists and Dadaists creating caricatures and modifications of this painting. Salvador Dali made Self-Portrait as Mona Lisa while Andy Warhol made serigraph prints of Mona Lisas called Thirty are Better than One. There are even YouTube parodies of Mona Lisa including a New Yorker animation of her smile progressing into something maniacal. To this day, the global fascination for Da Vinci’s muse hasn’t waned.
Each of these 25 most famous paintings in the world has a lasting cultural and historical impact. A picture not only paints a thousand words but also years of influence. Their value to society cannot be undermined. Preserving these paintings for future generations is one of the things we can do to honor the artists who generously shared their talents with us.
