Noon in late summer. Half the field is already cut, the sheaves stand in rows, and under a pear tree a handful of workers have stopped to eat bread, porridge and pears while one man sleeps flat on his back with his legs apart. Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Harvesters (1565) is a painting about work that spends most of its attention on the break from it, and it looks out over a whole countryside to make the point. Quick facts Artist: Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525/30–1569) Date: 1565 Medium: Oil on wood Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Rogers Fund, 1919) Notable fact: One of six panels on the times of the year painted for the Antwerp merchant Niclaes Jongelinck; five survive, and this is the only one outside Europe Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Harvesters, 1565. Oil on wood. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image via the Sapiens Verbum print shop. A Set of Six for an Antwerp Collector In 1565 Bruegel delivered a cycle of large panels to Niclaes J...

Look once for the black dog on the wall. Look again for the sun that is trying to erase the river. If you only know J.M.W. Turner from storms and wrecks, Mortlake Terrace (1827) is where you meet the other Turner: the one who treats light as the main character and everything else as its supporting cast. Quick facts Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) Date: 1827 Medium: Oil on canvas (92.1 × 122.2 cm) Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Andrew W. Mellon Collection) Notable fact: Painted for William Moffatt at The Limes, Mortlake; evening companion to the Frick Collection’s Mortlake Terrace: Early Summer Morning (1826) Joseph Mallord William Turner, Mortlake Terrace, 1827. Oil on canvas. Source: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Accession 1937.1.109. Open Access / Public Domain. Print available from the Sapiens Verbum shop. What Is at Stake Most people scroll past a “pretty Thames sunset” in three second...

There is almost no story here - and that is the point. No farmer, no cart, no church steeple. Just a field of green wheat rising in waves, a pale dirt path slipping in from the lower right, and a sky full of soft, restless clouds. Vincent van Gogh painted Green Wheat Fields, Auvers in 1890, in the village north of Paris where he spent his last months. The canvas is "pure" landscape: nature under wind, thickened into paint. Quick facts Artist: Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) Date: 1890 (Auvers-sur-Oise, likely May) Medium: Oil on canvas (28 1/2 x 36 in / 72.39 x 91.44 cm) Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Paul Mellon Collection) Notable fact: A "pure" landscape with no figures or buildings; entered the NGA in 2013 from the Mellon gift Vincent van Gogh, Green Wheat Fields, Auvers, 1890. Oil on canvas. Source: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Accession 2013.122.1. Open Access / Public Domain. Print available from the Sapiens Verbum ...

A stone cup the size of a mountain holds a lake on its rim. Tiny classical ruins cling to the brim; a whole weather system seems to drink from the bowl. Thomas Cole's The Titan's Goblet (1833) is Hudson River imagination pushed into fantasy - landscape as mythic architecture. Quick facts Artist: Thomas Cole (1801-1848) Date: 1833 Medium: Oil on canvas Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Notable fact: Hudson River School landmark; a colossal goblet set in wilderness, often read as allegory of nature's abundance and human scale Thomas Cole, The Titan’s Goblet, 1833. Oil on canvas. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Accession 04.29.2. Open Access / Public Domain. Print available from the Sapiens Verbum shop. Impossible Vessel The goblet rises from the terrain as if geology learned to be a cup. Vegetation and water on the rim make the fantasy feel organic. Around it, mountains and sky perform Cole's usual grandeur - then the eye ...

Eleven stars wheel over a quiet village, and none of them behave like stars in a textbook. They pulse, spiral, and drag the night around them in thick blue and yellow paint. Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night in June 1889 from the east-facing window of his room at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Remy-de-Provence. The cypress rises like a dark flame. The village sleeps. The sky does not. Quick facts Artist: Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) Date: 1889 Medium: Oil on canvas Collection: Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York Notable fact: Painted during van Gogh's stay at the Saint-Remy asylum; the view combines the real window vista with an imagined village and exaggerated sky Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night , 1889. Oil on canvas. Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. A Window, Not a Postcard Van Gogh could see the hills and the night sky from his room, but he could not see this exact village laid out so neatly be...