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Massive and mesmerizing, this painting took Georges Seurat two years to complete. The scene is created from dots of color, based on his study of optical theory, later known as pointillism.

Children were often the subjects of Renoir’s sunny paintings: this luminous 1879 work shows a circus owner’s daughters taking a bow after their act.

Unlike many of his fellow Impressionists who painted serene, often natural scenes, Toulouse-Lautrec was drawn to the exuberant night- and lowlife of Paris. This dramatic composition (1892) celebrates the famous Moulin Rouge cabaret.

From 1890–91, Monet painted 30 views of the haystacks that stood outside his house at Giverny in France. This museum has six of them, which illustrate the basic Impressionist doctrine of capturing fleeting moments in nature.

Considered to be Gustave Caillebotte’s masterpiece, this evocative 1877 view down a Parisian boulevard, with life-sized figures in the foreground, perfectly captures the gray and rainy scene.

One of the best-known images in 20th-century American Art, this 1942 painting by Realist Edward Hopper has a melancholy quality. It cleverly depicts fluorescent lighting, at the time a recent introduction to US cities.

The only American to exhibit in Paris with the Impressionists, Mary Cassatt is known for using then-unconventional techniques such as elevated vantage points. She often portrayed women and children as in this, her most famous painting (1892).

A 22-year-old, struggling Picasso painted this tortured 1903 portrait during his Blue Period. This reflected his grief over a friend’s suicide and was a precursor to his own style of Cubism.

Winslow Homer honed his realist skills as an illustrator for magazine and later for the Union during the Civil War. After moving to Maine, he created a series of images, including this one (1885), depicting man’s complex relationship with the sea.

Grant Wood borrowed from the detailed style of Flemish Renaissance art to create this much-parodied painting (1930). Though perceived by many as satirical, the painting celebrates rural American values.