National Gallery in London: 5 paintings you have to see

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Ailis Brennan23 April 2018

Art lovers, you’ve ended up in the right city - there are more masterpieces within the M25 than you can shake a paintbrush at.

Londoners may not be short of cultural exploits to pursue, but a lot of us are short of the time to do it in.

You could spend days at the National Gallery, but sometimes it needs to happen within your lunch break.

To conquer your indecision and save you from being unfashionably late, these are the five paintings you absolutely have to see.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Supper at Emmaus, 1601 © The National Gallery, London

Caravaggio’s life had its fair share of darker turns: he killed a man in a brawl and it is possible that he himself was murdered. But the darkness in his art was the key to his genius. Caravaggio is a famed and groundbreaking proponent of the chiaroscuro method of modelling figures through the dramatic use of light against extreme shadow. In this painting (shown above), Jesus reveals his resurrection to his incredulous disciples, What is so fantastic here is its three-dimensionality: the elbows of the left disciple seem to protrude from the painting and the hands of the disciple to the right are .

Leonardo da Vinci, The Virgin with the Infant Saint John the Baptist adoring the Christ Child accompanied by an Angel ('The Virgin of the Rocks'), about 1491/2-9 and 1506-8

The National Gallery, London

From enigmatic smiles to religious conspiracy theories, Leonardo paintings tend to come with a healthy batch of riddles wrapped in, err, codes. The Virgin of the Rocks is actually one of a pair made by Leonardo. The other, and the first, resides in The Louvre in Paris and depicts the Madonna with a claw-like hand hanging over St John, and the angel appearing to slice a finger across baby Jesus’ neck. Funnily enough, this caused some controversy and Leonardo ended up painting a new version, this one, around which still hangs an air of menace.

Hans Holbein the Younger, Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve ('The Ambassadors'), 1533

The National Gallery, London

At first glance, this painting by Henry VIII’s favourite court artist is already interesting enough. French ambassador to England Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, the Bishop of Lavaur, stand either side of a table laden with objects of mysterious meaning. The most peculiar of all the objects, however, isn’t immediately obvious. Stand to the right hand side of the painting and move behind it (the National Gallery has built a special cranny for this purpose) and the shapeless blob on the floor (you didn’t notice that, did you) reforms into a skull. Yes, there’s a secret symbol of death in this painting and now you feel a bit weird.

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838, 1839

The National Gallery, London

JMW Turner was the bad boy of 19th century painting. An artistic anarchist, Turner turned his back on the Royal Academy’s predilection for painting pretty (and easily sold) pictures of aristocrats, and turned his attention to the majesty of the British landscape. An unusual subject for an artist of his time, Turner took on seas and skies and painted them with unrivalled lightness of touch. Here the Temeraire, a ship from the Battle of Trafalgar makes its final journey through pale seas to the backdrop of a burning sun.

Paul Cézanne, Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses), about 1894-1905

The National Gallery, London

Paul Cézanne is the daddy of modern art. Don’t believe us? Just ask Pablo Picasso, who once called the post-Impressionist painter the “father of modernism”. Cézanne’s groundbreaking experiments resulted in images that appear to shift as you watch them - a key idea in early cubism. Les Grandes Baigneuses does just that: as you focus on one female figure, the others seem to carry on about their business amid your inattention.

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