Pictures to build
Jigsaw puzzles by subject.
Choose by what the picture shows. A subject gathers paintings from every style and every century, so a Dutch harbour sits beside a Japanese wave, and a Chinese winter scroll beside skaters on Dutch ice. Each one comes with a note on how it builds.
or browse by art style → or browse by painter →
Petals, in oil, ink and silk
Flowers
Flowers as painters from Antwerp to Kyoto looked at them. Van Gogh's irises and sunflowers, a Dutch bouquet in a wine glass, Redon's vase on a pink ground, a plum branch under snow on Chinese silk, white hollyhocks in the style of Sōtatsu, a basket of flowers by Delacroix. Colour for its own sake, however the brush was held.
46 pictures →
Flowerbeds, paths and shade
Gardens
Gardens tended, sat in and walked through. A father kneeling with open arms for his child’s first steps in van Gogh’s copy after Millet, Manet’s Monet family on the grass at Argenteuil, Caillebotte’s chrysanthemums filling a tall canvas, Seurat’s gardener bent double, Pissarro’s Tuileries on a spring morning, and Wen Zhengming’s pavilions in ink. From France and America, China, Japan and an Indian court.
14 pictures →
Creatures, painted with affection
Animals
Animals from every corner of the collection. Rosa Bonheur's horse fair, Landseer's deerhound, sheep coming home to the fold at dusk, Rosetsu's puppies tumbling in the snow, a cat asleep on bare paper, a maharana's prize stallion, the emperor's horse Night-Shining White. Painters have always been fonder of animals than they let on.
66 pictures →
Feathers, wings and song
Birds
Birds in flight, at rest and on the table. Hiroshige's wild geese crossing a full moon, a kingfisher waiting on a branch, small birds in the autumn millet, a hawk on a rock at sunrise, Hokusai's rooster and hen, Oudry's ducks resting in the sun, and Fyt's partridges laid out after the hunt. In ink and gold from Japan, China and Korea, and in oil from Antwerp and Paris.
23 pictures →
Riders, grooms and the hunt
Horses
Horses held, ridden, sold and admired. Han Gan’s white horse pulling at its post under centuries of collectors’ seals, grooms leading horses in Zhao Mengfu’s ink, a grey-blue Persian stallion, the white horses rearing at Bonheur’s horse fair, Stubbs’s bay hunter under a tree, Géricault’s horsewoman, and Rubens’s wolf hunt beside the young Landseer’s copy of it. From China, Persia and the Indian courts, and from Flanders, Britain and France.
31 pictures →
Mountain, field, river, weather
Landscapes
Land as painters from China to the Hudson River saw it. Mountains in mist on Chinese silk, Ruisdael's wheat fields under a Dutch sky, Van Gogh's cypresses, Claude's Roman countryside in the evening light, the Barbizon woods, Kensett's Lake George, and Hiroshige's rivers and temple groves. Land as a mood, whichever way it was painted.
147 pictures →
Peaks, mist and long views
Mountains
Mountains climbed, crossed and remembered. Shitao’s peaks of Mount Huang, painted from memory, Gong Xian’s wintry mountains in deep ink, Jeong Seon’s Mount Inwang, Fuji small beneath Hokusai’s great wave, Church’s Andes opening onto a waterfall, Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire beyond a viaduct, and Vesuvius erupting into the night for Dahl. Ink from China, Korea and Japan, woodblock prints, and oil from America and Europe.
29 pictures →
Banks, bridges and still water
Rivers and Lakes
Water that runs and water that waits. Eakins’s Max Schmitt resting on his oars in his scull, Homer’s canoe in the Saguenay rapids, snow on Hokusai’s Sumida, Kensett’s Lake George pale and still, Sisley’s Seine at Bougival, Pissarro’s bridge at Rouen on an overcast morning, Kuniyoshi’s river in the rain, and Radha crossing a river in an Indian painting. Hudson River painters, Barbizon and impressionist France, the North, and prints from Japan.
38 pictures →
Water, weather and the way home
The Sea
Boats at anchor, a harbour going quiet by moonlight, Boudin's beaches under a wide summer sky, Homer's Gulf Stream, a storm off the Normandy coast, and Hokusai's great wave about to come down on three boats. Painters from Holland to Japan have followed the sea, and it has never once held still for them.
36 pictures →
Snow, ice and short days
Winter
Snow the way painters have actually met it: a plum branch under fresh snow, bamboo bent with the weight of it, a Dutch river crowded with skaters, puppies in a drift. Mostly ink and colour on silk, with a few European winters among them. Cold weather painted from somewhere warm, which is the kindest way to meet it.
25 pictures →
From dusk to moonlight
Night
The hours after the light goes. Hiroshige's geese crossing the full moon and his night rain on Lake Biwa, Harunobu's woman looking at plum blossom in the dark, Dahl's Copenhagen harbour by moonlight, a ship under the moon at sea, Rousseau's forest in the last of the sunset, and a moon among clouds brushed in ink. Moons, clouds and a great deal of deep blue.
28 pictures →
Streets, squares and rooftops
Towns and Cities
Places people built and lived in. Canaletto's Piazza San Marco and a Venetian campo, the Rialto from Guardi's workshop, Pissarro's boulevard on a winter morning seen from a hotel window, Jongkind's Pont Neuf, Constable's Salisbury Cathedral through the trees, Bellotto's town gate at Pirna, and a village by a Japanese temple grove. Stone, windows and sky.
24 pictures →
Quiet arrangements
Still Life
Flowers past their best, fruit and silver and the slow drama of a tabletop. Dutch banquets of oysters, silver and glass, Chardin's silver tureen, Van Gogh's worn shoes, Cézanne's apples, Vollon's great cheese, and a Korean table of bronze vessels and flowering plants. Small worlds, lovingly lit.
43 pictures →
Faces, looking back at you
Portraits
People who sat still long enough to be painted. Rembrandt's Aristotle with his hand on a bust of Homer, Sargent's Madame X, Van Gogh's Arlésienne, Holbein's young man from Lucerne, a Korean scholar in a horsehair hat, a Persian lady on an album page, Goya's boy in red, and the great silk-dressed sitters of Gainsborough and Lawrence. Silk, skin and a great deal of dark ground.
145 pictures →
Small sitters and games
Children
Children painted by people who clearly liked them. Goya's boy in red with his magpie and his cats, Homer's schoolboys playing snap the whip, Madame Roulin holding up her baby, Rubens's small son at his mother's side, Gainsborough's cottage children gathering wood, Utamaro's mother and children by a screen, and Fragonard's two sisters. Few of them sat still for long.
25 pictures →
Ordinary days, closely watched
Everyday Life
The ordinary business of living. Bruegel's harvesters resting at noon, Vermeer's maid asleep at the table, Degas's woman at the ironing board, Cézanne's card players, Millet's woman with a rake, a Dutch couple over a hand of cards, a maharaja at a game of pachisi, and scholars at a game of go. Nobody here is posing for history.
47 pictures →
Rooms, windows and quiet light
Interiors
Rooms and the people in them. Vermeer’s young woman opening a window, one hand on a pitcher, his maid asleep at the table, de Hooch’s card players in a pool of yellow light, Gabriel at Mary’s red bed in Memling’s Annunciation, Guardi’s masked gamblers in a Venetian hall, Madame Charpentier and her children with their dog, and Hammershøi’s empty room in moonlight. From Bruges, Delft and Venice, Paris and Copenhagen, and one room from Edo Japan.
32 pictures →
Lutes, stages and dance floors
Music and Dance
Music being made and danced to. Degas's dancers at the barre and a ballet seen from the pit, Toulouse-Lautrec's La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge, Caravaggio's boy musicians, Vermeer's young woman tuning a lute by the window, dervishes turning in a Persian garden, kabuki actors mid-role, a masked ball by Madrazo and a country dance by Tiepolo's son. You can almost hear them.
29 pictures →
Gods, heroes and old stories
Myths and Legends
The old stories, told in paint. Isfandiyar slaying his dragon in the Shahnama, Hanuman bringing the healing herbs to Rama and Lakshmana, Cranach's judgment of Paris, Diana surprised in her bath, Rubens's river god feasting his guests, Poussin's blind giant walking toward the sunrise, and Tiepolo's gods crowding a ceiling. Persian, Indian and European tellings side by side.
28 pictures →
Devotion, in gold and mineral colour
Sacred Art
Pictures made to be prayed in front of. Botticelli's last communion of Saint Jerome, Fra Filippo Lippi's Madonna between two angels, El Greco's Christ carrying the cross, Tibetan thangkas in deep red and green, Guanyin seated on a lotus throne in Korea, Radha crossing a river to meet a sage, and Bodhidharma staring out of a Japanese scroll. Several faiths, one purpose.
112 pictures →