Masterpiece

For a 13th-century work with countless characters and roots in a tiny island’s cultural and legal arcana, ‘The Story of Burnt Njal’ is not only accessible and relevant but entertaining.

In his ‘Last Supper,’ Leonardo da Vinci puts linear perspective, then a relatively new pictorial device, to spiritual ends.

William Wordsworth’s ‘She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways’ is a study in contrasts.

Death metes out tailor-made penalties in a painting intended to scare viewers into piousness.

Pierre Bonnard’s ‘The Palm’ can be seen as a fantasy wedding portrait—but does the artist’s other inamorata make an appearance as well?

Luchino Visconti’s ‘Ludwig’ is now being presented in its original four-hour version, which captures a more complete portrait of the dramatis personae.

In Edwin A. Abbott’s ‘Flatland,’ a 2-D square discovers there’s more to the universe than up, down, left and right.

Technology has revealed the earlier versions of Pablo Picasso’s ‘Family of Saltimbanques’ and the painting’s evolution.

Ivan Turgenev’s ‘First Love’ features a fusion of psychological realism and poetic atmosphere.

Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Little Women’ endures despite a message at odds with contemporary mores.

St. Paul’s Cathedral is an inventive approach to Classical style that survived the Blitz.

The Samanid Mausoleum broke architectural and engineering ground and survived conquest by Genghis Khan and natural disasters.

Laughter hides the pessimism in Jacques Tati’s ‘Mon Oncle’ as the old world passes into the new.

Among the 142 instrumentalists called for in its original form, Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse’s ‘Amériques’ includes parts sleigh bells, rattles, whip, gong and even siren.

Manet’s ‘Moss Roses in a Vase’ proves that modesty of size and subject has nothing to do with depth of feeling.

Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi cornerstone is just as radical today as when it opened in 1968.

An ivory Romanesque carving conveys the Good News of Easter.

Hope is just beyond the horizon in Bach’s ‘Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme,’ based on a composition by Philipp Nicolai

‘The Three Musketeers’ teaches the lesson that there can be no loyalty without tolerance.

The first home Gaudí ever designed and the first work over which he had full control, Casa Vicens’ straight lines stand apart from the architect’s otherwise curvaceous career.

Charles Gounod ‘s ‘Faust’ is the most popular musical treatment of Goethe’s drama.

‘The Paston Treasure’ flaunts a family’s wealth while meditating on death.

George Keller traveled to Europe to study great monuments before creating the Garfield Memorial.

‘A. Lincoln & Son’ is a photograph with a painter’s touch.

The Ardabil carpet is alive with dynamic tensions—excitement and calm, containment and exuberance.