As the Mona Lisa is to Da Vinci ...

December 7, 2011 2:00 AM

Inspired by this question about classics to read, I'm wondering what are the top works in visual arts, music and dance? What are most representative of major names, periods, schools, or turning points, etc.?
posted by maurreen to media & arts (9 answers total)

For ballet: La Fille Mal Gardée, La Sylphide, Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake

For neoclassical ballet, Apollo was the watershed.
posted by tel3path at 2:56 AM on December 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Baroque music: Monteverdi (opera), Palestrina (sacred), Corelli (concerto grossi), Lully, JS Bach (keyboard and organ works), Vivaldi (strings)

Symphony: Haydn, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Mahler, Shostakovich
posted by plonkee at 4:12 AM on December 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

The visual arts are a tough one, in that, the truly groundbreaking works end up becoming such an integral, often assimilated and homogenized, part of our popular culture that they end up losing their revolutionary impact with the accumulated distance of time and distance. The works really must be evaluated in relation to the times in which they were produced in order to truly understand their impact and importance. That said, here's a few key 20th Century works (imho, of course)...

Marcel Duchamp - Nude Descending a Staircase #2, and The Bride Stripped Bare...
Constantin Brancusi - Bird in Space
Jackson Pollock - Blue Poles
posted by Thorzdad at 4:21 AM on December 7, 2011

Modernism's beginning's in the 19th century are often tied to a brace of paintings by Edouard Manet done in 1963.
Le Dejeuner Sur l'Herbe and Olympia.

And in the 20th century with art Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon from 1907 became a huge influence in later years on a lot of the painting that followed in the western art world.

And, one more, Andy Warhol's Brillo Boxes from 1964 which were key in the idea that context is what makes a work of art a work of art. This idea still has a lot of currency in contemporary thinking about conceptual art.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 5:31 AM on December 7, 2011

Your question is a bit overwhelming -- there are whole courses in that for each of the genres. Instead of taking you on a subjective and incomplete romp through art history myself, I really recommend the book The Art Book.

It's very compact and straightforward: each page has a paragraph about a famous artist, a picture of one of their main works, and references to other artists in the book that influenced them or where influenced by them, with a list of artistic periods at the end that reference you to the people involved in them. The chunks of information make it not overwhelming at all, and the book itself is about the size of a regular paperback.
posted by Pwoink at 6:00 AM on December 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

Alex Ross's book The Rest Is Noise is a great look at what's big in 20th century music; his website has extensive audio samples if you want a quicker sense of what the book covers.
posted by mlle valentine at 6:09 AM on December 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

According to Wikipedia:

[Beethoven's] Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is... one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem. It is considered by some critics to be Beethoven's masterpiece and one of the greatest musical compositions ever written.

posted by alms at 6:41 AM on December 7, 2011

Also from Wikipedia:

Guernica [by Picasso] shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace. On completion Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed. This tour helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the world's attention.

posted by alms at 7:56 AM on December 7, 2011

I favourite Pwoink's recommendation for Phaidon's 'The Art Book'. Those perfect little descriptions in the book bring the history of art into focus in a really direct way. I think I'll go and look at my copy right now.
posted by ovvl at 11:32 AM on December 7, 2011