My Favorite Renaissance Painting Details

Hidden symbols everywhere - the dog means fidelity, the single candle means God watches

That weird smear at the bottom? A skull in anamorphic perspective. Mind-blowing for 1533

The light through those windows is technically impossible but emotionally perfect

No one knows what it means. 500 years of art historians stumped. That's the point

Her hands. Just look at how he painted her hands. Impossible delicacy

Radical foreshortening that makes you feel like you're standing at his feet

500 plant species painted, 200 of them identifiable. Botanical obsession as art

Medieval fever dream that predicted surrealism by 400 years

She died at 20 in childbirth. This portrait is her husband's grief made eternal

Painted for monks to meditate on. The gold leaf still glows after 600 years