Guided painting stories
Everyday A Painting is an iPhone app for discovering one painting a day. Its guided Stories connect each explanation to a detail in the artwork. Complete a Story to add the painting to your personal collection.
Explore the free painting stories below. The app requires a subscription, with a trial for eligible new subscribers. Learn how the app works.
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Stańczyk
Jan Matejko · 1862
Look first at his face. Stańczyk wears a court jester's costume, but his expression is serious. People in the royal palace expect laughter; he responds with silence, suspicion, and grief while a celebration continues behind him.
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The Last Supper
Leonardo da Vinci · 1495–1498
One sentence, and twelve people go in different directions.
The Last Day of Pompeii
Karl Bryullov · 1833
A city dying under a red sky, painted at operatic scale.
The Swing
Jean-Honoré Fragonard · 1767
A garden, a shoe in mid-air, and Rococo's most knowing joke.
The Nightmare
Henry Fuseli · 1781
The painting that gave the bad dream its face.
The Fallen Angel
Alexandre Cabanel · 1847
Cabanel shows the fallen Satan hiding his shame while the angels he has lost rise behind him.
Anguish
August Friedrich Albrecht Schenck · 1878
A ewe guards her dead lamb as waiting crows turn animal grief into a public tragedy.
The Reluctant Bride
Auguste Toulmouche · 1866
A bride sits in a richly furnished room while her companions gather around her. Her direct, unsmiling stare interrupts the preparations.
The Meeting on the Turret Stairs
Frederic William Burton · 1864
Two lovers meet on a narrow stair. Hildebrand kisses Hellelil’s sleeve, while her turned body gives their embrace the tension of a farewell.
Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan
Ilya Repin · 1885
Repin traps father and son inside the instant when violence becomes irreversible remorse.
The Execution of Lady Jane Grey
Paul Delaroche · 1833
Blindfolded Lady Jane Grey kneels in a bright white dress and reaches for the execution block. Her searching hands give the large scene an intimate point of attention.
The Desperate Man
Gustave Courbet · c. 1844-1845
Courbet looks directly at us with wide eyes and both hands raised into his hair. The close crop makes the expression difficult to avoid.
The Ambassadors
Hans Holbein the Younger · 1533
Holbein hides mortality inside a dazzling portrait of diplomacy, instruments, books, and worldly knowledge.
Self-Portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle
Arnold Böcklin · 1872
Death leans over Böcklin's shoulder and plays the fiddle while the artist listens with palette and brush in hand.
The Wounded Angel
Hugo Simberg · 1903
Simberg places a bandaged, wounded angel on a stretcher between two solemn boys.
The Accolade
Edmund Blair Leighton · 1901
A woman touches a kneeling knight’s shoulder with a sword. Leighton gives a brief ceremonial gesture the stillness of a carefully arranged tableau.
American Gothic
Grant Wood · 1930
Two figures stand before a white house, their serious expressions framed by crisp lines. Grant Wood makes a quiet pose carry an unusual sense of formality.
Las Meninas
Diego Velázquez · 1656
Velázquez builds a royal portrait around the question of who is looking at whom.
Ophelia
John Everett Millais · 1851-2
Millais surrounds the drowning Ophelia with a riverbank whose intricate beauty sharpens the tragedy.
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Everyday A Painting reveals one painting every day on iPhone — uncover it with a touch, watch its story unfold, and build a personal gallery over time.