77 Paintings That Feel Way Ahead Of Their Time, As Shared By Art Lovers Online

I’m obsessed with this painting I saw at a gallery in Hull, UK.

They were attached to the mummies of the people depicted. EDIT: What I like best is that these weren't post-death portraits; many of the mummies died in old age, and the portraits are all of younger people. These were likely the family portraits they had when younger, like for marriage / a special ceremony. I like that these were how people chose to remember them and grieve. Maybe these portraits being entombed with their subjects was part of that process.

This was made in 1955! A lot of his work looks like early computer graphics, like this one does.

She looks like she just came back from the gym.

I always think Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations look so 1920s and art deco and they're about 60 years older than that.

1st century CE. The very first time I saw this fresco from Pompeii in a book when I was a kid, three main things impressed me: 1- there were realistic paintings in the remote time when "Jesus was on earth", 2- there were still life paintings in that time, and 3- there were glass utensils, and they were represented in art! Plus, the colours and composition looked quite modern to my child eyes. Something similar to Cezanne, but even in his famous paintings combining peaches + pitchers, the pitchers used to be depicted as clay jars (something we used to associate more with Christ period).

This post got me looking into other studies done by Rubens, and several of them look like modern everyday people. For example, this man just looks like some guy trying not to fall asleep while waiting for his number to be called at the DMV.

I don't know much about art history, but this one always struck me as too modern (Parmigianino's "Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror").

"Portrait of Bianca degli Utili Maselli and Her Children" by Lavinia Fontana, circa 1604-5. It looks like a modern-day children’s book cover or illustration to me; kinda Brett Helquist-y

I find that a lot of Henry Ossawa Tanner's works read like this to me (here 'The Annunciation' (1898) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art). His religious scenes often depict non-traditional relationships between the human and divine. In 'The Annunciation,' Gabriel is a bolt of light rather than a fully formed angel. His 'Mary' and 'La Sainte Marie' also seem very modern. As a Philadelphian, it always makes me proud to think of Tanner and see his works in collections worldwide. Unfortunately, he left Philly for Paris due to antebellum racism, but became the first black artist to medal at the Salon and was elected Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1923!

Anguissola’s sibling painting. Late 16th century. Besides their clothes, this looks so contemporary, and I don’t really know why.