Every era has painters whose names outlive their canvases. From Leonardo da Vinci’s Renaissance breakthroughs to Van Gogh’s swirling skies, the most famous painters in art history changed how we see color, light, and the human face.
This guide walks through nine of them, and shows how the masterpieces they left behind live on as paint by numbers kits you can finish with your own hands.
1. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), the Renaissance Polymath
Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, scientist, inventor, and engineer in one person. Born in Vinci, Italy, he filled notebooks with anatomy studies, flying machines, and observations of nature that were centuries ahead of their time.
His painting technique, built on soft transitions of light and shadow, gave faces a depth no one had achieved before.
The Mona Lisa carries that legacy in a single portrait. Her quiet smile and the hazy landscape behind her have made this the most recognized painting on earth.
The Last Supper shows the same mind at work, using perspective to pull viewers into the scene.
Recreating the Mona Lisa sounds like a museum project, but our Mona Lisa paint by numbers kit breaks it into numbered sections anyone can follow.
For a lighter take on the same subject, the Mona Lisa With a Cat kit adds a playful twist to the classic portrait.
2. Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), the Starry Night Dreamer
Van Gogh painted with emotion on the surface of every canvas. His bold colors and swirling brushstrokes turned Starry Night, Sunflowers, and The Bedroom into visual records of how he felt, not just what he saw.
He sold almost nothing during his lifetime and struggled with severe mental illness, yet he kept painting until the end.
His love of Japanese woodblock prints shaped his compositions, and the connection between European painting and Japanese art runs both ways.
Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created decades before Van Gogh’s career, influenced the very artists Van Gogh admired.
Starry Night is the best-selling design in our Famous Art collection for a reason. The Van Gogh The Starry Night kit captures its deep blues and golden swirls section by section.
If you prefer the man himself as a subject, the Van Gogh kit paints the artist at work in his signature style, and the Great Wave off Kanagawa kit brings Hokusai’s famous wave into the same collection.
3. Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), the Cubist Visionary
Picasso rebuilt painting from the ground up. With Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in 1907 he abandoned centuries of natural perspective, and with Guernica in 1937 he created one of the most powerful anti-war images ever painted.
Fragmented faces, flattened space, and stark palettes became his signature.
His personal life drew sharp criticism, and his treatment of the women around him has been documented and condemned. His art, separate from the man, reshaped modern painting completely.
Picasso’s spirit lives on in our Famous Abstract Artwork kit, a bold composition of shapes and color that captures the freedom of modern art without needing to copy a specific canvas.
4. Claude Monet (1840-1926), the Impressionist Maestro
Monet taught the world to paint light. Instead of smooth, finished surfaces, he used loose brushstrokes to capture the same scene at different times of day.
Water Lilies, Haystacks, and Rouen Cathedral are all series paintings, each version recording a different hour and atmosphere.
He spent his final decades in the gardens at Giverny, painting the pond, the bridge, and the water lilies he planted there. His work gave Impressionism its name and its direction.
The Painting Inspired by Van Gogh and Monet kit pairs the two masters’ approaches in one canvas.
For a wider selection of soft landscapes, the Scenery & Landscapes collection carries the same love of open air and changing light that drove Monet’s brush.
5. Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), the Master of Light and Shadow
Rembrandt used darkness to make light visible. His portraits and biblical scenes are built on dramatic contrasts that give every face a human weight, and The Night Watch shows a whole group of figures alive with motion and expression.
His self-portraits, painted across decades, track the passage of time in one man’s face with an honesty few artists have matched. He is often called the greatest portraitist in Western art.
Portrait lovers will find plenty of room to explore in the Famous Art collection, where classic compositions are translated into paint by numbers form.
6. Diego Velázquez (1599-1660), the Court Painter
Velázquez rose to become the leading painter of the Spanish court under King Philip IV.
His masterpiece Las Meninas, painted in 1656, folds the artist himself, a princess, her attendants, and a mirror reflection of the royal couple into a single composition. It remains one of the most discussed paintings in Western art.
His influence passed directly to later masters, including Goya, Manet, and Picasso, each of whom studied his handling of space and light. The Famous Art collection holds the door open to that same tradition.
7. Francisco Goya (1746-1828), the Chronicler of Human Struggles
Goya started as a court painter and ended as a witness to the dark side of his century.
The Third of May 1808 shows an execution with brutal clarity, and the Black Paintings, created in his final years, explore fear, madness, and despair with an honesty that shocked his contemporaries.
His work bridges the old masters and modern art, and his unflinching eye influenced generations of painters after him.
8. Henri Matisse (1869-1954), the Colorful Visionary
Matisse believed color could carry emotion by itself. As the leader of Fauvism he shocked critics with clashing, unapologetically bright palettes.
The Dance and The Red Studio radiate movement and joy, and his later cut-outs, made from painted paper while he was confined to bed, proved that creativity adapts to any limitation.
His story is one of resilience: a lawyer who found painting while recovering from illness, then reinvented his practice again in old age. The Abstract & Spirituality collection carries that fearless use of color into paint by numbers form.
9. William Morris (1834-1896), the Artist and Craftsman
Morris fought for the value of handmade things in an industrial age. Through the Arts and Crafts Movement he championed craft, pattern, and the idea that beauty belongs in everyday life.
His wallpaper and textile designs, including the iconic Strawberry Thief, remain beloved today.
His philosophy, that anyone should be able to make beautiful objects, is the same spirit behind paint by numbers. Our Custom Paint by Numbers Kits turn your own photo into a numbered canvas, so the hand that makes the art is yours.
The Legacy of the Masters
From da Vinci’s anatomy studies to Van Gogh’s emotional skies, from Picasso’s shattered perspectives to Monet’s shifting light, these painters pushed art forward by breaking its rules.
They were human, with flaws and struggles, and their masterpieces still hang in museums as proof of what persistence can build.
Their work no longer lives only in museums. The Famous Art collection turns their greatest hits into kits that fit on a kitchen table, and the Best Sellers page shows which masterpieces other painters have finished first.
You do not need an art degree to leave your own brushstrokes on a canvas. The masters left their mark, and so can you.
