Diego Velazquez's canvas plunges us into the practices and traditions of the Hapsburgs of Spain. The work is a recursive reflection of reality: between model, viewer and artist, we no longer know who is looking at who.

When Georges Seurat painted his canvass, he understood that his current era was turning towards a fascinating and ruthless religion: progress. He was determined that art should not remain left out of these drastic changes.

Gustave Courbet's work is politically involved and provocative. It reveals his support for revolutionary movements, and condemns Napoleon III's authoritarian regime.

'A Colourful Life' contains all the elements that were to accompany the painter in the greatest revolution in the history of art: the leap into abstraction.

Sandro Botticelli painted the majestic Allegory of Spring (circa 1482). This hymn to beauty celebrates a prince who chose to unite art and science to raise his city above all others.

This work is full of allusions to the interplay between knowledge and mystery, science and religion, the familiar and the unknown, the inward and the outward looking.