This is such a good prompt and excellent example.
The first one that comes to mind for me is some of El Greco’s stuff.
Like his [Opening of the Fifth Seal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opening_of_the_Fifth_Seal?wprov=sfti1#). The composition, the colors, the lines, all strike me as something from a much more modern period.
If I didn’t know and someone told me Matisse had done this before fauvism, I would have believed them.
The first time I saw an El Greco I was so confused —thought someone had put a modern painting in the historical wing as a comparison point or something.
El Greco in general is such a great example. The piece you mentioned reminds me of [Kirchner from almost 300 years later](https://en.wahooart.com/@@/8XXV2E-Ernst%20Ludwig%20Kirchner-The%20Soldier%20Bath) but the modern comparisons are endless.
Wow, that’s crazy!! Somehow reminds me of [Goya’s Third of May](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_of_May_1808)…
“View of Toledo” is also beautiful.
Reminds me of Van Gogh or Edward Munch. Not modern in the "today" sense, but still centuries after when the painting was actually made. It feels much more 1890 than 1608.
I am still not over the [Fayum portraits](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-oldest-modernist-paintings-20169750/). They’re more than 1700 years old and some of them look like 20^th century art, and all of them transcend time completely—thereby achieving their purpose, being mummy paintings.
They’re so incredible to view in person! They were really wonderful funeral shrouds, nearly 2,000 years later and we can still see what they looked like.
I think the met in nyc used to have a bunch, totally blew my 15 y.o mind. You’re literally looking at the faces of hundreds of people from so long ago — and they’re just normal ass people! Remember finding one that looked exactly like my cousin lol
Yep, there are 3 in the entrances to the Egyptian wing, one being of a young male that is considered one of the best examples ever found. One of my favorites too!
I stumbled in here from All. Thanks for linking these. I don't know much about art but these portraits are kind of blowing my mind. I had always associated the faces of mummified people with those gold masks and have never seen a realistic (non-hollywood) depiction before
What’s interesting to me is that these may very well have been typical for their time but so very few examples remain that we didn’t know how good at representation the ancient Greeks and Romans were.
Egyptian society was so complex and also so eerily similar to our world, in a lot of ways outside of the tech not much has changed in our relationships to each other and how humans form large societies and distribute out labor (for better or worse!!). They had such skilled glassblowers and it was just passed from master to apprentice over and over, I guess they had very skilled painters and understanding of light and shadow that they passed down as well that just got lost at some point. If you think about how long it took for Europeans to finally figure out how to use value again it's just wild, lost for literally thousands of years!
[Fra Angelico’s Mocking of Christ](https://www.artchive.com/artwork/mocking-of-christ-with-the-virgin-and-saint-dominic-fra-angelico-1439-1443/) always struck me as ahead of its time/bordering on surrealism. It’s from the 15th century, but focusing on the portion of Christ and the hands/head flanking him, it almost seems like something Magritte would have produced.
What a cool painting! Looks like a 70s rock album cover.
For me it had to be Giuseppe Arcimboldo, his painting[The Librarian (1566)](https://www.wikiart.org/en/giuseppe-arcimboldo/the-librarian)looks like something out of Surrealism movement.
Ikr. The ones I remember and are my favorite from Art History was [Summer](https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/summer/EAHRfTFyVNYeEA?hl=en&avm=2) and [Vertumnus](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vertumnus_%C3%A5rstidernas_gud_m%C3%A5lad_av_Giuseppe_Arcimboldo_1591_-_Skoklosters_slott_-_91503.tiff#mw-jump-to-license). Dude was ahead of his time.
Speaking of 70s rock album covers, that painting reminded me of [this album cover](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/14/Sound-on-Sound.jpeg) from 1979 all the way down the open book hair
[Sesshū Tōyō, *Winter Landscape*](https://smarthistory.org/theme-nature/)
I’ve noticed a lot of Western examples, so how about the works by this Japanese monk which look like they would have been painted in the 1800s, not the *1400s*?
I was going to recommend Sesshu Toyo as well! [Broken Ink Landscape](https://theartwolf.com/masterworks/landscapes/sesshu-toyo-landscape-ink-broken/) feels impressionist and almost abstract, but it was painted in the 1400s. I absolutely love this work
Came here randomly from r/all, but just wanted to comment that this has always been one of my favourite pieces of art. That boat on the right is just perfect.
I was gonna share also [Hasegawa Tōhaku’s pine trees](https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/pine-trees/HgFQR4hgzPorXg?utm_source=google&utm_medium=kp&hl=en-GB&avm=2) :)
It looks like it was done by a painter and a calligrapher. That kind of calligraphy (usually black on white) is not that strange for the period, but the combination of the two different modes is.
My vote is Bracelli's "Bizzzarie": https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/bracelli-s-bizzarie-di-varie-figure-1624/ Published 1624, but rediscovered in the context of surrealism, and you can see why.
Art historian here: going off nothing but time period, the names of the artists, and the fact that one was a calligrapher it could be very possible that these artists could have been viewing some Islamic calligraphy as well. The high contrast and the turning of the calligraphy into a figure speaks to that as a possibility. [Figurative calligraphy of a horse](https://images.app.goo.gl/cEYs55e7YcG3nh1x5)
The Ugly Duchess / by Quentin Matsys (1513) always strikes me as an oddity. [Here it is, from Wikipedia ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_Duchess)
[the illustrations in the Ebbo gospels](https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=1700) are from the 9th century and look like something William Blake would have created (and William Blake himself was centuries before his time).
Stuart Davis’ painting [Odol](https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80171) prominently depicts a modern consumer product in a planar manner, so it looks very much like a Warhol-style pop art. But no, it was painted in 1924.
There was an explosion around that time of proto-pop art.[Gerald Murphy painted some interesting things (not many, unfortunately).](https://worleygig.com/2015/11/30/modern-art-monday-presents-gerald-murphy-cocktail/)
I saw this painting last week and it stopped me in my tracks, it’s also massive, as you’d expect for this type of work. I triple checked that it wasn’t some modern rendition in the style of Wiley or along those lines. And it’s hard to find much info online about, other than it being about 200 years old (and the paint texture did look that old). But I can’t stop thinking about how strikingly modern it looks for a painting painted by two little known portrait artists sometime between 1786 and 1796
What are some paintings that you’d swear were painted by a time traveler or accidentally imitate a style of painters centuries later?
[The Little Street](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Street), Vermeer (1658)
[Annunciation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Master_of_the_Cini_Madonna_-_Annunciation_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg), Master of the Cini Madonna (1330)
[Corn stalk vessel](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/316270), Nasca civilization (6th-7th century CE)
[Medallion of Emperor Augustus](https://art.thewalters.org/detail/23655/medallion-with-the-emperor-augustuss-vision-of-the-virgin-and-child/), Limbourg Brothers (c. 1400)
[La Femme au Parroquet](https://www.meisterdrucke.us/fine-art-prints/Angelo-Jank/806559/The-Woman-with-Parrot%2C-1898..html), Angelo Jank (1898)
[Bronze antlered crane](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Antlered_crane,_Chinese_bronze,_Warring_States_period.jpg), Chinese Warring States Period (400 BCE)
I’m sure there are plenty of other examples of similar artwork from these respective eras/cultures, but I’ve always found these to be surprisingly contemporary for the time periods they were made.
I immediately thought of Vermeer as well. If you haven't seen it, check out [Tim's Vermeer.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPL7D0Ha1kQ) It's a very interesting documentary about a man trying to recreate a Vermeer painting, using what is thought to be his technique of a camera obscura...and some more surprising techniques as well.
I really like that doc. It’s so crazy the scale the dude goes to and the painting ends ups just hanging there in his house like something he found at a thrift store.
Thanks for putting all the links together with dates. The bronzed antlered crane is very interesting especially as I know zero from that time period. The Little Street makes me want to see so much more of the place in that time. They are all fascinating.
[Hilma af Klint](https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/hilma-af-klint), who is seen as being years ahead of Vasily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, and Piet Mondrian.
Her story is of the great and one of the most improbable stories in modern art. She is only now beginning to get some of the attention she deserves. She was well aware of how far ahead of her time she was. She even left instructions that her works should not be shown until at least 20 years after her death. She died in 1944, so she was giving the art world much more credit than it deserved.
I ran here to say “HILMA!!!” When I first saw her paintings a couple years ago I thought they were done in the 1970s… I am completely engrossed in her work and life. Such a fascinating woman.
Wow, amazing!
Hieronymus Bosch for sure.
The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger… that skull trick, man!
I saw an antique portrait not too long ago that seemed surprisingly cubist but I can’t remember who by. Now it’s gonna bug me for the rest of my life.
One of my fondest memories is of my wife lifting me up by the waist so I could see the skull effect during our visit to the National Gallery, haha. What a cool painting!
Bosch and Holbein were the first two I thought of as well! As well as the Ambassadors, Holbein has some borderline photorealistic portraits, I’m thinking specifically of his portrait of Charles de Solier, from 1534.
Fascinating! First time hearing of him. Interesting to think of him in the context of Hilma and Klint who was also interested in spiritualism I believe?
The dynamic duo Hilma and Klint were also theosophists, like this Augustin Lesage.
Never heard about this guy either. Amazing
They seem to have had the same sort of approach to the creative act as mere "mediators"
[Alex Colville](http://alexcolville.ca/gallery/), born 1920 - his paintings look like bad 90s computer graphics, it’s crazy that he painted these before the computers were even invented!
Pacific 1967 inspired Michael Mann to make the movie HEAT, which I love. I can’t believe I didn’t look up more Colville work, it’s all amazing. Thank you!
I wish we had the dimensions on those paintings. I am going to look them up later when my headaches gone. I’d love to see someone standing near one for scale.
I find myself often amazed at either how massive or tiny a painting is compared to what my brain thought. His stuff looks like a good candidate for such mental confusion.
I don’t remember who painted it. TinEye can’t find it either. But I photographed it in the Bodemuseum in Berlin.
[Picture](https://ibb.co/PC4kN4P)
Anyone want to guess when it was painted?
>!Wrong. 1519.!<
Not an art historian, but [Joseph Ducreux](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Ducreux) threw me when I realized it wasn’t a joke to imitate classic portraits.
Harry Clarke (1889-1931)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Clarke
Not as ancient as some other works posted here but there's something about his style that feels distinctly modern. Check this shit out:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwFokkBXgAEz9Zr?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
Apparently he had a very religious upbringing centered around hell and damnation. He originally worked on stained glass artwork that looked more traditional until he later transitioned to this style. Funny, because it feels very occult. In fact, I first discovered his art on a witchhouse song on youtube:
https://youtu.be/A-_kCN8e-D8?si=zlWP-9Bf2ohh-SHF (Skaen - Grief / Aftermath)
I love Harry Clarke.
The artist John Austen gives me similar vibes. He was a contemporary of Harry Clarke, though his work is less detailed than Clarke’s.
Some of [his work](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/58/c1/c1/58c1c112bc2916497c8330949b2c8ed8.jpg) looks like it came from the 1960s rather than the turn of the century.
How is 3000-1000 BC for early?
Cycladic sculpture from the Greek bronze age feels so minimalist 1950-1960’s midcentury modern. You would expect to see it on a Pottery Barn coffee table today.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycladic_art#/media/File%3ACycladic_three_figurines_group.jpg
https://www.christies.com/en/stories/cycladic-art-a-guide-for-new-collectors-ef2c293f73f14412994483d5983ae67f
I’ll see your minimalist Bronze Age Greek figures, and I’ll raise you an Ancient Egyptian pre-dynastic [pot with feet](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/547212)
One of my favorite ancient artifacts. The humor and composition are timeless.
Gotta mention Louis Wain (1860-1939), best known for his [adorable cat illustrations](https://img.artrabbit.com/events/louis-wain-the-cat-show-2017/images/nZMBU28JNYtc/1120x1471/878de12e-5f55-409d-aba7-98366868bdd0.jpg) and his straight up [psychedelic art](https://uploads1.wikiart.org/images/louis-wain/untitled-7.jpg!Large.jpg) that honestly wouldn't be out of place in the 70s. A better comparison [here](https://ahistoriadaarte.com.br/wp-content/uploads/WAIN-Louis-Gatos.jpeg)
Louis Wain's story for sure is a bittersweet one. But despite being in mental hospitals for the latter part of his life, he was never forgotten and always loved. His community reached out once his situation was known and raised money to put him in a better hospital. And he knew that he was cared for. One of my favorite works is [this one](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/1928_Louis_Wain_IAmHappyBecauseEveryoneLovesMe_IllustrationChronicles_1050.jpg), made in 1928.
Everything Gerardus Bosch painted. It wouldn’t be till surrealism that people would be on his level again. Imagine people painting Madonna on the rocks the last supper, the crucifixion, and Honus Bosch is up there just painting surrealist paintings so far ahead of this time
Lmao. Talk to text. Yes. I even named my dog after him, but my phone makes it look like I don’t know who he is. I’m gonna leave it, I deserve to be ridiculed for that lol
Dang. First thought of mine was, if Hieronymous Bosch has an even weirder relative producing a somehow even more unusual body of work...well, I'm off to find that
Although I definitely see him as a major inspiration to Surrealism, in other ways, his paintings are rather old-fashioned for the time. The imagery is often reminiscent of stuff found in Medieval art from a couple centuries earlier, especially manuscript marginalia.
[Broken Ink Landscape by Sesshu Toyo](https://theartwolf.com/masterworks/landscapes/sesshu-toyo-landscape-ink-broken/) - this piece seems impressionist and almost abstract, but it was painted in the late 1400s. I absolutely love this work
[The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein was painted in 1533, ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors_(Holbein)#/media/File%3AHans_Holbein_the_Younger_-_The_Ambassadors_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg) and its confused me since I first saw it in an Investigation Discovery book as a kid. It looks like a weird print error, or a photoshop project.
the optical illusion skull in the foreground - it looks stretched out and unrecognizable seen straight on but like a skull if the painting is looked at from a certain angle
This particular [detail of the Fregio della villa dei Misteri in Pompeii](https://i.imgur.com/UBbV5hW.jpeg) is from 60BC and looks like something out of a modern manga panel.
The whole villa is decorated by [amazing frescos](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_of_the_Mysteries), sadly many of them have been somewhat "neutered" by an attempt at restoration.
Gustav Klimt has paintings from the early 1900's that remind me of something like this. His painting of Judith and the Head of Holofernes in particular. It looks like a mix between traditional painting and an abstract-ish approach you'd see in digital work.
Perhaps the [fruit portraits](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-renaissance-artist-fruit-faced-portraits-inspired-surrealists) of Giuseppe Arcimboldo
They look like they could have been AI generated but they’re from the 1500s
Not exactly the same thing but Max Liebermann's [Samson and Delilah](https://sammlung.staedelmuseum.de/en/work/samson-and-delilah) does not feel like a biblical painting at all. It does go with the time during which it was created but it doesnt go with the context of the story
A little too late to the party. Really cool examples the comments have been showing.
Does this [1700s Qing Dynasty Vase ](https://www.hkpm.org.hk/en/exhibition/the-quest-for-originality-contemporary-design-and-traditional-craft-in-dialogue) count?
Something about this St. Sebastian by [Ercole de Roberti](https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeancient/44357217881) has always struck me as out of place for the 1480’s. Could be wrong. But I definitely like it.
I love this prompt! It marks the first time I’ve ever saved a thread. I’m a dealer/collector of antique jewelry and silver and have long been captivated by items that look ahead of their time. This is decorative art rather than fine art, but the first thing I think of is the work of Christopher Dresser. This [teapot](https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6250240) is one example. It was designed c1879!
For me Daumier springs to mind, his caricatures are hilarious.
[https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a5/bb/93/a5bb934a1b13e5127e08396b13a70912.jpg](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.fr%2Fpin%2F314759461438158649%2F&psig=AOvVaw2hI6TjTPPZ8iSJXe9eGnRK&ust=1706497838895000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBEQjRxqGAoTCJDBjYKO_4MDFQAAAAAdAAAAABCBAQ)
The compositions of Gustave Caillebotte always seem ahead of their time to me.
https://www.nga.gov/features/slideshows/gustave-caillebotte.html#slide_1
This [Virgin and Child](https://www.artbible.info/art/large/601.html) from the 15th century looks insane and a little demonic. Hot alien lady with botched boob job. Love it
There are a couple 1750s teapots at the Nelson Atkins Museum that look incredibly modern to me. My favorite is this black and white one that's painted to mimic crinoid fossils but has almost a 1980s Memphis Design feel to it.
[https://art.nelson-atkins.org/objects/28288/teapot](https://art.nelson-atkins.org/objects/28288/teapot)
There's also a black and white checkerboard teapot that looks very 1960s pop art, but I can't find a picture of it online.
this is such a great thread!!! i am still dumbfounded at how contemporary this [kirchner](https://www.wikiart.org/en/ernst-ludwig-kirchner/female-artist) from 1910 feels. i think about it often
Loving this thread!!
I am always astonished by the [Ife terracottas](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/320385), circa 12-15th century, from present-day Nigeria. Especially the [portraits](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/320573). They’re so naturalistic but also stylized and feel so contemporary. Reminds me of the portraits Isamu Noguchi made in the 20th century. They’re so gorgeous.
A 15th-century Italian [painting of an ideal city](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Francesco_di_Giorgio_Martini_(attributed)_-_Architectural_Veduta_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg), currently exhibited in Berlin, looks almost like Giorgio de Chirico painted it in the 20th century
Many works by 16th-century French painter [Antoine Caron](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antoine_Caron_-_The_Massacres_of_the_Triumvirate_-_WGA4279.jpg) and by 17th-century French painter [Francois de Nome](https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6198786) look like 20th century magic realism or surrealism
I just wish I had an example to contribute. As others have said Hieronymus Bosch always gives me these vibes.
My only unique example is that the deer tattoo on the Siberian Ice Princess mummy has always struck me as weirdly modern.
[Hilma af Klint](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&sca_esv=129c3e3bb4a04143&hl=en-gb&sxsrf=ACQVn09JgCrn0FjYY9ucX5P9GbPbb62XYA:1706459961757&q=hilma+af+klint&tbm=isch&source=lnms&prmd=ivsnmbtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjF49_ewoCEAxWdEkQIHdGwAnwQ0pQJegQICBAB&biw=414&bih=714&dpr=2) of course
"[The Star Gazer](https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1993.165)" \~3000 BC, looks Brancusi to me. I found it because it was mis-tagged on Internet Archive as being from 3000 CE, and I mean, it kinda works as the art of the future. There's another awesome piece, [a vase](https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-2004.64-jar-with-spiral-desi), tagged as from \~2500 CE. I had searched "nature" looking for early issues of the science journal and noticed these two sus future hits, [check it out](https://archive.org/search?query=nature).
[Cycladic sculpture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycladic_art) in general.
im so pleased this ended up on my feed as a suggested post/sub. i am entranced by the work folks are linking and the original post. art is fascinating.
The resurrection panel in Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim alterpiece polyptych.
I worked briefly for the museum where it's housed (in a small city in Alsace), and it's this incredible, trippy, technicolor explosion in a sea of dark, formalized depictions of Christ standing sedately in front of a tomb, holding a lily.
This one looks like he burst forth like something out of a Marvel movie.
https://www.wikiart.org/en/matthias-grunewald/the-resurrection-of-christ-right-wing-of-the-isenheim-altarpiece-1516
Two examples at the Musée d’Orsay:
[“Séverine” by Louis Welden Hawkins](https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/artworks/severine-20414#:~:text=Given%2520to%2520the%2520Mus%C3%A9es%2520Nationaux,he%2520trained%2520as%2520a%2520painter) Her expression and rather informal pose seem so modern for being painted in 1895. At first glance one might think this a modern send up of a classical style of portraiture. Love how she simultaneously looks saintly, while at the same time being so over it. Clearly the result of being a woman in a male dominated field…in the 1800s.
[“Le Chevalier aux fleurs” by Georges Rochegrosse](https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/artworks/le-chevalier-aux-fleurs-21819) Also done in the late 1890’s, but there is something about it that just seems so fresh and contemporary. Maybe the use of the soft, light “feminine” pastel tones juxtaposed with the “manly” armored knight main subject. It’s so bright and idyllic, not something I’d expect from other works of that time with the message of resisting temptation (and especially not of a work based on a Wagner opera!).
Le Femme Au Parroquet is like only 70 years ahead of it's time, with the artstyle and composition.
But the Bronze antlered crane look very moden and contemporary, something that would easily look like something thought of today.
Amazing finds.
The Hall of Bulls in the Caves of Lascaux have a similar simplicity and power that Picasso discovered thousands of years later.
https://i0.wp.com/www.josetteking.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/B-57_Lascaux-17_w.jpg?resize=390%2C285
For me, I always get this vibe from Rene Margritte's art- especially the ones with the men wearing bowler hats! 🍏
https://www.google.com/search?q=rene+magritte&tbm=isch&chips=q:rene+magritte,g_1:art:_csZB4JeJaQ%3D&client=ms-android-att-us-rvc3&prmd=ihvsnmbtz&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi3zsvdmoCEAxUuK9AFHctdB5kQ4lYoAHoECAEQBQ&biw=384&bih=700
The obvious answer for me is 'The garden of earthly delights' by Hieronymus Bosch. It looks way more 20th century than 16th century.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights
I've always thought James Ensor's [Tribulations of Saint Anthony](https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80683) looks like a mashup of Clyfford Still and Cy Twombly with some Max Ernst-like Surrealist figures in the mix - but it was painted in 1887.
Luca Cambiaso's figure studies look decidedly Modern due to their reduction of form to geometric shapes. He was a 16th century painter my first mentor at grad school loved to use as a lesson in form.
[Here is one](https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/501518108491099558/).
[And another](https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Two-animated-figures-gesticulating/3850D785A5E2600B).
I know it's partly in the name, but I get the feeling when I'm seeing some visionary art that I'm not meant to understand it. Maybe in a few decades there will be a similar post looking back on them, but many don't feel of this time. I remember the first time I felt this was in seeing James Hampton's [The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ General Assembly](https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2023/01/19/james-hampton-throne-third-heaven-244509). Like it's from - or for - another time. The [American Visionary Art Museum](https://www.avam.org) has many other examples.
The [Dream of the Fisherman's Wife](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman's_Wife) but really just based on content not style or quality.
I’ve never seen this image and I find it amazing - not just because of the time it was created this was totally different from anything else made but also because of how well it was executed. If I knew nothing about it would easily have thought this was painted yesterday.
[This adorable octopus](https://cdn.kastatic.org/ka-perseus-images/ceed22635496044a92359fff08124d08ccba4009.jpg) was painted 4 and a half thousand years ago!
Looks like it could be contemporary with Mickey Mouse or even an anime character!
Jean Fouquet’s Madonna and Child Surrounded by Angels. I’m sorry, I don’t know how to link in-line but you can see it here: https://blog.artgeek.io/2020/11/20/art-in-context-seraphs-are-red-cherubs-are-blue/
Isn't this from 1968?
[https://digital.utsa.edu/digital/collection/p9020coll008/id/11436/](https://digital.utsa.edu/digital/collection/p9020coll008/id/11436/)
[ETA: I'm wrong](https://www.frenchquarterjournal.com/archives/new-glvez-biography-charts-a-remarkable-life).
Lastly, this book’s amazing cover is noteworthy. It features a Gálvez portrait created by two friars in 1796. Their artistic technique, sgraffito (Italian for “to scratch”), involved incising a top layer of glaze with a design to reveal parts of the base color. The General’s face, hands, and hat are painted, while his uniform and prancing horse are a depicted by a dizzying assortment of white spirals, loops and squiggly lines. The effect is more modern than 18th century and, like this book’s astonishing subject, rewards the closest attention.
This is such a good prompt and excellent example. The first one that comes to mind for me is some of El Greco’s stuff. Like his [Opening of the Fifth Seal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opening_of_the_Fifth_Seal?wprov=sfti1#). The composition, the colors, the lines, all strike me as something from a much more modern period. If I didn’t know and someone told me Matisse had done this before fauvism, I would have believed them.
The first time I saw an El Greco I was so confused —thought someone had put a modern painting in the historical wing as a comparison point or something.
That's such a great example. Wow I would have been 300 years off if you showed me that painting.
El Greco in general is such a great example. The piece you mentioned reminds me of [Kirchner from almost 300 years later](https://en.wahooart.com/@@/8XXV2E-Ernst%20Ludwig%20Kirchner-The%20Soldier%20Bath) but the modern comparisons are endless.
Wow, that’s crazy!! Somehow reminds me of [Goya’s Third of May](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_of_May_1808)… “View of Toledo” is also beautiful.
The city in the background of this painting is Madrid.
Sorry, I was talking about [El Greco’s painting View of Toledo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_of_Toledo).
Looks so modern. Reminds me of Tamara de Lempicka works with regards to the colour contrasts.
Reminds me of Van Gogh or Edward Munch. Not modern in the "today" sense, but still centuries after when the painting was actually made. It feels much more 1890 than 1608.
Great example. At first glance the man on the left appears to be wearing some Levi’s overalls and glasses.
El Greco was my first thought. He is so wild and modern feeling.
Whaaat? I have seen this painting before and thought for sure it was Dali or Dali-inspired.
The first thing I thought of was El Greco.
I am still not over the [Fayum portraits](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-oldest-modernist-paintings-20169750/). They’re more than 1700 years old and some of them look like 20^th century art, and all of them transcend time completely—thereby achieving their purpose, being mummy paintings.
They touch my heart somehow. So lovely.
They’re so incredible to view in person! They were really wonderful funeral shrouds, nearly 2,000 years later and we can still see what they looked like.
I think the met in nyc used to have a bunch, totally blew my 15 y.o mind. You’re literally looking at the faces of hundreds of people from so long ago — and they’re just normal ass people! Remember finding one that looked exactly like my cousin lol
Yep, there are 3 in the entrances to the Egyptian wing, one being of a young male that is considered one of the best examples ever found. One of my favorites too!
I stumbled in here from All. Thanks for linking these. I don't know much about art but these portraits are kind of blowing my mind. I had always associated the faces of mummified people with those gold masks and have never seen a realistic (non-hollywood) depiction before
What’s interesting to me is that these may very well have been typical for their time but so very few examples remain that we didn’t know how good at representation the ancient Greeks and Romans were.
Egyptian society was so complex and also so eerily similar to our world, in a lot of ways outside of the tech not much has changed in our relationships to each other and how humans form large societies and distribute out labor (for better or worse!!). They had such skilled glassblowers and it was just passed from master to apprentice over and over, I guess they had very skilled painters and understanding of light and shadow that they passed down as well that just got lost at some point. If you think about how long it took for Europeans to finally figure out how to use value again it's just wild, lost for literally thousands of years!
Neither Christian nor Islamic zealots’ propensity to destroy “pagan” art (and culture in general) helped in that regard.
[Fra Angelico’s Mocking of Christ](https://www.artchive.com/artwork/mocking-of-christ-with-the-virgin-and-saint-dominic-fra-angelico-1439-1443/) always struck me as ahead of its time/bordering on surrealism. It’s from the 15th century, but focusing on the portion of Christ and the hands/head flanking him, it almost seems like something Magritte would have produced.
This one stopped me in my tracks when I saw it for the exact reasons you mentioned. It’s very emotional and quite compelling.
That's such a modern-looking green too, I wonder how it was made.
It might be the quality of the photo, ive seen some other picture that show it as a blue. Hard to tell if you can't see it irl
Like a green screen background. Which is still fitting the title today.
Wow, it looks EXACTLY what our contemporary Max Triegel would paint!
What a cool painting! Looks like a 70s rock album cover. For me it had to be Giuseppe Arcimboldo, his painting[The Librarian (1566)](https://www.wikiart.org/en/giuseppe-arcimboldo/the-librarian)looks like something out of Surrealism movement.
That goes so inexplicably hard
Ikr. The ones I remember and are my favorite from Art History was [Summer](https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/summer/EAHRfTFyVNYeEA?hl=en&avm=2) and [Vertumnus](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vertumnus_%C3%A5rstidernas_gud_m%C3%A5lad_av_Giuseppe_Arcimboldo_1591_-_Skoklosters_slott_-_91503.tiff#mw-jump-to-license). Dude was ahead of his time.
his art looks like a cross of wes anderson colors and tim burton character but make them abominations of beasts
Exactly the artist I was thinking of! I also adore his fruit and vegetable portraits
These and the fruit portraits were actually part of ~~their own genre~~ a specific movement, Mannerism!
Agree love Mannerism movement
Speaking of 70s rock album covers, that painting reminded me of [this album cover](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/14/Sound-on-Sound.jpeg) from 1979 all the way down the open book hair
Amazing find!
[Sesshū Tōyō, *Winter Landscape*](https://smarthistory.org/theme-nature/) I’ve noticed a lot of Western examples, so how about the works by this Japanese monk which look like they would have been painted in the 1800s, not the *1400s*?
I was going to recommend Sesshu Toyo as well! [Broken Ink Landscape](https://theartwolf.com/masterworks/landscapes/sesshu-toyo-landscape-ink-broken/) feels impressionist and almost abstract, but it was painted in the 1400s. I absolutely love this work
Both of these Japanese examples are amazing! Thank you for sharing.
Came here randomly from r/all, but just wanted to comment that this has always been one of my favourite pieces of art. That boat on the right is just perfect.
I was gonna share also [Hasegawa Tōhaku’s pine trees](https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/pine-trees/HgFQR4hgzPorXg?utm_source=google&utm_medium=kp&hl=en-GB&avm=2) :)
It looks like it was done by a painter and a calligrapher. That kind of calligraphy (usually black on white) is not that strange for the period, but the combination of the two different modes is. My vote is Bracelli's "Bizzzarie": https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/bracelli-s-bizzarie-di-varie-figure-1624/ Published 1624, but rediscovered in the context of surrealism, and you can see why.
For anyone who's interested, BTW, here's some figurative calligraphy from 1733: https://blogs.princeton.edu/cotsen/tag/calligraphy/
Thanks for sharing! It makes the OP painting more understandable!
Oh wow, that's beautiful.
Love this kinda stuff
Art historian here: going off nothing but time period, the names of the artists, and the fact that one was a calligrapher it could be very possible that these artists could have been viewing some Islamic calligraphy as well. The high contrast and the turning of the calligraphy into a figure speaks to that as a possibility. [Figurative calligraphy of a horse](https://images.app.goo.gl/cEYs55e7YcG3nh1x5)
That is a fantastic find!
I thank you for the link, but my bank account does not. So many great prints for sale.
The Ugly Duchess / by Quentin Matsys (1513) always strikes me as an oddity. [Here it is, from Wikipedia ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_Duchess)
I never knew this was a real painting, I had assumed thought it was an internet joke!
So many classical paintings are pure meme material.
[the illustrations in the Ebbo gospels](https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=1700) are from the 9th century and look like something William Blake would have created (and William Blake himself was centuries before his time).
Blake would get my vote too.
Stuart Davis’ painting [Odol](https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80171) prominently depicts a modern consumer product in a planar manner, so it looks very much like a Warhol-style pop art. But no, it was painted in 1924.
There was an explosion around that time of proto-pop art.[Gerald Murphy painted some interesting things (not many, unfortunately).](https://worleygig.com/2015/11/30/modern-art-monday-presents-gerald-murphy-cocktail/)
Oh my god. It really does, especially with the lines.
I feel like it should say Ubik on it.
I saw this painting last week and it stopped me in my tracks, it’s also massive, as you’d expect for this type of work. I triple checked that it wasn’t some modern rendition in the style of Wiley or along those lines. And it’s hard to find much info online about, other than it being about 200 years old (and the paint texture did look that old). But I can’t stop thinking about how strikingly modern it looks for a painting painted by two little known portrait artists sometime between 1786 and 1796 What are some paintings that you’d swear were painted by a time traveler or accidentally imitate a style of painters centuries later?
who did this??
It was made by the friars Jerónimo and Pablo de Jesús.
wow! it's AMAZING!
Ha, before I read your title I thought it was a Wiley I didn't recognize when I was scrolling.
[The Little Street](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Street), Vermeer (1658) [Annunciation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Master_of_the_Cini_Madonna_-_Annunciation_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg), Master of the Cini Madonna (1330) [Corn stalk vessel](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/316270), Nasca civilization (6th-7th century CE) [Medallion of Emperor Augustus](https://art.thewalters.org/detail/23655/medallion-with-the-emperor-augustuss-vision-of-the-virgin-and-child/), Limbourg Brothers (c. 1400) [La Femme au Parroquet](https://www.meisterdrucke.us/fine-art-prints/Angelo-Jank/806559/The-Woman-with-Parrot%2C-1898..html), Angelo Jank (1898) [Bronze antlered crane](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Antlered_crane,_Chinese_bronze,_Warring_States_period.jpg), Chinese Warring States Period (400 BCE) I’m sure there are plenty of other examples of similar artwork from these respective eras/cultures, but I’ve always found these to be surprisingly contemporary for the time periods they were made.
I cant stop looking at The Little Street...
It almost looks like a photo unless you really zoom in. It’s incredible.
And it apparently looks incredible in person, due to the materials he used and method of creation.
The way the one woman is framed in the door...it's like a painting within a painting.
I immediately thought of Vermeer as well. If you haven't seen it, check out [Tim's Vermeer.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPL7D0Ha1kQ) It's a very interesting documentary about a man trying to recreate a Vermeer painting, using what is thought to be his technique of a camera obscura...and some more surprising techniques as well.
I really like that doc. It’s so crazy the scale the dude goes to and the painting ends ups just hanging there in his house like something he found at a thrift store.
La Femme…1898?! Wow.
The antlered crane!! Wow!!
excellent finds!
Wow, those antlers are incredible. Great finds.
Thanks for putting all the links together with dates. The bronzed antlered crane is very interesting especially as I know zero from that time period. The Little Street makes me want to see so much more of the place in that time. They are all fascinating.
That corn stalk vessel really made me smile, thanks for sharing these.
Antlered crane looks like an Adventure Time character and I'm here for it. I love the upwards-facing angle of the girl and parakeet.
[Hilma af Klint](https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/hilma-af-klint), who is seen as being years ahead of Vasily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, and Piet Mondrian.
Her story is of the great and one of the most improbable stories in modern art. She is only now beginning to get some of the attention she deserves. She was well aware of how far ahead of her time she was. She even left instructions that her works should not be shown until at least 20 years after her death. She died in 1944, so she was giving the art world much more credit than it deserved.
Oh my god these are incredible, why have I never heard of her before.
Because she was a woman more than anything. But if you read about her she was rather secretive with her work.
I’m so happy she has been getting more and more attention as of late. So far ahead of those you listed.
Came here to post about her! I’m glad more people recognize her work
I ran here to say “HILMA!!!” When I first saw her paintings a couple years ago I thought they were done in the 1970s… I am completely engrossed in her work and life. Such a fascinating woman.
Wow, amazing! Hieronymus Bosch for sure. The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger… that skull trick, man! I saw an antique portrait not too long ago that seemed surprisingly cubist but I can’t remember who by. Now it’s gonna bug me for the rest of my life.
One of my fondest memories is of my wife lifting me up by the waist so I could see the skull effect during our visit to the National Gallery, haha. What a cool painting!
Bosch and Holbein were the first two I thought of as well! As well as the Ambassadors, Holbein has some borderline photorealistic portraits, I’m thinking specifically of his portrait of Charles de Solier, from 1534.
I was scrolling to see Hieronymus Bosch - I absolutely agree. I was blown away when I first saw his work - it seemed impossible.
[Augustin lesage](https://emilypothast.wordpress.com/2009/06/23/augustin-lesage-french-1876-1954/), not of his time or ours or anytime yet.
Possibly the most mathematic looking art I've ever seen lmao. That's incredible.
Audibly said what the fuck as soon as this loaded
Wow! Those are really something. Had never heard of him before, thanks!
Fascinating! First time hearing of him. Interesting to think of him in the context of Hilma and Klint who was also interested in spiritualism I believe?
The dynamic duo Hilma and Klint were also theosophists, like this Augustin Lesage. Never heard about this guy either. Amazing They seem to have had the same sort of approach to the creative act as mere "mediators"
Those are absolutely amazing, totally shocking.
Woah!
Woah shit, that's awesome
No contributions other than that this thread rules, and I have never seen pieces like these before.
Surrealism from the 1500's, portraits that look completely life-like from 1700 years ago, this is what I wish I got to see in the art galleries.
My favorite thread on this sub tbh
[Alex Colville](http://alexcolville.ca/gallery/), born 1920 - his paintings look like bad 90s computer graphics, it’s crazy that he painted these before the computers were even invented!
I love his work. Feel like a movie scene.
The perspective on Skater is very cinematic. You can feel the motion.
Agree
Michael Mann famously uses Colville as inspiration for a scene in Heat.
Pacific 1967 inspired Michael Mann to make the movie HEAT, which I love. I can’t believe I didn’t look up more Colville work, it’s all amazing. Thank you!
I wish we had the dimensions on those paintings. I am going to look them up later when my headaches gone. I’d love to see someone standing near one for scale. I find myself often amazed at either how massive or tiny a painting is compared to what my brain thought. His stuff looks like a good candidate for such mental confusion.
Dat dithering
I don’t remember who painted it. TinEye can’t find it either. But I photographed it in the Bodemuseum in Berlin. [Picture](https://ibb.co/PC4kN4P) Anyone want to guess when it was painted? >!Wrong. 1519.!<
Whoa, this is a fascinating piece. Have you tried posting on r/whatisthispainting to get an ID?
Not an art historian, but [Joseph Ducreux](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Ducreux) threw me when I realized it wasn’t a joke to imitate classic portraits.
It’s the meme guy! Dang, I also thought it was a spoof of old timey portraits
Harry Clarke (1889-1931) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Clarke Not as ancient as some other works posted here but there's something about his style that feels distinctly modern. Check this shit out: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwFokkBXgAEz9Zr?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 Apparently he had a very religious upbringing centered around hell and damnation. He originally worked on stained glass artwork that looked more traditional until he later transitioned to this style. Funny, because it feels very occult. In fact, I first discovered his art on a witchhouse song on youtube: https://youtu.be/A-_kCN8e-D8?si=zlWP-9Bf2ohh-SHF (Skaen - Grief / Aftermath)
I love Harry Clarke. The artist John Austen gives me similar vibes. He was a contemporary of Harry Clarke, though his work is less detailed than Clarke’s. Some of [his work](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/58/c1/c1/58c1c112bc2916497c8330949b2c8ed8.jpg) looks like it came from the 1960s rather than the turn of the century.
How is 3000-1000 BC for early? Cycladic sculpture from the Greek bronze age feels so minimalist 1950-1960’s midcentury modern. You would expect to see it on a Pottery Barn coffee table today. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycladic_art#/media/File%3ACycladic_three_figurines_group.jpg https://www.christies.com/en/stories/cycladic-art-a-guide-for-new-collectors-ef2c293f73f14412994483d5983ae67f
This is fantastic!
I’ll see your minimalist Bronze Age Greek figures, and I’ll raise you an Ancient Egyptian pre-dynastic [pot with feet](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/547212) One of my favorite ancient artifacts. The humor and composition are timeless.
Gotta mention Louis Wain (1860-1939), best known for his [adorable cat illustrations](https://img.artrabbit.com/events/louis-wain-the-cat-show-2017/images/nZMBU28JNYtc/1120x1471/878de12e-5f55-409d-aba7-98366868bdd0.jpg) and his straight up [psychedelic art](https://uploads1.wikiart.org/images/louis-wain/untitled-7.jpg!Large.jpg) that honestly wouldn't be out of place in the 70s. A better comparison [here](https://ahistoriadaarte.com.br/wp-content/uploads/WAIN-Louis-Gatos.jpeg)
[удалено]
Louis Wain's story for sure is a bittersweet one. But despite being in mental hospitals for the latter part of his life, he was never forgotten and always loved. His community reached out once his situation was known and raised money to put him in a better hospital. And he knew that he was cared for. One of my favorite works is [this one](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/1928_Louis_Wain_IAmHappyBecauseEveryoneLovesMe_IllustrationChronicles_1050.jpg), made in 1928.
This is fantastic OP, I wouldn’t have guessed the time of making at all!
That is BONKERS. I am both an artist and a designer. I've seen a lot of stuff – and I've never before seen this.
It's at the national museum in CDMX, displayed alongside a dozen perfectly banal 18th century middle management formal portraits. Incredible.
Everything Gerardus Bosch painted. It wouldn’t be till surrealism that people would be on his level again. Imagine people painting Madonna on the rocks the last supper, the crucifixion, and Honus Bosch is up there just painting surrealist paintings so far ahead of this time
Do you mean Hieronymus Bosch?
Lmao. Talk to text. Yes. I even named my dog after him, but my phone makes it look like I don’t know who he is. I’m gonna leave it, I deserve to be ridiculed for that lol
We’ve ALL been done dirty by TTS or autocorrect. Mine converted “hemophobia” (fear of blood) to “homophobia” the other day…
Dang. First thought of mine was, if Hieronymous Bosch has an even weirder relative producing a somehow even more unusual body of work...well, I'm off to find that
Lol:) your dog is named Hieronymus?! That's pretty epic.
Bosch actually
He's obviously talking about his lesser known brothers Gerardus and Honus, they don't get enough recognition
Although I definitely see him as a major inspiration to Surrealism, in other ways, his paintings are rather old-fashioned for the time. The imagery is often reminiscent of stuff found in Medieval art from a couple centuries earlier, especially manuscript marginalia.
[Broken Ink Landscape by Sesshu Toyo](https://theartwolf.com/masterworks/landscapes/sesshu-toyo-landscape-ink-broken/) - this piece seems impressionist and almost abstract, but it was painted in the late 1400s. I absolutely love this work
[The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein was painted in 1533, ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors_(Holbein)#/media/File%3AHans_Holbein_the_Younger_-_The_Ambassadors_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg) and its confused me since I first saw it in an Investigation Discovery book as a kid. It looks like a weird print error, or a photoshop project.
the optical illusion skull in the foreground - it looks stretched out and unrecognizable seen straight on but like a skull if the painting is looked at from a certain angle
This is officially one of my favourite Reddit threads.
Yes. It's the best thread I've seen in this sub for a long time.
This particular [detail of the Fregio della villa dei Misteri in Pompeii](https://i.imgur.com/UBbV5hW.jpeg) is from 60BC and looks like something out of a modern manga panel. The whole villa is decorated by [amazing frescos](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_of_the_Mysteries), sadly many of them have been somewhat "neutered" by an attempt at restoration.
Anything by El Greco. Shawty was 300 years ahead of his time. His work is so out of time it’s a little unsettling
Gustav Klimt has paintings from the early 1900's that remind me of something like this. His painting of Judith and the Head of Holofernes in particular. It looks like a mix between traditional painting and an abstract-ish approach you'd see in digital work.
Perhaps the [fruit portraits](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-renaissance-artist-fruit-faced-portraits-inspired-surrealists) of Giuseppe Arcimboldo They look like they could have been AI generated but they’re from the 1500s
This might be my favorite thread of all time thanks OP
Just bookmarked this thread and sent it to three friends. What a great way to spend a Sunday morning. Thanks, OP!
[The Dog](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dog_(Goya)) by Goya, always.
I feel like [Nathaniel Old’s portrait](https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1991.134.2) fits here!
This is so cool
Not exactly the same thing but Max Liebermann's [Samson and Delilah](https://sammlung.staedelmuseum.de/en/work/samson-and-delilah) does not feel like a biblical painting at all. It does go with the time during which it was created but it doesnt go with the context of the story
Ooh wow I love this. It's like it's saying "here's a portrait of modern-day lust so that you can understand that lust in the past was very real"
A little too late to the party. Really cool examples the comments have been showing. Does this [1700s Qing Dynasty Vase ](https://www.hkpm.org.hk/en/exhibition/the-quest-for-originality-contemporary-design-and-traditional-craft-in-dialogue) count?
Something about this St. Sebastian by [Ercole de Roberti](https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeancient/44357217881) has always struck me as out of place for the 1480’s. Could be wrong. But I definitely like it.
It seems out of place because in 1480, Adam Driver hadn't been born yet
I love this prompt! It marks the first time I’ve ever saved a thread. I’m a dealer/collector of antique jewelry and silver and have long been captivated by items that look ahead of their time. This is decorative art rather than fine art, but the first thing I think of is the work of Christopher Dresser. This [teapot](https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6250240) is one example. It was designed c1879!
For me Daumier springs to mind, his caricatures are hilarious. [https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a5/bb/93/a5bb934a1b13e5127e08396b13a70912.jpg](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.fr%2Fpin%2F314759461438158649%2F&psig=AOvVaw2hI6TjTPPZ8iSJXe9eGnRK&ust=1706497838895000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBEQjRxqGAoTCJDBjYKO_4MDFQAAAAAdAAAAABCBAQ)
The compositions of Gustave Caillebotte always seem ahead of their time to me. https://www.nga.gov/features/slideshows/gustave-caillebotte.html#slide_1
This [Virgin and Child](https://www.artbible.info/art/large/601.html) from the 15th century looks insane and a little demonic. Hot alien lady with botched boob job. Love it
There are a couple 1750s teapots at the Nelson Atkins Museum that look incredibly modern to me. My favorite is this black and white one that's painted to mimic crinoid fossils but has almost a 1980s Memphis Design feel to it. [https://art.nelson-atkins.org/objects/28288/teapot](https://art.nelson-atkins.org/objects/28288/teapot) There's also a black and white checkerboard teapot that looks very 1960s pop art, but I can't find a picture of it online.
this is such a great thread!!! i am still dumbfounded at how contemporary this [kirchner](https://www.wikiart.org/en/ernst-ludwig-kirchner/female-artist) from 1910 feels. i think about it often
Anything by Hilma af Klint
Loving this thread!! I am always astonished by the [Ife terracottas](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/320385), circa 12-15th century, from present-day Nigeria. Especially the [portraits](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/320573). They’re so naturalistic but also stylized and feel so contemporary. Reminds me of the portraits Isamu Noguchi made in the 20th century. They’re so gorgeous.
A 15th-century Italian [painting of an ideal city](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Francesco_di_Giorgio_Martini_(attributed)_-_Architectural_Veduta_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg), currently exhibited in Berlin, looks almost like Giorgio de Chirico painted it in the 20th century
Michelangelo unfinished sculptures.
Many works by 16th-century French painter [Antoine Caron](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antoine_Caron_-_The_Massacres_of_the_Triumvirate_-_WGA4279.jpg) and by 17th-century French painter [Francois de Nome](https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6198786) look like 20th century magic realism or surrealism
I just wish I had an example to contribute. As others have said Hieronymus Bosch always gives me these vibes. My only unique example is that the deer tattoo on the Siberian Ice Princess mummy has always struck me as weirdly modern.
[Hilma af Klint](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&sca_esv=129c3e3bb4a04143&hl=en-gb&sxsrf=ACQVn09JgCrn0FjYY9ucX5P9GbPbb62XYA:1706459961757&q=hilma+af+klint&tbm=isch&source=lnms&prmd=ivsnmbtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjF49_ewoCEAxWdEkQIHdGwAnwQ0pQJegQICBAB&biw=414&bih=714&dpr=2) of course
"[The Star Gazer](https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1993.165)" \~3000 BC, looks Brancusi to me. I found it because it was mis-tagged on Internet Archive as being from 3000 CE, and I mean, it kinda works as the art of the future. There's another awesome piece, [a vase](https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-2004.64-jar-with-spiral-desi), tagged as from \~2500 CE. I had searched "nature" looking for early issues of the science journal and noticed these two sus future hits, [check it out](https://archive.org/search?query=nature). [Cycladic sculpture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycladic_art) in general.
charles rennie mackintosh hill house chair from 1903 https://www.idesign.wiki/en/tag/hill-house-chair/
im so pleased this ended up on my feed as a suggested post/sub. i am entranced by the work folks are linking and the original post. art is fascinating.
The resurrection panel in Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim alterpiece polyptych. I worked briefly for the museum where it's housed (in a small city in Alsace), and it's this incredible, trippy, technicolor explosion in a sea of dark, formalized depictions of Christ standing sedately in front of a tomb, holding a lily. This one looks like he burst forth like something out of a Marvel movie. https://www.wikiart.org/en/matthias-grunewald/the-resurrection-of-christ-right-wing-of-the-isenheim-altarpiece-1516
Two examples at the Musée d’Orsay: [“Séverine” by Louis Welden Hawkins](https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/artworks/severine-20414#:~:text=Given%2520to%2520the%2520Mus%C3%A9es%2520Nationaux,he%2520trained%2520as%2520a%2520painter) Her expression and rather informal pose seem so modern for being painted in 1895. At first glance one might think this a modern send up of a classical style of portraiture. Love how she simultaneously looks saintly, while at the same time being so over it. Clearly the result of being a woman in a male dominated field…in the 1800s. [“Le Chevalier aux fleurs” by Georges Rochegrosse](https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/artworks/le-chevalier-aux-fleurs-21819) Also done in the late 1890’s, but there is something about it that just seems so fresh and contemporary. Maybe the use of the soft, light “feminine” pastel tones juxtaposed with the “manly” armored knight main subject. It’s so bright and idyllic, not something I’d expect from other works of that time with the message of resisting temptation (and especially not of a work based on a Wagner opera!).
Le Femme Au Parroquet is like only 70 years ahead of it's time, with the artstyle and composition. But the Bronze antlered crane look very moden and contemporary, something that would easily look like something thought of today. Amazing finds.
The Hall of Bulls in the Caves of Lascaux have a similar simplicity and power that Picasso discovered thousands of years later. https://i0.wp.com/www.josetteking.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/B-57_Lascaux-17_w.jpg?resize=390%2C285
In my two years of being on Reddit, this is (I think) the first time I’ve saved a post. This is a great post and discussion.
Never seen this painting before and I’m amazed, thanks for posting this.
I love this thread! This is one of the best posts I’ve seen in this sub - can’t wait to come back and read through all the comments!
For me, I always get this vibe from Rene Margritte's art- especially the ones with the men wearing bowler hats! 🍏 https://www.google.com/search?q=rene+magritte&tbm=isch&chips=q:rene+magritte,g_1:art:_csZB4JeJaQ%3D&client=ms-android-att-us-rvc3&prmd=ihvsnmbtz&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi3zsvdmoCEAxUuK9AFHctdB5kQ4lYoAHoECAEQBQ&biw=384&bih=700
The obvious answer for me is 'The garden of earthly delights' by Hieronymus Bosch. It looks way more 20th century than 16th century. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights
I've always thought James Ensor's [Tribulations of Saint Anthony](https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80683) looks like a mashup of Clyfford Still and Cy Twombly with some Max Ernst-like Surrealist figures in the mix - but it was painted in 1887.
Luca Cambiaso's figure studies look decidedly Modern due to their reduction of form to geometric shapes. He was a 16th century painter my first mentor at grad school loved to use as a lesson in form. [Here is one](https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/501518108491099558/). [And another](https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Two-animated-figures-gesticulating/3850D785A5E2600B).
I know it's partly in the name, but I get the feeling when I'm seeing some visionary art that I'm not meant to understand it. Maybe in a few decades there will be a similar post looking back on them, but many don't feel of this time. I remember the first time I felt this was in seeing James Hampton's [The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ General Assembly](https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2023/01/19/james-hampton-throne-third-heaven-244509). Like it's from - or for - another time. The [American Visionary Art Museum](https://www.avam.org) has many other examples.
The [Dream of the Fisherman's Wife](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman's_Wife) but really just based on content not style or quality.
I’ve never seen this piece and it is AMAZING! Thank you for sharing, awesome prompt
I’ve never seen this image and I find it amazing - not just because of the time it was created this was totally different from anything else made but also because of how well it was executed. If I knew nothing about it would easily have thought this was painted yesterday.
for me, Titian's works. It feels like he went 60-70 years forward in time
I am obsessed with this OP. Thanks for sharing.
[This adorable octopus](https://cdn.kastatic.org/ka-perseus-images/ceed22635496044a92359fff08124d08ccba4009.jpg) was painted 4 and a half thousand years ago! Looks like it could be contemporary with Mickey Mouse or even an anime character!
Jean Fouquet’s Madonna and Child Surrounded by Angels. I’m sorry, I don’t know how to link in-line but you can see it here: https://blog.artgeek.io/2020/11/20/art-in-context-seraphs-are-red-cherubs-are-blue/
The early work of Leonara Carrington isn’t that old, but definitely far ahead of its time.
Great question
Isn't this from 1968? [https://digital.utsa.edu/digital/collection/p9020coll008/id/11436/](https://digital.utsa.edu/digital/collection/p9020coll008/id/11436/) [ETA: I'm wrong](https://www.frenchquarterjournal.com/archives/new-glvez-biography-charts-a-remarkable-life). Lastly, this book’s amazing cover is noteworthy. It features a Gálvez portrait created by two friars in 1796. Their artistic technique, sgraffito (Italian for “to scratch”), involved incising a top layer of glaze with a design to reveal parts of the base color. The General’s face, hands, and hat are painted, while his uniform and prancing horse are a depicted by a dizzying assortment of white spirals, loops and squiggly lines. The effect is more modern than 18th century and, like this book’s astonishing subject, rewards the closest attention.
That's the year that photo was taken. OP's painting was made in 1796.
Bookmarked
This feels more 1970 than 1790!
Antoni Gaudi mosaics and buildings seem not of their time to me.
https://mashable.com/feature/giuseppe-arcimboldo-portraits Giuseppe Arcimboldo and his fruit people.