The "invisible masterpiece" is an unattainable ideal, a work in which a dream of absolute arts is incorporated but can never be realized. By means of this metaphor borrowed from Balzac, the author shows the variety of ways in which the status and meaning of the masterpiece have been elevated and denigrated since the early 19th century. The history of the masterpiece coincides with the history of the public museum. Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" and other celebrated paintings preoccupied later artists, who felt burdened by the one-time cult of the masterpiece as it had been transformed into the cult of visible works of art. Following Duchamp, artists became increasingly resistant to the notion of the masterpiece. Beginning in the 1960s, Conceptual and Minimal artists concentrated on ephemeral forms and manufactured multiple copies in order to reject the outmoded status of the one-off masterpiece and the art market that fed off it. This work presents an account of Western art that reveals works, events and individuals in the history of art in a different way.