The natural focus of the Carmen Thyssen Collection is the evolution of landscape painting over four centuries. The tour begins (Room A) with a masterpiece by Jan Brueghel, The Garden of Eden, and the dialogue, from opposite walls, between the Dutch country genre of the 17th century and Italian urban Vedutism, with its pioneer Gaspar van Wittel and the great Venetians Canaletto and Guardi. The itinerary then follows the parallel development of landscape painting in Europe and North America throughout the 19th century. Room B examines North American landscape painting between Romanticism and Naturalism. European realism (Room C) is magnificently represented by masterpieces by Corot (Solitude) and Van Gogh (Watermill at Gennep), with other French and Dutch contemporaries. Room D, devoted to French Impressionism, is one of the highlights of the tour, with cardinal works by Monet and Renoir, Pissarro and Sisley. In counterpoint, room E shows the late Monet alongside his followers, the American Impressionists. A large space (room F) is devoted to Gauguin (around his most iconic work, Mata mua) and his collaborators and followers.

Neo-Impressionism and its influence on the evolution towards abstraction is exhibited in Room G around an important painting by Kandinsky. Room H presents an overview of the early avant-garde, focusing on the dialogue between French Fauvism and German Expressionism, with such prominent names as Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Delaunay, Kirchner, Nolde and Goncharova. The journey concludes (rooms I and J) with a varied collection of great avant-garde artists - Léger, Juan Gris, Picabia, Delvaux, among others - and a special focus on 20th-century American artists, including Georgia O'Keeffe, Reginald Marsh and Richard Estes.