A utopia typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, which describes a fictional island society in the New World.
The Earthly Paradise – Garden of Eden, the left panel from Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights
The Golden Age by Lucas Cranach the Elder
A new heaven and new earth, Mortier's Bible, Phillip Medhurst Collection
New Harmony, Indiana, a Utopian attempt, depicted as proposed by Robert Owen
Sir Thomas More, venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, amateur theologian, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to May 1532. He wrote Utopia, published in 1516, which describes the political system of an imaginary island state.
Sir Thomas More (1527)
Portrait of Saint Thomas More, executed on Tower Hill (London) in 1535, apparently based on the Holbein portrait.
Rowland Lockey after Hans Holbein the Younger, The Family of Sir Thomas More, c. 1594, Nostell Priory
Study for a portrait of Thomas More's family, c. 1527, by Hans Holbein the Younger
