How do you tell an entire story, with events taking place at different moments in time, on one single 2D canvas? This is one of the challenges why narrative paintings have been seen as the most prestigious and skilfully done works of art possible, ever since the Renaissance. The cerebral aspect of an artist’s ability to understand their power in the manipulation of time in their paintings is the topic of this talk. We will look at how artists freeze and release, speed up and slow down, focus and distort, making ‘Ars Longa’ while ‘Vita Brevis’! Examples will be taken from Western European Art History, using both the concept of time and time pieces as they take centre stage in paintings from different moments in time.