I really, really love Magritte and Dali. Most of the Surrealists, really. I have a lesser-known Dali called “The Musical Tempest” hanging in the room where my amp, guitars and basses are:
I also like all three panels of Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights.”
Wyeth’s “Christina’s World” I’ve always found particularly evocative:
Sake-- Bruegel is a God, I agree.
Is the other one L. Carrington or Remedios Varo? I’ve never seen it, but the style’s familiar. Have you ever seen Leona (?) Fini’s stuff? It’s similar.
Firstly: try and see the original painting! No illustration will ever reproduce the experience of seeing the original. And of course my list of favourite paintings is always changing. Here’s my list for now:
A while ago I was viewing the suberb Cezanne exhibit in the PMA. I noticed a painting (not by Cezanne) called The Aqueduct. It was depicting a stark white aqueduct cutting across an azure sky. I believe the artist was from Pennsylvania (1800s) but I can’t remember his name.
Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
I first learned of this wonderful piece of art when I was in college. It always intrigued me, gave me sensations of warmth, calm, safety, relaxation, happiness, and ease. Almost all of Seurat’s works evoke these feelings in me.
Years later, I happened to be in Chicago and one of my must-see stops was the Art Institute. I walked in the door and reached for a brochure which showed the layout of the galleries, and about dropped my teeth. Seurat’s masterpiece was on the cover of the brochure! I nearly leapt over the counter trying to get the docent’s attention, “DO YOU HAVE THIS PAINTING HERE?!?!?!” She smiled, pointed the way, and I nearly broke my neck getting to that gallery (even zoomed right past Hopper’s Nighthawks without blinking! of course I came back later for a longer look).
I rushed to the entrance of that gallery and stopped dead in my tracks. There on the far wall was the most tranquil, mesmerizing, gorgeous image I’d ever seen - and it was HUGE! (Prior to this, I’d only seen it in books or as a slide, I had NO idea it was so enormous!) I gasped and couldn’t move. After about 10 minutes of me just standing there with a sappy grin on my face and my jaw on the floor, the security guard finally came over and asked me how long this had been my favorite painting.
We both had a good laugh. He said he gets two or three folks like me every month!
Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
StoryTyler, I really enjoyed reading your above reply, as it reminded me of my experience at the Chicago Art Institute as well. I had always enjoyed that particular piece, but had no idea of it’s immensity until I saw it either, and it was utterly overwhelming.
Most works of art are best viewed from a somewhat close distance so you can appreciate some of the subtleties of brushstrokes and use of color and light. Not so with “A Sunday Afternoon,” where you almost have to be as far away as possible to even discern an image at all outside of all the dots. Pointalism has always amazed me, but this one just simply took my breath away. Seurat had to have used either ladders or scaffolding to reach it, and how on earth he knew what color dots to put where just blows my mind, since you cannot make anything out at all when standing within arm’s reach of the canvas.
Kindof reminds me of those modern-day posters you have to stare at a certain way so you can see the hidden image - except that Seurat didn’t have the benefit of a computer.
My wife would be thrilled to see Hopper so frequently mentioned. We got to see an exhibit of his work here in Seattle 5 or 6 years ago and she fell in love with his work. So now we have “Night Hawks” in our living room (well, a poster) and Hopper calendars all over the house.
I like a lot of the other favorites here but I don’t get much chance to see original art. I will share this experience with you, however:
I was visiting in Washington D.C. and I had about half an hour to tour the National Gallery of Art before it closed. So I’m practically running through it, appreciating nothing – “There’s a Rembrandt, there’s a Van Gogh” and in all that magnificent artwork the only ones that made me stop and stare were Gilbert Stuart’s portraits of Washington and Jefferson. I’m still unsure why those, exactly, were the ones, but it was like getting hit with a ton of bricks.
“If ignorance were corn flakes, you’d be General Mills.”
Cecil Adams The Straight Dope
I forget the name, but he is a local of Dallas and his paintings were featured in the DMA a last year in the late summer.
what he would paint is these tiny paintings (4x6 in) of the sights of dallas at night or in twilight. you could feel the neon glow radiating form the painting. and It was extreamly realistic. but I don’t know his name.
anybody a regular at the DMA who would know who i’m talking about?
“Drowing Girl” by Roy Lichtenstein (I have a print of this that hangs above my bed)
“Saturn Eating His Sons” by Goya (done after he went crazy – truly eerie)
“The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait” by Jan Van Eyck
also, anything by Durer, Rothko, Jasper Johns, Marcel Duchamp or Basquiat
I like pre-Raphaelite too. I couldn’t name a painting or artist specifically if you pinned me to the wall and threatened me with day-old milk loogies, though.
I’d just say “You know that one with the woman and she’s all draped in these gossamer robes and standing next to a marble column? Well, I like that one.”
Having said that, I could name recent works from my favourite fantasy artist (Keith Parkinson) in alphabetical order.
Also worthy of note - one of my favourite artists ever is a Star Wars comic cover artist, and he is friends with some of my new friends! Yay! One day I’ll get to meet him!
