[Well, why not?](http://www.ifloor.com/cats/AreaRugs/homageto the masters-11534.html) They even have a Dali rug at this site! I’m not sure of the art history chain, but William Morris is quite famous for his decorative works, as are the folks in the Arts and Crafts movement.
Cezanne, Matisse, Van Gogh, Klee.
Lately I’ve been loving David Hockney’s Big Splash.
The Potato Gatherers by Jules Bastien-Lepage. This painting was part of a travelling exibition that came to the Portland Art Museum last year, and when I saw it in person I was absolutely stunned. I felt like I was looking at a gigantic photograph of two old friends going about their daily routines, as if I knew these women, and what they were about.
The best representation of it I’ve been able to find on the web is here: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~shb/tatos.htm
I’m also real fond of Starry Night, and there are some others that I always stop to admire when I visit PAM, but I can’t recall their names off the top of my head.
I’ve loved Rene Magritte’s work for years; it always seems to me to be trying to express the inexpressible. The paintings seem to communicate concepts that extend beyond words.
I’m particularly fond ofLa condition humaine and Personal Values, but the one that comes back to haunt me most is Song of Love.
There’s a good archive of his paintings here.
Rothko’s White Center - have been a huge fan of his work (and Kadinsky’s) since being ‘forced’ to study them for an academic competition in high school - very glad that happened.
I am not a sophisticated person art-wise. However, I love Vermeer – Milkmaid being my favorite. I’ve always loved it. We had a set of encyclopedia when I was a child that had colored plates of famous paintings (in volume ‘P,’ believe it or not). I always just pored over that particular plate… I loved the way the light flowed into the room, and the way that the texture of the girl’s clothes and that of the bread and the pewter pitcher were all so… distinct. I also loved the girl’s face – so ordinary and beautiful in her ordinariness. I don’t own a print of it but I just really, really like it.
I also love Howard Behren’s Balcony in Ponza. My husband and I bought a print of this because it reminded us of Sicily (where we met) although it isn’t of Sicily at all, but another, smaller island off the coast of Italy. We don’t have an actual print – it’s one of those fakey jobs with a print set on canvas and texture added. I feel funny about it – it was quite expensive and although I am not, as I said, sophisticated, I know enough to know that these lithographed canvases are considered kind of tacky by people who know really know anything about art… But I like it – I love the colors in the painting and the subject and I prefer the canvasy look to a print behind glass – especially with this particular painting which just doesn’t look as warm behind glass.
And, I have a print of C.Spitzweg’s The Bookworm – just because I think it’s a hoot. I have only a smallish print of it now, but if I ever build my dream house (with a library), I’ll buy a larger print and give it pride of place among my own books.
Jess
I love, love, love Highways and Byways!
In fact, I quite like a lot of Paul Klee’s work, including Southern (Tunisian) Gardens and The Golden Fish. Highways and Byways is my favorite, though.
John William Waterhouse’s *Ophelia *.
I just love the bright colors and such. I love Waterhouse. I want a dress just like the one the woman is wearing in this painting.
I also have a bookmark of this.
I was thinking about this thread yesterday, and wanted to add a couple of more-or-less contemporary U.S. artists I’m fond of…
George Tooker, best known for “Subway.” I love his 1958 “Entertainers”…very spooky. Three young women, eyes, blank, dramatically lit from below like massive sculptures in a temple. The singer looks like she might be an ancient oracle.
And Paul Cadmus, famous (infamous?) for “The Fleet’s In!” His “Bar Italia”, with it’s Bosch-like layout, creepy Italians, and ridiculous tourists, is one of the funniest paintings I’ve ever seen!
Interesting that I should spy this thread today. Just the other day, I decided to hunt down an image of Gustav Klimt’s "Roses Under the Trees for use as my LiveJournal user pic. I’ve loved this painting since the first time I saw it in college (ack, 11 years ago!) and I used to have a poster print of it which disappeared into the mists when I left school.
Sadly, it’s in the Musee D’Orsay in Paris, so I’m not likely to see it in person anytime soon. My favorite “seen it with my own eyes” painting is Monet’s “Road at la Cavee”, which I got to see when I was in Boston. I’m not sure if it’s part of the regular collection there, or if it was on loan.
Now I’m thinking that I need to impose on one of my fellow NYC Dopers to escort me to the MMA sometime soon. I need some culture. 
I just fell in love with this fat faced little monk easing St Francis out of this life: http://gallery.euroweb.hu/tours/giotto/bardi.html
Doni Tondo. Maybe the Sistine Chapel was supposed to be bright and colorful like this http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/michelangelo/holy-family.jpg
Ah… I don’t have a favourite painting. I love variety so much that I pretty much can only like or dislike something. I’m not fond of very geometric abstracts, but that’s about it. I do like Van Gogh’s Bedroom at Arles, just because I’m fascinated with his bed, where he lived and slept.
Oh, and whoever linked to the image of God and Adam from the Sistine chapel – prints of that picture that are nothing but the two fingers almost touching are very popular right now. I’ve had them brought into my shop several times. And all I can think whenever I see it is scrawling “Pull my finger!” underneath the picture with a big black marker.
I’m looking forward to getting my ass kicked by Michaelangelo after I die. 
My favorites are Dali’s “Imperial Monument to the Child-Woman,” “The Hallucinogenic Toreador,” and “Tuna Fishing,” Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Cure of Folly” (also called “The Extraction of the Stone of Madness,” among other titles), and Max Ernst’s “The Eye of Silence,” “Europe After the Rain,” and other decalcomania/painting combinations of his. Lately, I’ve also been partial to Albrecht Altdorfer’s “The Battle of Alexander.” I love the gorgeous handling of the sky and the amazing detail in the battle scene. I also dig any of those cool Baroque-style ceiling frescoes (the Renaissance ones, like the Sistine Chapel ceiling, often seem too structured as opposed to the freewheeling, almost psychedelic Baroque ones). I want one of those on the ceiling of my mansion when I’m filthy rich. Speaking of psychedelic, any of those psychedelic ‘60s paintings appeal to me, and if album covers count, I choose the cover of Cream’s Disraeli Gears by Martin Sharp and the cover of the Moody Blues’ In Search of the Lost Chord by Phil Travers.
Okay, you got me on this one, Uke. I’m sure I’ve never seen it before, but the moment I looked at it, I was certain that it was something I’d seen before–it’s an icon, the three fates, the three witches, a Greek chorus. It already existed in my head before Tooker put it on paper. Brrr…