Her upper right arm goes on for days, makes her look really lopsided.
Her upper right arm goes on for days, makes her look really lopsided.
Who
I went backwards in the page numbers not believing that someone wouldn't post this, finally I found someone who has. Ivan the Terrible is my favorite painting just for the sheer regret in his eyes. It's like you are a servant inside that room just quietly observing.It's ok. Too many naked babies for my taste though.
This is my personal favorite:
This one is also probably a new favorite of mine, the water is striking with how detailed it is. Seems hard to believe that it's a painting.Yeah, not a fan, sorry OP.
I like Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky and his obsession with the sea.
I've always loved Las Meninas
its both personal and aspirational in its approach
I was just thinking of this one as well. Not sure why I like it so much, it's gross and kinda ugly, but it gives me such a strong sense of disquiet every time I see it. There are few paintings that I can think of that I still get the same feeling from after seeing them a hundred times.
In order to contribute something other than just quoting, the light in the Aivazovsky's reminded me how much I love JMW Turner (thanks Cognizant, very lovely):
Wreckers Coasts of Northumberland, JMW Turner, sorry quality could be better
lol man I would kill to see it person. The NGA is a short train ride away for me and they have a great collection of Sargent but nothing beats that painting. I sporadically go through NE so maybe one day I'll stop there.Someone already posted my fave last year; saw this in person at the Clark in Williamstown, MA, and it's wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy bigger than you would think, absolutely sublime in person.
Just googled the guy and I like his work! He's also done Roman theme stuff too. Apparently Tate Britain has a ton of his art on display so I might visit this weekend.
lol man I would kill to see it person. The NGA is a short train ride away for me and they have a great collection of Sargent but nothing beats that painting. I sporadically go through NE so maybe one day I'll stop there.
Every Caravaggio painting in this thread features a woman beheading a man. Can anyone explain wtf is going on there? (I know I could google, but it's more fun this way)
+1
Every Caravaggio painting in this thread features a woman beheading a man. Can anyone explain wtf is going on there? (I know I could google, but it's more fun this way)
It's a (weirdly "feminist") episode from the Bible, Judith and Holofernes. TL,DR guy was sieging the city and she goes full secret agent in undercover mission in his encampment, kills him in his sleep and drunk.
Caravaggio has a specific complex about beheadings and making himself the beheaded victim. Many theories are posited why but the most common is that Caravaggio was not the most moral guy (lot of fights and a terrible personality to say the least) but he was deeply religious and thus had a super guilty conscience.
There was an amazing retrospective at the de Young in San Francisco a few years ago that had all of the Roman/Aeneas paintings together for the first time. Love this one and also "Mercury sent to admonish Aeneas," which looks amazing in person if not on a screen (also at Tate now apparently)
Judith and Holofernes became a popular motif in the Renaissance as scenes of violence and extreme emotion became more accepted as possible subjects, even within the church. It fit the Baroque aesthetics perfectly since it's a great fit for its dramatic use of chiaroscuro and motion, so it continued to see a lot of play. Caravaggio was a piece of shit who fought and probably killed a guy and several other artists used the theme to make it look like he was being beheaded as a commentary on his life of debauchery. Artemesia Gentilischi took the theme and turned it into a very explicitly feminist statement, turning her experience during a very public rape trial into the context of a biblical scene, among numerous other paintings. I've always felt that her take on Judith is the best of the periodEvery Caravaggio painting in this thread features a woman beheading a man. Can anyone explain wtf is going on there? (I know I could google, but it's more fun this way)
I love Beksinski, but my top favorite dystopian painter is still Remedios Varo:
I know this is an old thread, but this is it for me as well.That is beautiful, no doubt but I'm still going with Michelangelo's Creation of Adam as the greatest painting ever made.
Want to mention Alphonse Mucha's Slav Epic which is a series of 20 absolutely massive paintings depicting various events in the history of the Slavic peoples and this specific one, No.20: The Apotheosis of the Slavs, is my favorite. The paintings were hidden for over 20 years due to the initial fear of the Nazi's seizing them. While he's widely know for the Art Nouveau posters, this series is his Magnum opus IMO.
Others in the series I really like:
Just to give you an idea of how big these things are here's a photo of them hanging in the National Gallery in Prague . He did 20 of these things in 18 years.
Yeah I was totally blown when I first discovered about them which interestingly was well after I already knew who Mucha was. In my Modernism art history class we never went deeper into his work than the poster designs.I guess because the Slav Epic was done late in his career after Art Nouveau had come and gone but jeez its such an incredible achievement in painting. I recommend checking out his Le Pater drawings he did around the turn of the century if you haven't seen them. Truly incredible and sadly never get mentioned.So glad to see this mentioned. Mucha is my all-time favorite artist and the Slav Epic series are my favorite of his. It was a revelation when I learned about him in my art history classes back in college. Art Nouveau in general blew me away, but Mucha in particular struck a chord with me more than any other artist I'd previously learned about. I hope to one day be able to see the paintings in-person.
Assuming the trend of people being less religious continues (you never know what will happen), I wonder how religious works of art will be seen in the future. I already have trouble getting some people to appreciate some of the most famous pieces because they're just clueless about the subject matter (I grew up Catholic so I immediate "understand" 99% of them). It's already hard for me to put myself in the shoes of the Counter-Reformation public of say, Rubens. Must be harder for someone who grew up without any knowledge of Christian culture.
I expect sculptures to fare better because they're a more immediate show of technical skill but religious works by Rubens or Titian might be less popular in the coming centuries. They'll still be talked about in academia, of course.
On the other hand, most non-religious and non-landscape famous paintings are based on Ovid's Metamorphosis (which no one reads any more), Greek mythology, and Roman religion and people still like the so maybe I am wrong.
I like it. Besaid Island-ish or some other water-centric culture.
I think a lot of people forget that most art from before the 1800s was done for money and for a purpose... Titian, Caravaggio, Bernini were all passionate artists (and Bernini at least deeply religious) but their art was Counter-Reformation art and it had an agenda: inspire people's faith and either keep them Catholic or bring them back to Catholicism. They might not have had this in mind while creating the art but at least their patrons did. That world is very different from the one we live in now so I can see why people aren't interested in it vs. Neo-classical art that still promotes values somewhat relevant to our modern day.The religious stuff with naked flying babies though....eh, not so much for me lol. Religion has powerful visual metaphors though, so I think it will always be appreciated is my guess.
I like it. Besaid Island-ish or some other water-centric culture.
Something about the presence of small boats adds something. Paintings of ships are not rare, and people at the beach probably is not a rare subject either, but having a few small pleasure craft or whatever makes it seem like they are REALLY a maritime culture. Need to photoshop some blitzballs into the paintings.Sorolla was definitely an expert in capturing sunny days at the beach and crafting beautiful paintings out of them