What Painting Would You Love to Have
What Painting Would You Love to Have?
While going through all the articles I wrote and posted on Newsvine, I discovered this one. It was a poll, but here I hope to see your choice and reasons for it. I think taste in art can say a lot about the personality of people, but do not fear, Im not a psychiatrist (although in my youth I sort of wanted to be one, and in fact I spent my first year of university in pre-medicine, but changed my mind even though I really enjoyed lab sciences).
The appreciation of fine art can be developed through an education of its history, a study of the techniques, or as I personally feel, its just a matter of what I enjoy looking at. What it boils down to at least in my case is a question of personal taste, which may be developed from ones culture and experience. Persons who are talented in the arts, painting, drawing, sculpture, may have different viewpoints than those who dont.
What I would like to know from you is which painting would you want to spend time looking at, hanging on your wall, not what you would have to pay to own the painting or the fame of the artist , but just the pleasure you would get from it. It has been said that a painting should be looked at for only a few seconds. I dont agree. A painting should make you want to stare at it for much longer than that, to seek out all of its secrets and hidden nuances. You should get to enjoy it even more over time. For me, looking at a painting is much like watching a movie. Every time I watch it, I see something new, something I missed the previous viewing.
Interestingly, my love for the work of a certain artist began not by seeing his works, but by reading the impressions of that artist by another. I was prompted to see his works from reading the essays of John Ruskin, an English author who wrote glowing accounts of the works of J. M. W. Turner, an Englishman known as a Romantic artist whose Impressionism preceded and was studied and imitated by the French Impressionists. When I then saw his works, they fascinated me. I was already prepared to appreciate them. I travelled to London and spent days looking at his works in the National and Tate Galleries (where most of his paintings are located). Whenever I went to a new city anywhere, one of my first visits was to the public art gallery to see if they had a Turner on display.
And of Turners works, I had a favourite, one of the ones I have posted with this article. Not only is the style ahead of its time, I consider the technique to be magnificent and not only that, it tells a story a picture worth a thousand words. I wasnt aware that it was also chosen in a poll taken by the BBC to be the English publics favourite painting The Fighting Temeraire. So look at the paintings I have posted, all different styles, all of which are in fact famous, and post a comment indicating your choice of one (one only please) that you would want to have hanging on your wall. If there is one that is your favourite that is not included here, then post a copy of it with your comment, rather than just a link. You can do that here on Newstalkers.
1. Whistler's Mother by James McNeill Whistler
2. Water Lillies by Claude Monet
3. View of Toledo by El Greco
4. The Scream by Edvard Munch
5. The Persistance of Memory by Salvador Dali
6. The Night Watch by Rembrandt Van Rijn
7. The Kiss by Gustav Klimt
8. The Jack Pine by Tom Thompson
9. The Fighting Temeraire by J.M.W.Turner
10. No. 5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock
11. Mother and Child by Norval Morrisseau
12. Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci
13. Guernica by Pablo Picasso
14. Girl With a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer
15. Dogs Playing Poker by C.M.Coolidge
16. City Terrace at Night by Vincent Van Gogh
17. Campbell's Soup Cans by Andy Warhol
18. Bal du Moulin di la Galette by Pierre-Auguste Renoire
19. American Gothic, by Grant Wood
20. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jette, by George Seurat
21. Chinese landscape art - artist unknown
22. A painting in Tahiti by Paul Gauguin
There are so many more great artists and great works that I could spend all day adding to this list, so I guess I should stop here and see what you all have to say.
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Interesting. Your two choices contrast with each other. The first one is energy, speed, urgency, whereas the second is peace, tranquility, simplicity. My preference would be to be sitting on that white "Cape Cod" chair on the lawn, just watching the river flowing by.
There are a great number of them. Which one do you mean?
I have favorite artists.
Rene Magritte
Time Transfixed
The Empire of Light.
Rene Margritte belonged to a movement called Dadaist. Although many would call him a surrealist, his objective was to get people to see the world in a different way. To challenge perception. Hence his very famous:
The Treachery of Images
It says: This is not a pipe. Yet clearly it is.. or is it? What it's actually is a painting of pipe and therefore not a pipe. He is often referred to as the father of pop art, which he would havescoffedat, even though he was a commercial artist to support him and Georgette. But to understand the effect he had on our culture, just compare these two pictures.
The False Mirror
I will be back with more....
We'll put another chair next to that one them. Make sure you bring your fishing equipment.
Awww Randy,
You stole two of mine. You have good taste.
Himself, Buzz.
The train exiting the fireplace is fun, the Empire of Light is awfully dark but I suppose it should be. I tried to make it a bit brighter, but it didn't change much:
No problem seeing the Van Gogh, but where I am I cannot open youtube.
When I was Bar-Mitzvahed my uncle gave me a big coffee-table book of the works of Van Gogh. He was probably the first real artist I got to know about.
Van Gough's Starry Night.
Au contraire, Augur Well, the posting is perfect. I don't believe I've seen that painting before - it's magnificent.
It was a toss-up to post Starry Night or the one I did post.
Yeah, they don't look particularly friendly.
Thank you Suz, that's a lovely compliment.
I've always loved Monet's water lillies... Either that or this one of Daniel Boone in the Wilderness:
I really like the Hudson School of paintings... As well as Monet, and more historical kinds of paintings... I like things that look like real paintings or ARE real paintings. Some of my most treasured possessions are the paintings painted by my great-grandmother in the 1870s.
Yes, I love that painting, too!
That Daniel Boone painting is the kind that you can look at for hours and rather than making you tired, it's refreshing, peaceful, relaxing. Good choices, Dowser.
Too Sweet. Paint. Draw. Eat Vitamins.
There are just too dang many I'd like hanging on the wall of my hovel in the woods. Currently it is mostly my work along with trades from other Artists.
This is sorta like music with me. Ask me ten minutes from now and a new batch would show.
Get some.
Rudolf Schiestl
Wow! That is a real collection!
Beautiful and interesting!
Thanks! I love that one-- I want to know what he's thinking as he sits there in his old age, his dog beside him. It is such a nice painting, you can go on forever in it-- around the next bend, down the river...
My mother has an old old print, from the 1880s, Moonlight on the Potomac. It's a picture of a man poling across the Potomac River in an 1850s sort of outfit, done in dark greens and white. I love it, and would show that one to you, if I could find a copy... I don't know if it is famous or not, but all my life, I've looked at that print, and loved it.
I LOVE the guy on the horse with the dogs, and the Native American one. Yup, those would be really nice in my house, somewhere.
Bob, they were my choices of different schools of art for the purpose of this article, but my favourite as I stated was the Turner. I also like the Tom Thompson, the El Greco, the Dali, and the Morrisseau, especially since I knew him personally.
Wikipedia's article on the painting:
There is some beautiful art here in this article, many of them are among my favorites.
I also like the work of Andrew Wyeth, although I think his sister, Henrietta (wife of Peter Hurd), was just as good a painter as he was, but she didn't pursue the exposure of her art like Andrew did. My mother knew her long ago.
Oh, and let's not forget that bizarre and goofy Caravaggio.
Great article, Buzz.
Great paintings, Grump.
Marriage of Arnolfini by Jan van Eyck. The original is in the National Gallery in London. If you can see it closely enough, you can see that the mirror behind the couple shows the entire scene inverted, with the small dog missing for some symbolic reason known only to the artist. Such precision is very hard to do even with a camera. Not bad for the 16th Century.
Interesting submission, TTGA. This might be a good point to quote Aristotle:
"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance."
Saw the movie for #14 the other week. But if I wanted a painting I would take anything during the Ming Dynasty or anything from Da Vinci. Some really good artists during the Ming Dynasty. As for Da Vinci who wouldn't want a picture that keeps the viewer questioning what the picture says behind the face.
Very true Buzz. When I took Art Appreciation class in college, the question was asked (for debate purposes), "Who was your favorite artist and why?" I chose Norman Rockwell and was informed (by my classmates, not the professor) that Rockwell was just an illustrator and not an artist at all. My reply was that Rockwell didn't draw just what was there, but what he saw to be there. He did it so successfully that he was not just an artist, but a great artist.
Something else I noticed was that the lady was extremely pregnant and was just then getting married. Never thought that they could get away with that sort of thing in the 16th Century.
Love this thread!!!
Here arethree ones I'd like. I am partial to landscapes, but overall these are ones that I love. They make me happy... that's the only reason why!
The first one is Georgia O'Keefe and the second is
ballet de coquelicots - 2012 Vronique Piaser-Moyen
The third is by Vetriano "Damce me to the End of Love"
What came first, Vetriano's painting or Leonard Cohen's song?
This is my all-time favorite!
Of course, look what it includes: sunset colours, reflection in the water, silhouetted foreground, rule of thirds, etc. Naturally it's your favourite.
It's true that Ming Dynasty(13681644) art is magnificent. Here are a few examples of paintings from that era. The artworks from that time took many forms besides paintings. I will do an article on it.
Never mind, I answered my own question. The painting was done in 1951 and the song was written in 1984. I guess Leonard saw the painting and it inspired him to write the song.
Starry Night is much more amazing in real life. What you can't see in the photos, is how much canvas has no paint on it. How thick the paint is. How the colors pop. I stared at it for about 20 min. when I first saw it.
It's an amazing painting.
I read about this and other paintings of the time in the Smithsonian. It seems that the artist posed his subjects, then got into a box with no light except that coming from a lens inserted into the wall. It projected the scene upside down-- and the artist used the projection from the lens to draw his subjects on the canvas. He would then use various colors and shading to get the scene perfect.
If you notice, this painting is somewhat skewed by the lens used. The top half of the people are in proportion, but the bottom half is larger, they are elongated somewhat-- not like real people would have been. That's from the distortion of the lens. There are a couple of others like that, that if I can find them, I'll post them here.
It's an interesting technique-- The article is very old, so I doubt that I can find it, but it would be worth a look... I'll see what I can find!
The use of lenses as a method to draw the basics of a painting went out of common use in the late 1700s. I've always wanted to try it! Oh, and another thing, by projecting the picture upside down, one can draw more accurately-- as it forces your creative side of your brain to 'see' a drawing as a matter of shapes and planes, rather than a woman/man... Any of us can produce a better copy of something if our subjects are upside down.
Here is an article about the use of lenses as a technique used in paintings in the renaissance. In fact, it discusses this very painting as an example of its use. Here is another article that shows how it may have been set up! And here is yet another article about it...
Here is an article in the Smithsonian, but I don't think this was the original article, and it has no art work in it to demonstrate... Oh well, I tried. I can't find the paintings used to illustrate the article, either!!! ARGHH!
Very interesting Dowser. The use of lenses for various purposes other than telescopes was coming into play in Europe at just about this time too. If the lenses had significant amounts of magnification qualities, that could also explain the extreme amount of detail that Van Ecyk was able to show. The fact that the construction of lenses was still at a relatively primitive level would account for the elongation effect too. I never knew about that technique but, now that you've described it, it becomes obvious that something like that would have been necessary. Without it, achieving such detail would have required the subjects to pose like that for days on end (not really practical for a pregnant woman). The use of lenses appears to still be in use by artists today, except that now the lens is attached to a camera and the artist works from a photograph.
I love Andrew Wyeth and GeorgiaO'Keeffe. One for the muted colors and the other for the vivid use of colors. That is why I also love David Hockney.
Which leads me to Henri Rousseau
Rousseau is always fun with great color. I like the tiger and the lemur in the painting above.
It generated huge controversy at the time, even though Hockner who espoused the theory was in no way detracting from the artist's eye-- he just wanted to show that the distortions were produced by lenses...
There is a famous painting, (which of course, I can not find), of a woman sitting in a chair that is rather high-- her skirt is voluminous-- much bigger than she is. Well, we all know that women's skirts have been larger than their torso's, but that wasn't the style at the time-- also the table cloth is very distorted and the flooring is also distorted-- evenly. Her body would indicate that she is a very small woman, but her legs and skirt would indicate that she is about 7' tall...
In one of the articles I saw, they had measured the distortion and proved that the artist had used both a lens and a convex mirror to produce the detail in his pictures.
In the original Smithsonian article, (which was probably in the late 1990s), an artist had copied the set up and spoke of the ultra rich colors that were shown on his canvas, and that his trouble, even with using paints formulated the way they did in the 1600's he had trouble matching the rich hues of the earlier paintings...
It's a neat idea!
I'm a Hockney fan as well. That feller sure sold a buttload of colored pencils to Art School Students. Heck, every figurative artist/painter I knew ran right down to the friendly neighborhood supply store and bought em a bucket full.
I'm here to testify that Rembrandt's are the best. If you like a richer color and smoother application. Good stuff. Can't beat em with a stick. Well, I guess you could but I cannot see the point.
This is the same guy, (David Hockney), that proposed that the Renaissance artists used lenses and concave/convex mirrors to paint their pictures... His own work is fascinating!
Me, too! I'm not great with art, by any means, or art appreciation, either. But, I know what I like when I see it-- and I lean toward old masters... Landscapes, etc. I, too, don't want anything that will give me nightmares!
Our next door neighbor, when I was a really little girl, had a painting where Jesus was up in the clouds in a night sky, sucking up the souls from the houses down below. That picture gave me nightmares! I was truly afraid I'd get sucked up next!
I'm loving this post. A whole lotta mighty fine art being displayed.
Anyhow, new day, new list.
The Elder
Lu Cong
In the elder, are they killing someone?
It's the parable of the Blind Leading the Blind.
Ol Buzz really nailed a good one with this post. Much fun.
It makes me feel really good to bring pleasure to my friends.
Thanks, Tex, I couldn't figure out what was going on...
The very same. He wrote a tome about it.
From what I was reading, there were quite a few seminars debunking his theory. Not being an artist, nor a critic, or having any great knowledge of the subject, I have to say that the evidence is there.
What I don't understand is why people became so incensed over it. It was like the Egyptologists who got in an absolute Tizzy Fit over a geologists climate studies, saying that the timeline for Egypt's historical events was longer than what has been previously accepted. That poor man was almost stoned to death!
This brings me to something else, which is off topic-- BUT, why don't scientists of many different disciplines work together to solve these little puzzles? How come science has become such a political talking point? The whole point of science is the pursuit of truth-- unbiased truth, supported by measurable evidence.
Oh well.... Anyhoo-- Love you, dear Tex!
I wondered about that, too, at first-- then I realized that it wasn't the wedding of the couple, but their marriage-- after they'd been married for a while, anyway...
Beautiful, dear A. Mac! Truly beautiful!
This is the painting I have in our den-- I love it!
Yeah, I know... But it is a very pretty, peaceful picture!
The Lady of Shalott
In her white lace, you could clearly see the lady sadly lookin'
Sayin' that she'd take the blame.
For the crucifixion of her own domain
And down the rivers dim expanse,
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance
With glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay,
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.
(Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
The story of that magnificent painting by Waterhouse is worth telling to give even greater appreciation of it. From Wikipedia:
I was somewhat perplexed with the degree of hostility to it as well. Artists always use whatever tools are necessary to enhance their work. Seems logical to me.
Yeah, academia is an incestuous and jealous endeavor. Just look at the hysteria in regard to pre-Columbian contact with the Americas in the early daze. It seems that just about any new theory, regardless the discipline, that questions the status quo belief system is always attacked with gusto in its genesis. Go figure.
Yes, you can almost feel the wind in that picture.
Love Thomas Kincaid.