Your Favourite Paintings/Artists

What is your favourite painting? And why? Feel free to share a few if you have them.

Do you have a favourite art period?

A favourite artist? Or two, or three? What do you like about them, or their work?

Mainly in regards to paintings/painters, but feel free to branch out beyond paintings/painters in regards to other forms of visual art: drawings, digital art, sculpture, etc.

 

One of my favourite artists isCharles Blackman. I especially love his Alice in Wonderland series with it's quirky, surrealist, and slightly provocative/disturbing quality juxtaposed with the beauty of his use of soft-bold colour and delightful subject matter (i.e. flowers, tea, Alice herself etc.). I especially love his style. I'm also biased since Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland' has always had an alluring appeal to me.

My favourite of his works, is "Feet Beneath the Table"



Other works of his which I really like from the same series:





And another, titled 'Into the Beautiful Garden'

 

Cheers [MENTION=1814]invisible[/MENTION], a pleasant read. I love hearing about how people feel about visual art which resonates with them.

I'm very much a fan of her style also. There's something in the Spanish soul that has an underlying mystical trace, an element that gleams through in Varo and Dali's work. I'm a big fan of Dali - I think it'd be hard to not be; I particularly enjoy 'Metamorphosis of Narcissus'. I tend to like Spanish surrealism quite a lot. Then there's Picaso, I quite like his realist works and his later cubist works.

I just love classical and Hellenistic Greek sculpture, especially statues of the feminine deities. The beauty enamors me. Black-figure pottery is also asethically appeasing to me. I must admit, aesthetic quality (what I subjectively deem as such) although not the most essential, is core to any art I really like. Generally speaking I prefer organic shapes involving cures as opposed to hard geometric lines. Yet cubism I quite like and Piet Mondrian I don't mind.

Painting with a stylised realism, employing a pleasant aesthetic prompts cupid to release his quiver into my emotional core (lol). Duccio's Madonna and Child, William Dyce's 'The Meeting of Jacob and Rachel', Sassoferrato, and Da Vinci - as you said, it's a given.

Then there's the Pre-Raphalites. Generally I'm not so much a fan of Dante Rossetti's work, but the majority of all work associated with this movement I find very alluring. There's an organic mystifying quality that draws me in and arouses my sensibilities. Some of my favourites: all of John Williams Waterhouse, I really like 'Hylas and the Nymphs', his paintings of Ophelia, but most of all 'The Lady of Shalott'; Cowper's 'Vanity', Collier's 'Lady Godiva'. It's hard to express the stirring of beauty that takes place within me when look I upon such works.

Medieval illumination: how marvelous. Such intricacy and organic creativity is lacking today - modern architecture generally reflects such a lack in my view (but that's another story).

Yes, art which has some form of transcendental quality, which evokes emotion in a natural way (i.e. vomit on a canvas I'd say evokes emotion in a contrived way), and is beautiful in some way, shape or form (in accord with my tastes) is the kind of art that's 'for me'.

For the adornment of this forum I'll share a few works mentioned:







Edit: I think triteness and speaking about art always go hand in hand. It's the one place I welcome it!

 

[MENTION=11651]Artisan[/MENTION] what pleasant spam. I really like neoclassicism too, especially the rekindling of the Ancient Greco-Roman mythologies (this is also a reason I like the Pre-Raphelites like [MENTION=13730]PintoBean[/MENTION]), the sense of drama and detail, and just love the marble sculptures. You mention a few times about the softness of the skin as an alluring quality, and I'm the same, it's among my favourite aesthetic qualities.
[MENTION=1814]invisible[/MENTION]:

I've read on critical perspectives of iconography but do not recall their specific arguments, nor the movements/philosophical stance attributed to such critiques. Understandably I am favorably disposed to iconography, after all it is in a particular way in a Catholic view what is deemed 'a sacramental' something which can serve as 'a material portal' to that 'higher thing' which is signified but only by means of transcendental belief. Although on a stylistic level I'm not a fan of some Byzantinian iconography. My favourite is latter iconography (i.e. Romanesque and Gothic).

Haha, your comments on Picasso made me laugh. I partly share your sentiments. Yet on a meaning, emotive and stylistic basis I like (but not love) a fair bit of his Blue Period works, similarly as [MENTION=13730]PintoBean[/MENTION] and [MENTION=14199]brightmoon[/MENTION]; but on a conceptual (the idea behind them method of cubism) and stylistic basis I like his earlier cubist works (~1910 and before; i.e. Girl with a Mandolin). Emotion doesn't really come into it for me in the latter.

I never knew the guy, but I can share in your passionate disdain for his work. Actually I would probably like his work if only he used a different face as his subject matter! I do enjoy Morris' designs - intricate organic curvature, it's the same quality I love about medieval illumination.

Definitely, but I think such magic-realism in Spanish surrealism stems from the Spanish collective subconscious which has been permeated for centuries with a Catholic mystical outlook on life and nature that looks beyond the 'face value' of experienced reality. (Such mysticism has origins further back than the 16th century, but involving figures such as John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila etc. who even on a literary basis influenced the Spanish language). Hence I think in this instance Spanish magic-realism partly manifests such 'roots'.

 

Certainly! I was busy but I've time now. Glad to answer as best I can. Trigger wanring: this is loooong. As a Christian (however being a Catholic lends a particular theological view not shared by most post-Reformation forms of Christianity, so I can't speak on their behalf)* I have no problem with non-essentialist themes in and of themselves (i.e. if a work represents a deer as a green blob, or the sky as a thin line), yet on a purely personal basis I am not a fan of art which is solely non-essentialist like many abstract expressionist works, which often I see at the most as aesthetically pleasant compositions from which I cannot and do not want to draw meaning. Surrealism can demonstrate a watered down non-essentialism but it arguably twists what is perceived at face value as reality as opposed to recreating a whole new subjective reality extrapolated from the world - as does most abstract expressionist works which do not make it even slightly clear what at all 'they' represent unless one is told as such. Either way, the presence of [what is perceived] as non-essentialist themes I have no qualm with.

What I do disagree with is the conceptual stance of non-essentialism which concurring themes may simply reflect. This of course arises because Christianity* holds an essentialist metaphysical view (of which there are different nuanced views), but this essentialism doesn't extend beyond what is viewed as objective reality, i.e. ontology (involving everything that exists) and morality. So that a human person is a person sharing in 'the form' or essense of a human nature. And a specific act is deemed intrinsically immoral on the basis of the nature of the act itself (with moral culpability determined on the basis of the knowledge and intent of the agent of that act; and some acts neither instrisically good/bad, but only deemed as such based on intent behind the act). Yet such essentialism doesn't extend to what is deemed wholly relative, i.e. I don't think there is a colour that is intrinsically better than another, or that one culinary dish is intrinsically tastier than another. Yet such essentialism does assert that there is an ontological reality which just is, and that relativity stemming from the subjectivity possessed by intellectual beings is simply conceptual, and is itself a product of the power of rationale etc. belonging to the essential being of a human person.

Hence the very word "camel" is a subjective-conceptual 'thing' but it describes a real existing thing - that which is a 'camel'. Similarly someone may hold a certain meaning concerning a particular piece of art, but that is a constructed meaning which is a subjective-conceptual 'thing' which is employed to describe a real existing thing - that piece of art. Yet stressing the ontological reality of things, a Christian view might state that a piece of art has an intrinsic/essential meaning pertaining to its ontology - distinct from the subjective-conceptual meaning 'given' or 'construed' by the viewer or artist - and this essential meaning would be what that piece of art actually is in relation to God and the telos (purpose) of human life (Christian view: to be in unitive relationship with God who is Goodness, Love etc.). Thus in this view, ontologically art is deemed more meaningful and valuable to the degree in which it glorifies and leads people to contemplate the Creator. This meaning and value is ontological since it is an intrinsic property pertaining to the art in and of itself, and is a role carried out 'by it' by its very existing. Hence art would be 'good' in proportion to how much (qualitativelyquantitatively) it gloried and ed people to the Creator. And 'bad' in so far as it did the polar opposite. In this view actual 'bad art' would thus be deemed essentially meaningless and worthless if it offended or functions to 'try' and lead people away from the Creator (evil as meaningless since evil is considered not as existing per-say but a privation in being itself). But before one thinks this view denigrates all non-religious art...

In a Catholic view intrinsically 'bad art' would only be that which was explicitly against 'the Sacred' (i.e. art deemed sacrileges); 'vain art' would be that which is not sacrileges but does not lead one to the Divine be it due to a lack in aesthetic-appeal or quality, or certain subject matter (i.e. vulgar, explicitly divorced from perceptible reality - since divorcing itself from the natural world which reflects the Creator would lead such art 'to exist' not for the Creator); and 'good art' - in it's varying degrees - would include non-Christian art and art without Christian subject matter which implicitly carries out the aforementioned function of glorifying and leading one to the Creator; and art which explicitly carried out this function - religious art. (With this view Catholicism esteems much non-Christian art, such as Classical Greek art).

Keeping in mind that this essentialist view (and value) of art is distinct from the subjective-conceptual view (and value) of art, the latter of which concerns the realm of general artistic analysis (such as in this thread thus far).

I am against a non-essentialist approach to art which views reality itself as intrinsically meaningless and uses art 'to paint' a subjective reality. I prefer an essentialist approach which views reality itself as intrinsically meaningful and uses art 'to paint' a subjective view on this objective reality. This is why I like surrealism. A non-essentialist may employ surrealism as a way of giving meaning to something, or of making meaning which doesn't exist. Yet an essentialist may employ surrealism as a way of grasping out into the depths of reality so as to pull forth a straw from the bale of intrinsic meaning - a meaning constructed in the mind of the artist based on his apprehension of the ineffable mystery behind reality itself - doing so to try get to the essence of things. At face value the surrealist works of both artists may appear to have non-essentialist themes because they're surreal; but such artistic form could equally represent essentialist themes.

It's very hard to speak on this matter, and I was forced to generalise without proper elaboration (despite essay length) which could lead to misinterpretation of what I intended, but that'll give the gist of my Christian view which you politely asked for. I'd be glad to hear of your views and respect anyone who has views contrary to mine.

 

[MENTION=4798]Endersgone[/MENTION], never heard of Beksinski but I like his work. Reminds me of the art work on the original Magic the Gathering, cards game.