Almost as iconic as "Night Hawks" is "Gas Pumps". Hopper really captures the loneliness along a highway as the sun goes down in the expanding landscape of America. How many people recall this experience before the interstate system was implemented?
At the Louvre....I don't know who the artist or the title of the painting is, but I was enchanted this one also enchanted my eyes A good friend of mine has an art gallery in Altadena, CA. She recently put on a James Bond exhibit...here's one of her paintings:
The artist is Sassetta and the painting is a panel from the Borgo San Sepolcro Altarpiece made between 1437 and 1444; this particular panel is called The Blessed Ranieri frees the poor from a prison in Florence. The altarpiece was dismantled in the 16th century and only 27 of the original 60 paintings have survived to the present day, scattered among twelve collections around the world. As this article explains, it was unfortunately a common fate for many altarpieces as they were made from valuable materials, so when it came time to replace the old one for looking out of date it usually got broken up so its gold or wood could be reused.
The first one is The blessed Ranieri frees the poor from a Florentine jail (1437-44), painted by Stefano di Giovanni, known as "il Sassetta". As you can read on the Louvre website below, it's an element from the predella of the Borgo Sansepolcro polyptych. http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-noti...ix-angels-st-anthony-padua-st-john-evangelist The second painting is Gabrielle d'Estrées et une de ses soeurs (Gabrielle d'Estrées and one of her sisters, 1594 circa) and the artist is unknown. http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/gabrielle-destrees-and-one-her-sisters
Today's is a double-header: Richard Hamilton's Just What is it that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? And Jack Kirby's Young Romance:
Wow! I did not know that this painting was that old. It looks so contemporary and surreal. Thanks for the information!
Hard to say any one painting is my "favorite above all others," but this one has haunted me ever since it was featured on Wikipedia's front page a few months back: Stańczyk during a ball at the court of Queen Bona in the face of the loss of Smolensk, by Jan Matejko, finished in 1862. (Yeah, I copied that from the Wikipedia article.) There's a lot of symbolism and Polish history going on here, more than I can explain in a brief posting; for details, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stańczyk_(painting) It's on display at the National Museum in Warsaw.
It's not the happiest thing in the world, but I've always been a huge admirer of Bosch's Garden Of Earthly Delights
I'm really fond of Efter avslutad seans, 1884 (After the Pose) by Swedish artist Richard Bergh. I don't know if it's necessarily my absolute favorite, but you might say it has a special place in my heart. Would love to own a print.
The Nightmare, Henry Fuseli, 1781. Detroit Institute of Arts, USA. http://www.dia.org/object-info/f222b80e-c3ba-4dd0-a705-4b14cb4f5ad6.aspx?position=1
Did anyone post Joan Miro yet? The Harlequin's Carnival from 1924-25 was kind of his "breakthrough hit" and remains one of his most famous works; a sense of liveliness and fun abounds all over the painting although the harlequin himself looks rather sad - the hole in his stomach not only echoes the body of the musical instrument in top center but may also be a reference to Miro's claims about his surreal visions being brought on by starvation-induced hallucinations.