Favorite Painting of All Time

Saw this exhibition when it was in Minneapolis.

 

Agree - the first time I saw one of Van Gogh's works in person, I could feel the madness jumping off the canvas. Seeing it in person is the only way to really appreciate it. It's like seeing a band on DVD vs. a live concert.

 

We attended the opening of the Van Gogh Bedrooms exhibit at Chicago's Art Institute on Friday. Amazing what he was able to accomplish in just about three years.

 

The first time I saw a Van Gogh was in the Amsterdam airport. I had a few hours to kill between flights and I wandered around. Around a corner where I expected just something else, they put an art museum in the Airport. And in it is one of Van Gogh's portraits! Imagine my surprise that I could be in transit half way around the world and see work from a great artist. Van Gogh did many self-portraits so I guess they could afford to put one in an airport without depriving some old museum but still it's pretty profound to come across when you are expecting a chair massage shop or bar. I've seen other works of his since then but I always remember that portrait. And that's what I love about art - the most mundane experience can be enhanced and changed by a genuine work of art being in that same space.

 

Jealous! Is it there that they have the bedroom setup as he painted it?

 

Yes!

 

Art, like music, can be very emotional for me. When I saw that mock up of his bedroom a great wave of feeling came over me. Was it the small space that he was able to so beautifully reproduce? Was it the simple life he was searching for with all the moves during his life? Or was it the frenetic pace he kept up during the last three years of his life, cranking out masterpieces one after another? I don't know, but a thousand thoughts went through my feeble brain at that instant.

 

This looks like a wonderful exhibition:

FRIDAY NIGHT BOYS: Hieronymus Bosch exhibition at Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch and The Prado, Madrid »



Beehive and Witches


The Garden of Earthly Delights

 

Butto's 'The Sisters'. Families, eh?

 

I have lots of favourite paintings. Two that stand out are Giorgio de Chirico's The Red Tower:



And Antonio Donghi's Donna al Caffe:



I've seen them both in real life. They made me stop and look at them. The Red Tower doesn't look quite like that - the colours are different. Donna is basically the same. Why did they appeal to me? They're bold and they both have a mood. Donna is fascinating because she has the expression of someone who agreed to pose for the artist, realised too late that they didn't like it, but decided to go through with it anyway.

Also, Canaletto's La Vigilia di Santa Marta, which again looks much better if you see it. It stands out because classical painters didn't usually try to picture night as genuinely dark:



Next to it was this, which is similar - the scan looks much more like the actual painting:

 

Jean Delville - Portrait of Madame Stuart Merrill, 1892



I've been fascinated by this painting ever since I saw it on the book I owned Dreamers Of Decadence by Phillipe Jullian, but I'd never seen the full version until now.

 

Scortched Earth, Sample 3 — 2015
Mark Bradford

While definitely not a favorite of all time, contemporary art, texturaly compelling.

 

I've enclosed enough of mine. This is one of my lady's favourites; 'The Misses Vickers' (1884) by John Singer Sargent. Displayed for the longest while in Sheffield's Greaves gallery. Nothing particularly remarkable or historic but is very relaxing.

 

That's a nice one. He was recently in my city for an opening. He's representing in Venice next year.

 

Tongue in cheek:

 

How much of the added appreciation of seeing it in person can just be chalked up to the ceremony and atmosphere of "importance" of being at an event, I wonder.

Always my favorite:
http://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcs8jqO8VT1rpvjjio3_1280.jpg
METAL.

 

do you mean any given painting? if so, what's the event?

 

There's a new Hockney show at the Royal Academy in London.
FRIDAY NIGHT BOYS: David Hockney: 82 Portraits and 1 Still Life at the Royal Academy, 2016 »
Here's one of the paintings:

And here's a photo of the painter and his curious sitter:

 

I agree with Billy Connoly: it's a nice idea to send Hieronymus Bosch-postcards to eldery relatives at Christmas!

 

This artist, Eugene Berman, has an interesting style, kind of crossing Dali and de Chirico, but with other touchpoints as well. Termed Neo-Romantic & Surrealist, he lived from 1899-1972, was born in Russia, and lived in L.A. and Rome.

View in Perspective of a Perfect Sunset, 1941


I saw this firsthand in Portland, and the photo doesn't do it justice:

Time and the Monuments, 1941

 

Sunset on Mont Blanc by Wenzel Hablik.

 

I really like those!

Here's something I did back when I was a teenager, oddly similar:

 

Francisco Goya - Yard with Lunatics.

 

Paolo Uccello (b.1397-d.1475)
Hard to pick just one...
"The Hunt in the Forest" c.1470

 

I love this one, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, by John Sargent in the Tate Britain.

Whoever curates at the Tate has a twisted sense of humor though. This painting is just behind an intense metal sculpture of a man struggling with a huge snake, fangs bared.


Also love this one, Midsummer's Eve by Edward Robert Hughes


But favorite? This is like asking about desert island music. My favorite genre is surrealism (some great ones in MOMA and also in the Tate Modern), although there are also the fantastic scenes of Heaven, The Apocalypse, and others by John Martin, in the Tate Britain. Also, the Magritte museum in Brussels, the Escher museum in the Hague!