I've always liked this painting, but when I saw the original at MOMA with the following explanation next to it, I found it extremely moving: The woman crawling through the tawny grass was the artist's neighbor in Maine, who, crippled by polio, "was limited physically but by no means spiritually." Wyeth further explained, "The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless." He recorded the arid landscape, rural house, and shacks with great detail, painting minute blades of grass, individual strands of hair, and nuances of light and shadow. In this style of painting, known as magic realism, everyday scenes are imbued with poetic mystery.
Some favourites not already posted - Chagall: I and The Village 1911 Picasso: 3 Musicians 1921 Dali: Apparition of a Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach 1938
I like to stop for a drink once in a while at the King Cole Bar in the St Regis Hotel down the street from me. It's named after the Parrish Mural of Old King Cole that is behind the bar. If you look closely at the guards around the King, they are all snickering. Apparently, the king just broke wind.
Here are some great paintings - though it's the wrong season! Last year, the Guardian did a Ten Paintings for Halloween feature, which I duly blogged and followed a few days later with ten personal favourites: http://fridaynightboys300.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-10-best-scary-paintings-frombosch.html http://fridaynightboys300.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/ten-more-painting-for-halloween.html
I couldn't pick just one, because my favorite is the series of Rouen Cathedral paintings by Monet. Simply amazing work.
I can't think of one favorite, but will post one of mine for the sake of this thread. In my high school and college days I was fascinated with art history (majored in it in college for a while), particularly dadaism and surrealism. I am lucky because I now live a few blocks from MOMA and get free admission because the company I work for is a big sponsor. I am a big fan of Dali and find the following painting, "Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Waking Up", to be fascinating. Like many surrealists, Dali was fascinated with the work of Freud. This painting depicts the theory that an outside stimulus during the act of awakening can cause a dream that lasts for a short time. In the painting, his wife Gala hears the sound of a bee buzzing around a pomegranate which resukts in the imagery here with the tigers representing a yellow jacket (yellow with black stripes) and the bayonet the stinger.
This one was my favorite as a teenager, I guess it was the first one that came to mind: David Alfaro Siqueiros
Very tough to choose just one, but probably Magritte's "The Son of Man" would be top, it's the only painting reproduction we have hanging in our house. There are many different Magritte works I love. Also very high is a lot of Dali -- much of his work has already been posted -- but my favorite of his is Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea Which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln - Homage to Rothko. Peter Max is my third favorite, but his work is much too difficult to narrow down to one choice.
I have a copy of this on my living room wall. I still like the Green Chinese Lady. The original sold recently, I would have loved to have the original for total kitsch value. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21195560
I would have sworn I saw it at the Dali Museum when it was still located in Cleveland in the early 80's, but apparently not. Maybe there was a similar image in some way, I definitely remember a top-down perspective painting like that. Oh well, good for Scotland.
I don't know if I have an ultimate favorite, but there's a Modigliani that's would be a contender (but I don't think I can post the image here). I guess I'll have to play it safe with this one instead (yes, it's a mural but I think it's technically a painting):
Christina's World has always reminded me of the Wizard of Oz. I actually, until learning the true story thanks to this wonderful thread, interpreted it as Dorothy disoriented, freshly deposited back from Oz.
IIRC Dali did multiple copies or variations of some of his works, so maybe you saw one of those at the Dali Museum.
A masterpiece by any other name is still a masterpiece..... I'm an artist myself as well as an IT specialist. I had a wonderfully eccentric art history professor way back in 1975 who took us to New York all the way from Ann Arbor. She showed us where she recalled pushing her fingernail into one of the raised strokes in Starry Night. When she was young there were no detectors to stop such foolish pranks! Apparently the paint had still not dried by 1950 or so? Amazing. She became more uptight through the years because she made sure that no boys and girls roomed together at the Empire. Little did she know that she put me in with another gay guy who I had once seen at the Eagle.
Well, now that you mention it, all I can say is that you're right. It reminds me that Blade Runner scene too! Ha! I have seen the movie dozens of time and and it precisely is that sense of unsolved mystery of the painting - as well as the Blade Runner scene - one of the reasons that most fascinates after all these years. Here they are two paintings of my absolute favorite: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. The first is The Supper at Emmaus, while the other is The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (1601-1602 both). They are two serious contenders to my personal Favorite Painting of All Time.
