Favorite paintings/drawings/photography/sculptures (visual art thread)

[TownieDeac]

Perhaps my favorite abstract work is by the much hated Marcel Duchamp:

He would go on to begin pushing the limits of what could be considered art, with works like Fountain and Bicycle Wheel.

I know this led to some heated discussions in my sculpture class in London. Duchamp himself did not want these later works to be galleried, but when they did, he wrote extensively on why the question of what made art was irrelevant. I personally can only really speak to what piques my interest. The latter two pieces don't really intrigue me in the same way his earlier work did.

 

[El Chupacabra]

I love Turner, too.

I saw a great Hopper exhibit in Boston a couple of years ago.

And one of my favorites at the National Gallery, George Bellows' Both Members of this Club

 

[wakephan09]

I don't know shit about art, so I just chose several of my favorites that I have seen recently:

Manet's barmaid at the Courtauld.

John William Waterhouse's "The Lady of Shalott" at the Tate Britain

"The Pillar Portrait" -- the only extant portrait of the three Bronte sisters, by their brother Branwell (who is a fucking boss). He was a drunk, sex-fiend that got pissed one day and painted himself out of the picture. Like a boss. This is actually mad photoshopped, because the original was folded in a drawer for a fifty years. National Portrait Gallery and Haworth.

The Lewis Chessmen, British Museum

Thames Iron Seax, British Museum. Sorry, there aren't really any solid pictures on google.

 

[IamThunderbolt]

I love Las Meninas - the size of the original is breathtaking, but I've always loved picasso's copy of it as one of my faves:

This Magritte hung at the Kimbell Museum in Ft. Worth and I always liked it:

Kandinsky's Horse and Rider:

Van gogh's siesta:

and while breaking the rules a bit, the crucifixion side of Sagrada Familia

 

[ddeacs98]

 

[El Chupacabra]

Yes, I liked Simon Schama's Power of Art, though I'm sure art historians were gagging at it.

Also studied a lot of Titian in Venice, so I dig him, too. Tiziano.

 

[TownieDeac]

Nice Rothko pick, chupe.

Also love the first one phan posted.

Tbolt, you get a chance to see Guernica?

Pairs well with T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land

 

[TBDeac]

I like many of the ones already mentioned, although this may be my personal favorite:

Caravaggio was also a boss.

 

[wakephan09]

Judith was also a boss.

Fixed it for you.

 

[awakeandready]

 

[TownieDeac]

Is that Judith Slaying Holofernes, phan? What's the backstory? I only know the painting.

I'm partial to Caravaggio's Conversion of St. Paul, though it has apparently deteriorated a lot in quality in the past 20 years from poor storage earlier in the 20th century:

ETA: Caravaggio was the MASTER of light and dark. Rembrandt is probably the best known for this, even getting the idiom "he's no Rembrandt," but for my money, there was never a better artist for dark and light than Caravaggio.

 

[awakeandready]

 

[seventwofour]

I've never seen it in person and can't speak to the craftsmanship, but I love the idea of "swords into plowshares". I think I want to get a tattoo of an image representing that phrase.

 

[El Chupacabra]

Oh yeah, throwing in a little El Greco.

 

[HailToTheDeacons]

 

[TownieDeac]

Klimt!

badass:

 

[Caturday]

I've been really interested in Jackson Pollock recently.

 

[wakephan09]

Is that Judith Slaying Holofernes, phan? What's the backstory? I only know the painting.

Exactly. Judith is Biblical apocrypha: she is always an Isrealite woman that infiltrates the Assyrian camp to seduce their leader. She gets him wine-drunk and chops off his head when he passes out. She is most interesting to me in her tale's appearance in the "Book of Monsters" manuscript, the Nowell Codex where we have the only extant Beowulf. Her appearance and methods of seduction vary in each depiction.

 

[lbE08]

Bradford Washburn, "After the Storm"

what you can't see in this small version is that the second alpinist is actually turned around facing the other 4 climbers. Oh, to know why... I love a) the contrast and b) the mystery of that one turned climber.

 

[lbE08]

I love how Degas uses light so well