Top 5 Works of Visual Art

[الله أكبر]

Accompanying images would be helpful. These are my favorites:

5) Philippe Halsman/Salvador Dali - Atomicus Water Confusion


4) Salvador Dali - The Enigma of Hitler


3) M.C. Escher - Relativity


2) Claude Monet - Le Bateau Atelier


1) Hokusai - Great Wave Off Kanagawa

[CadmiumYellow]

worrrddd japanese prints are awesome

i like mary heilmann:


arshile gorky:


alma thomas:


whistler:


and morris louis (god i love morris louis):

[Larry Flyntz]

Now I get to show my very limited knowledge of art. Yay! P.S. I don't understand "Whistler."

Van Gogh, The Potato Eaters


Various works by William Wegman


JFK's White House Portrait, by whoever did it


Ben Franklin, Join or Die


Paul Cezanne, Pyramid of Skulls

[FAGGOT WATCHIN TRON]

Various works by William Wegman

Flyntz this is terrifying. Are you a secret serial killer?

[CadmiumYellow]

flyntz i am glad you like cezanne he is great!

James Abbott McNeill Whistler was a wonderful printmaker and painter who is notorious for suing critic john ruskin for libel. the painting ruskin criticized was called Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket and was part of a series. the image i picked is a nocturne that i saw in the philadelphia museum, and it is amazing. there is also tons of whistler in dc (hirschhorn, national gallery). i love him, i am even in a facebook group about him

[Famous Hogbert]

there is also tons of whistler in dc (hirschhorn, national gallery).

One of the perks of being near D.C.

my top 5-


Arnold Bocklin - Isle of the Dead


Phil Hale


John Singer Sargent - El Jaleo (go see this in person in Boston, I guarantee you will not be disappointed)


Gustav Dore - Anything from the Divine Comedy is 


Kent Williams - The Procession (Yellow Boat) this should be in a museum somewhere but some lucky person has it all to themselves, but its just stunning in person

[TheOfficer]

Edvard Munch's Vampire


Lautrec's At the Moulin Rouge


Harry Clarkes illustration for Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination


Kay Nielsen's Tell Me the Way (really bad reproduction)


Its impossible to not love Mucha, so I'll just leave an image to represent pretty much everything I've ever seen him do

[Larry Flyntz]

flyntz i am glad you like cezanne he is great!

James Abbott McNeill Whistler was a wonderful printmaker and painter who is notorious for suing critic john ruskin for libel. the painting ruskin criticized was called Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket and was part of a series. the image i picked is a nocturne that i saw in the philadelphia museum, and it is amazing. there is also tons of whistler in dc (hirschhorn, national gallery). i love him, i am even in a facebook group about him

Let me ask a broader question.  You really seem to enjoy abstract art.  I'm curious why.  I've never understood abstract art, and I would like to (I doubt I'll ever like it, but I'd at least like to get it).  Is it simply an aesthetic preference?  Is it an emotional connection to the artwork?

And yes, I am a serial killer.  Oops!  There goes the secret!

[Larry Flyntz]

This thread is inspiring me to look at more art. Some things I've found that I enjoy:

Signac, Portrait of Felix Feneon


I hate circuses, but for some reason I'm quite taken with Seurat's The Circus


I've actually always liked this one, but I forgot to list it earlier: Monet's Poppies


More Van Gogh: Flower Beds in Holland


It's kind of strange; I don't really like what are probably (correct me if I'm wrong, art kids) Van Gogh's three most famous works: Starry Night, Sunflowers, and Cafe Terrace...  They just don't do it for me.

[CadmiumYellow]

you're right flyntz i love, love, love abstract painting. i love looking at it and i love talking about it and i love making work that way. in origin abstraction was radical, revolutionary, and anti-bourgeoise (russian constructivists!). malevich made paintings with as-is geometric forms, black squares, white on white, and they freaked everyone out because at the time they were very radical. an important part of this formative era of the avant-garde is actually political! tatlin was another russian that made art in accordance to his political beliefs. what's great about the early modernists is that they were so optimistic- they honestly thought they were going to change the world. so the art then becomes about this challenge and newness and change. 40s modernist painting in america was pretty fantastic, i'm pretty sure i will always have a painter crush on willem de kooning. i dunno i just like the freedom from representation that abstract painting language offers, i find it to be very refreshing. i like that the paintings offer other places and other ways of looking. 
it's interesting that you are drawn to the post impressionists (ppl like seurat and van gogh and cezanne) because they laid the foundation for modernism. look at manet he is great 

[Violent Unrest in Allentown]

This hangs in my house, and I really like it. It's Henri Matisse.


Also, what do you think of Frido Kahlo?

[Violent Unrest in Allentown]

From the late 1920s the Russian avant-garde experienced direct and harsh criticism from the authorities and in 1934 the doctrine of Socialist Realism became official policy, and prohibited abstraction and divergence of artistic expression. Malevich nevertheless retained his main conception. In his self-portrait of 1933 he represented himself in a traditional way — the only way permitted by Stalinist cultural policy — but signed the picture with a tiny black-over-white square.

Awesome.

[TheOfficer]

To sort of back up, I am obviously drawn to very figural and narrative work. And I even used to abhor abstraction and think it was a waste of time. Then my Senior year of high school I took AP Art History, aka. the most intense class I've ever taken still to this day, and learned all about modernism and abstraction.

The simple act of learning why certain artists chose to abstract things certain ways, or exactly what B was talking about, the social pressures that basically forced their hand, is what made it awesome for me. Now, while its not exactly my aesthetic, I can definitely appreciate it and even have a few favorites in the Abstract world. (I have a hard on for Kandinsky, for one).

[CadmiumYellow]

<333 matisse and kandinsky (can you guys tell that i really like bright colors)
and what's not to love about frida

[Larry Flyntz]

Thank you for your answers.  I think I understand better now.  As for why I don't like it, I've always viewed the purpose of art (including things like film and writing) as communicating some sort of message.  While I don't necessarily think that simpler is better (Slaughterhouse Five certainly wouldn't be the same if it simply read "War is bad."), I think artists (again, including film, writing, etc.) pass a certain point where the line of communication is severed and the audience completely loses touch with the message.

Although, if the message is "defy convention" or "REVOLUTION!" perhaps abstract art does effectively convey the message.  Very interesting.

[CadmiumYellow]

so i was in a used book store yesterday and flipped through this one book that reminded me of how much i love VUILLARD