Your favorite Painter? - Page 2

Chiura Obata. The new De Young has an untitled ink painting of his that has to be seen to be believed. It's a painting of the forest and every item in the scene comes into and out of focus like you're looking at an actual landscape, not a painting, in black and tan.

Damn. That's the first I've heard of him. His work is exquisite. The picture of the internment camp is beautiful and heartbreaking. Thanks for that.

My pleasure. Topaz Moon and Obata's Yosemite are great coffee table books to get if you dig his stuff.

Also, the Botanical Gardens at UC Berkeley has a Japanese garden dedicated to his life and work--he was a professor of art at Berkeley prior to and after internment--that features the lanterns that the Empire of Japan gave to the campus prior to the war and were recently recovered from Strawberry Canyon.

Living around D.C., it's not that hard to go out and find something to be awestruck by, whether it be dinosaur skeletons, old satellites, or some great architecture. What takes the cake, though, is the wealth of work by James McNeill Whistler hanging on the walls of the Freer Gallery. His most cited work is "Mother," but compared to his other work it seems like a minor entry into his canon. His finished works display his mastery of the face, and the subtlety of expression that he is able to capture, and his unfinished studies are masterworks of color.

Monet V Impressionist X (take your pick) - Monet

Picasso V Matisse - Draw

Bosch V Bruegel – Bruegel

Durer V Euphronios - Euphronios

Rembrandt V El Greco+van Eyck+Titian+Vermeer+Leonardo+Giotto - Rembrandt (he really is that great)

Artists for whom I don’t get the love: de Chirico, Rauschenberg

Mediocre artists for whom I have a soft spot: Henri Rousseau, Roerich

I have a lot of love the work of the Australian impressionists of the Heidelberg school, in particular Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton. I also love a lot of Norman Lindsays work.

Of the contemporary painters/artists, Glenn Barr is easily my favourite.

I had just moved to Columbus for college, autumn of '82, when I was out roaming around getting a feel OSU's main campus. I walked into the student union and saw a vendor selling all sorts of posters. As I walked past, one caught my eye. I know I stood there staring at it for, like, maybe 10 minutes. I had never been so captured by an image in my life. Of course, I was a broke and couldn't buy it and it took me some time to finally track down a print of it.

Salvadore Dali, the Broken Bridge. I still get lost in it.

Gotta get some Beksinski prints...fantastic work.
I've always felt a fondness for De Chirico myself:

I work in a slide library at the art department, so I get to see paintings from prehistoric to modern, so I tend to shift favorites every now and then. Right now?

Francisco de Goya, who has always been a preference of mine. Beautiful brushwork, and some really cerebral stuff despite the staid and formulaic nature of typical art of the period. Los Caprichos is amazing. And then the Witches' Mass images.
When you check out his Maja paintings, there's a rather wicked sense of humor regarding Spanish culture. Particularly concerning the battle of the sexes. Some really...almost cruel subtext going on.


The temporary favorite is currently Botticelli. His classical stuff, the allegorical stuff..and even some of the "Moses" series, a few of the Madonnas...(Especially Madonna of the Eucharist and Madonna Magnificant)...There's this incredibly delicate sensibility about his paintings. Check out the St. Barnabas? Altar Piece, and his John the Baptist in the altarpiece is so incredibly ghoulish despite his usual delicate hand.


I could go on about Hopper-he's the culmination of the journey American Art's been on since its inception.

As an illustration and graphic design nut as well, I can't help but love Alphonse Mucha (Art Nouveau), JC Leyendecker (Rockwell's mentor) and, of course, the dynamic and never duplicated, Frank Frazetta (RIP)

This reminds me of something else that is awesome:

Time to get nationalistic...

Current painter: Sam Dillemans



This is actually art that can't be done justice by a digital representation in a jpg.. the paintings are built up from layer after layer of thick, smeary paint. When you inspect them up close, you admire the texture and all form seems arbitrary. Then you take your distance and slowly the forms come into focus, and it turns out you're actually looking at a highly detailed scene.

Favorite of all time: Léon Spilliaert (1881-1946)



Tell me that second one won't haunt your dreams. And that's a self portrait.
ETA: timeframe, so you can appreciate it in it's own time.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Drama in art, drama in life.

That dirty foot is magnificent.