What's your favorite painting/artist and why?

[daisygrrl]

I like these two for different reasons, of course

This one by Gerda Wegener is very playful to me; her other work more explicitly tackles issues of class.



Raphael Perez's "Two Men" is so warm, in so many ways...

[Mitmo01]

Paul Gaugin takes my breath away--all of his works make me freeze my gaze

Titian is by far my favorite classical master--The Rape of Europa, Danae, and his masterpiece The Venus of Urbino

[Mitmo01]

The Russian Hermitage Museum has a fantastic virtual website and some of the worlds most beautiful paintings in it

http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/index.html

[Diva]

Originally Posted by Mitmo01

Paul Gaugin takes my breath away--all of his works make me freeze my gaze

Titian is by far my favorite classical master--The Rape of Europa, Danae, and his masterpiece The Venus of Urbino

Here Ya go.....a little Gaugin for Ya...

some amazing artists already mentioned here. I'd like to share some of my favourite artists/paintings/sculpture/arty architecture with you too.

I travelled to Madrid just to see several of my favourite paintings

This was the one that made me take the trip - Las Meninas by Velazquez (I was surprised to discover how small the painting is)
http://exterior.pntic.mec.es/fhua000...as-meninas.jpg

I also managed to see Picasso's Guernica on that trip too
http://homepage.mac.com/dmhart/WarAr...a/Guernica.JPG

I am a fan of the Dutch Masters - the delicacy of light in many of the paintings is just awesome.
http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=dutch+masters+paintings&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=0gZvS6X7PN7KjAehjvDrCg&sa=X&oi=image_result_g roup&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQsAQwAA

I was mightily impressed by Rembrandt's The Night Watch which is at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, mainly because it must be the biggest painting I've ever seen also because of that luminosity of light Rembrandt was so good at.
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/images/news/rijks_tefaf_wand_nachtwacht_final5%3Flarge&imgrefu rl=http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nieuwsenagenda/nachtwacht-ontrafeld%3Flang%3Den&usg=__rPhi4E5y33lQVBufkor724-wdd4=&h=320&w=427&sz=28&hl=en&start=13&um=1&itbs=1 &tbnid=TC39pjNqzX1OnM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=126&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dthe%2Bnight%2Bwatch%26hl%3Den%26clien t%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-USfficial%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1

Barcelona is almost an whole town art installation. Parc Guell is amazing and is one of those places that you absolutely must visit at least once in a lifetime.
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www-ma2.upc.es/~geomc/events/socg2002/parcGuell.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www-ma2.upc.es/~geomc/events/socg2002/ParcGuell.html&usg=__MpjHLrLiTaVeHTsQow0x3NP9o3A=& h=403&w=609&sz=90&hl=en&start=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid= tcysIAFW2PTBTM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=136&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dparc%2Bguell%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfir efox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-USfficial%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1

as is Sagrada Familia - also in Barcelona. Started in 1882 by Antoni Gaudi it is still being built and one of those places that you can go back to over the years and watch it's progress.
http://www.sagradafamilia.cat/sf-eng/index.php

Thus far Ingress and I haven't managed our usual trip to London at the start of the year to take in whatever exhibitions are currently showing and I don't think we will get a chance until after her Post Grad Cert. in Education (teacher training) is over. I particularly enjoyed the Annie Liebowitz retrospective at the NPG last year and Shibboleth at Tate Modern the year before.

I would just love to go to the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Uffizi in Florence and of course the New York Guggenheim too.




apologies for the long links.

[Toph]

Jacques-Louis David (30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) most of his portraitures were painted in his own image...very ego maniacal

Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798–1863) The Abduction of Rebecca painted (1846) a scene taken from Sir Walter Scott’s historical novel Ivanhoe

[Diva]

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
(late 1800's)
Pre~Raphaelite

[BestButchBoy]

[BestButchBoy]

At Boston's Museum of Fine Arts

[vixenagogo]

hannah hoch
-tamar 1930

Tamar depicts a mannequin figure of a women seated, arms crossed, looking down at a sea lion. Ultimately the pose suggests a domination over the sea lion which is much smaller in scale compared to the mannequin. Yet the tamer appears to sit in a meditative pose, while the sea lion engages the viewer with a sly, uncanny gaze. Upon closer inspection the seal lion is wearing makeup, and the mannequin appears porcelain like and looks quite passive. Moreover, the eyes of both sea lion and mannequin look almost the same, unifying the two images. These contradictions promotes confusion about who really is dominant the mannequin or the sea lion.

Hoch poses the question which pair of eyes is engaging the viewer. First we see pair of eyes and then the other. In this way the viewer is confused between subject and object.. Hoch uses this confusion in terms of gender, posing