What's your favorite piece of art?
I was never an art guy growing up. I used to think that people would call anything a masterpiece, even if it seemed to be something made in a pre-k crafts class (think dots on the wall).
After taking a gen-ed class back in community college, I started to understand why people respected and appreciated art. Art wasn't as superficial as I thought it seemed to be. Most pieces evoke thought, as well as tell a history of people's failures and triumphs.
Art is the story of the human condition. In this spirit, I wanted to share some of my favorite "stories". I'm always looking to add more to my list, so please share yours! These are some I can think off the top of my head:
- Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich
- Mandolin and Guitar by Pablo Picasso
- Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez
- The Treachery of Images (This is Not A Pipe) by Rene Magritte
Maria Lassnig's "Ungeteilte Form (Undivided Form)", (Oil on Jute, 1952 – 53)
Las Meninas is one of my favorites.
Anything from John Martin and Evgeny Lushpin is great.
Vladimir Kush not your thing?
Reminds me of a scene from the movie The Iron Giant (1999).
Kush is good, too. I'm mad though that the Lushpin paintings were taken out of Kush's art store in Las Vegas.
I wasn't familiar with those two before.
After a Google search, all I can say is wow!
Anything by J.M.W. Turner but this in particular https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slave_Ship</a">Slave Ship !ssss
I love the way he plays with colors, and this is my favorite example of his work. Prefer his oil paintings but he is famous for his watercolors.
Favorite Piece of Art You Own (Originally Posted: 11/23/2010)
What is your favorite piece of art that you own? and pics too if possible :D i had a piece commissioned by a decently famous Latin American graffiti artist to create the Wall Street bull on canvas using a bunch of tiny little shots of paint in circles..
www.dasicfernandez.com go to 'canvas' and its right there for a better shot since my iphone couldnt take a picture too well apparently ;)
armando pena
http://www.penagallery.com/
all are western and indian focused... he was also a professor briefly at U of Texas
alex fried of mine from high school
http://donkeeboy.com/?page_id=86&album=1&gallery=7
Have an original coastal painting by John Menzies. Nothing special but it's nice to see after a long day at work. Here are some of his other works:
http://www.artnet.com/artist/578934/john-menzies.html
My favorite piece of art currently is a pastel painted of my family by a friend of mine who died in the past year. What made it really special is that he painted it from the first photo taken of my wife and I with our two adopted sons in their orphanage, and we had no idea he was doing it. He was a really accomplished artist, and he presented it to us framed beautifully.
I used to own an obscure painting entitled, "The Art Collector" which was both beautiful and sinister at the same time. I bought it from a gallery about to go under, so at $2,000 I got it for pennies on the dollar. Unfortunately, I agreed to let my second wife have it in our divorce in order for me to take a 1982 Dom Perignon Rosé that held a great deal of "fuck you" value for me. I ended up enjoying the bottle at Friday lunch at Galatoire's (my NOLA readers will know what I'm talking about) with my current wife while we were dating, and no less than 25 of our fellow patrons (as well as every waiter) came up to the table to say hello, and pulled the bottle out of the bucket just to see the label. On balance, probably the better art investment.
I also happen to own one of Dan Mackin's rarer pieces (Dolphin Trio), but it's in storage so I can't enjoy it here in Paris.
Since the cash is not coming in yet I repainted Jackson Pollocks Number 23.
It didnt turn out to be exact like the original but is a rather a personal intepretation of it. It still looks great and I take it whenever I move and its the first thing I put on the walls.
By the way it is an awesome conversation starters with the ladies when they visit my pad.
I have 5 Franklin Saye original oil paintings my grandmother gave me before she moved. He's a really good regional artist and most of his work is sold word of mouth rather than in a gallery...not worth as much as some of the aforementioned but still great in that the prints have sold very well.
Delete Please
I have this print in my room:
http://join2day.com/abc/S/stubbs/stubbs8.JPG
Absolutely love it. Painted by George Stubbs.
I don't own any pieces of art other than some prints & such yet, but I hope to soon enough. However at my father's house is my favourite painting of all. It is a Canaletto which depicts a busy river scene in C18th London.
Possibly the most scary moment of my life was when I was a kid kicking a soccer ball around the house and accidentally slammed it against the frame of this very painting!!!
lol what is so good about art ?
do you pay attention to the art market at all?
if not, check it out @artinfodotcom, @artnetdotcom, and @theartmarket on twitter
Short, whats that power piece go for if you don't mind me asking? Is it one of a kind?
I'm only a poor college student, and so my "collection" consists of only a print of Scuola di Atene. Though it of course has to be my favorite because I only have the one, in fairness, I bought the print because it was my favorite (I love the Renaissance and its impact on art, science, etc.).
@ Eddy-- You, sir, are a boss.
Full size, canvas print of El Greco's masterpiece. The Burial of Count Orgaz.
I have some prints from Chris Cox
http://chriscoxphotographer.com/#Separate-Bodies
I don't know anything about art or art history, but my favorite painting has always been The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. I also really like No. 5 by Jackson Pollock. Not sure that I'd pay $140MM for it, though....
Starry Night is a good one, so is https://www.wikiart.org/en/vincent-van-gogh/cafe-terrace-place-du-forum…</a">Cafe Terrace, Place Du Forum.
And ha! I had a hard time understanding the meaning in Pollock's work. Stuff like No,5 made me question if anything could be art, seeing how he I thought he just splat the paint on a canvas.
Again, I am no art expert, but from the (minimal) research that I have done, I think that Pollock's work is renown because he was a leader in the abstract expressionist movement, with No. 5 being his most famous painting. I think that famous works of art become famous not necessarily for how "good" they are, but for what they represent (a movement, a change in style, etc.).
Starry Night ftw! I like both versions to be honest - the bridge and the village versions. My thesis prof was a huge fan of Van Gogh. A starry night coffee mug gift to him, in exchange for a less difficult life for me. I also love Munch, Rembrandt, David and Dali.
My favourite painting though, would be the painting depicting all the nations marching in line as they were predicted to have revolutionary movements for freedom. Never remembered the name of the painting or the painter, but the concept was beautiful and so relevant for its time.
Tom and Jerry
can't believe I'm the first to post this
lol barf
![https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Nighthawks_by_Edwar…]
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Edward Hopper Nighthawks
Some days you feel like the server, some days the lover, some days the lonely man at the counter.
+1 Hopper Masterpiece
love this
Anything Monet
![http://www.galleryone.com/Merchant5/graphics/00000001/wysocki-wysfo1.jp…]
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Charles Wysocki I've always liked Americana, and I loved seeing this one as a kid because the Fox was so smart to trick the Hunters.
Americana? that looks like a British countryside estate.... fox hunting is also mostly a British thing..
Look at the flag, homes. This guy is a relatively well-known artist famous for his depictions of American culture. This might not be the most quintessential piece of Americana in his works, but I just liked the subject matter.
As for you trying to school me on art genre and classification, http://www.keswickhuntclub.com/fox-hunting/a-brief-history-of-fox-hunti…</a">get a life dude.
you're correct it looks like it, this was very much a 17th/early 18th century style of Americana, my family has a couple of these (reprints).
though hard to see, the number of stars in the American flag makes me question just how old of a time they were depicting.
either way, love this kinda stuff
This looks like a puzzle box
good topic, never seen this on wso (that's rare). i'm biased to my mom's work obviously but i've always been a fan of this one by Monet, there are plenty more
Classic MacGruber drawing
Anything from Rousseau, Pippin, and Dali. This is probably my favorite painting, one I always stop and look at.
http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/104468.html
I don't know much about art, but I like all the major surrealists...Dali, Magritte, Ernst, Tanguy, Miro, etc. More psychedelic the better. Their paintings remind me of Pink Floyd album covers
Playing in the Dark by Dali (1929)
Not sure who the artist is, but it's a real masterpiece- whenever I look in the mirror the portrait staring back at me.. Just seems to capture what I'm feeling, ya know?
Reminds me of this, another one of his works:
Oath of the Horatii by Jacques-Louis David (1784)
love his work, that's talent
That's incredibly beautiful. Anyone know where to find a higher-rez photo of it? Google is turning up 1024 × 1024 max which is bumming me out.
google laocoon and his sons. best torsion in my opinion, the struggle, agony, desperation - that's art.
https://www.google.com/search?q=laocoon+and+his+sons&rlz=1C1NHXL_enUS70…
I'm surprised that we've gotten this far and nobody's said "Your mom's pussy." I'm disappointed in all of you.
Really like Kandinsky's work when he was at the Bauhaus. If you stare at the pieces long enough you start to see cool things. Albrecht Durer's self-portrait is pretty amazing too.
Trippy...
Picasso's blue period in general, specifically El Viejo Guitarrista
Also, dogs playing poker...
Big fan of Alberto Giacometti's 'Chariot'.
Tangential: Wikipedia has a list of the most expensive paintings. A lot of them have high-resolution scans available online.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_paintings
Has anybody ever considered Google Image Searching these (big shoutout to the image search Chrome extension), downloading the highest-resolution pngs one could find, take those nice big files to a Kinkos, print them, frame them, and hang them up on apartment walls to impress friends and girls like one isn't a total incorrigible plebeian?
...Or is that just my dumb, posturing, sex-and-friendship-craving ass?
Jesus Christ $300 million: and we wonder why people hate rich dudes. Ken Griffin spent half a billion dollars on two paintings, ridiculous.
Just the very concept of multibillionaires is a helluva thing.
yes, but you have to realize a lot of art is actually counterfeit, and many 'invest' in art to launder money.
Saw the thread title, came to post The Treachery of Images myself. There isn't a single painting in the world I think about more than that one.
On another note, I personally think non-paintings are underrated as a frameable medium of art. I find images that people don't even think of as "art" to be powerful. Take this for example:
Went to the Tate on a recent visit to London, found this... Love Cold War history, and this really caught my eye for a while
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/8f/99/db/8f99dbf11acef8a6366b…
Rothko
I don't know if I have a favorite piece of art but I own two Cleon Peterson's. He's an artist based out of L.A. who's battled homelessness and drug abuse and makes some pretty sweet art based off those experiences. His art deals with violence, cruelty, greed and all that cool stuff. Not sure if it's up everyone's alley but he's quite talented and has work featured all over the world and has the first and only mural ever painted under the Eiffel Tower.
His artwork isn't that expensive (around $150 for a numbered, limited print) but can be hard to get. He posts all of his pieces on Instagram as soon as he puts them up for sale and I have it set up so I get a notification when he posts them. They're normally sold out in a few minutes so I have to make a pretty quick assumption of whether or not I want to own that specific piece of his art.
Here's the one I recently bought:
![http://images.bigcartel.com/product_images/188454788/Burning-the-Dead-P…] Cool looking piece if you ask me but some people find it a little scary... But I guess that's the point of art, to make you look at and realize ideas bigger than yourself.
Quote from the artist on his work: "I want to present things that are cognitively dissonant, ideas that make the viewer have to think critically about the ethical, moral, and historical roles we all play in the world. "
dogs playing poker is an obvious choice...
Also, a lot more contemporary, but I enjoy street art, so anything Banksy has done should be on the list.
By the way, while talking of art, how many of you have been to the MoMA PS1 warm ups?
Thomas Eakin's The Gross Clinic Hieronymus Bosch's Triptychs Rembrandt van Rijn's Storm on the Sea of Galilee, The Night Watch and The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp
Big fan of those first two.
Tilt shift is also nice, especially when it's of something large scale like a city or an birds eye view of impressive nature.
I love tilt shift photography. That said, I'd be more likely to display a photo than a different artistic medium.
My favorite was a painting I saw in one of the big art galleries in DC when I was in high school. It was a portrayal of King David leading an army out the gates and down the hills of Jerusalem. I was astounded by the detail that went in to each of the hundreds of soldiers. Still haven't been able to find the name or picture of the painting.
If this impacted you enough that you remember it so many years later, you should just call them and describe it. I'm sure most employees would be (i) thrilled that you care and (ii) eager to help you find it
Pieta by Michelangelo Marine by Gustave Courbet Les Demoiselles d'Avignon by Picasso
Would post pics but I can't help but fuck up the code
anything by Yves Klein
Jesus, looks like there are a lot of Art connoisseurs on WSO. Art Basel Miami anyone?
Franz Marc's Dog Lying in the Snow
Any sculpture fans here?
My personal favourite is Remington's Cheyenne![]()
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Recently saw this music video and thought it was pretty cool. Features lots of art:
Jane Zhang: Dust My Shoulders Off: https://youtu.be/ZgnClGC8-WQ</a">
how is this not here yet
![https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Ducreux1.jpg][https…]
That was one my favorite memes back in the day.
Seeing The Veiled Christ in real life was pretty mind blowing, it looks like a real life Gif, to carve this out of marble it truly a great accomplishment and I think someone else touched on it so much art I had previously seen was 'I could do that'.
I was never an art person growing up but while I was in Bilbao I got to see the Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition I got to experience how you could decode art a little bit and understand it much better. Even in that short period getting to know who he was and how he was obsessed with certain things like Ancient Eqypt and also the book Gray's Anatomy and how that played out in his work you went from this seemingly undecipherable output (the art) but once you had the context or input you could see why.
Ah. All those different complexities. I've been to Bilbao too, what did you do out there?
Le genie du mal. Personally prefer this version from a purely aesthetic perspective to L'ange du mal, but the story behind L'ange being "too sublime" that it was removed from the its original place at the Belgian pulpit is pretty damn cool haha.
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Lucifer_Liege_Luc_V… https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Lucifer_Liege_Luc_V…
![http://media.tumblr.com/5fe9bea196f52decfa78ce16af7d4ccf/tumblr_inline_…]
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Nike of Samothrace.
wot is art?
Haha I never seen this before! Thanks for sharing.
I don't know its name and can't find a picture of it online to identify it. Unfortunately it was in a no photography section, which prevents me from using google reverse image search- nothing matches. It was a series of ink on paper drawing by a french artist from back in the day.
Eastern Asian art is also nice.
What a bummer. What examples of Eastern Asian art did you have in mind?
Not too familiar with it, would like to know more.
Since this got bumped up... John Atkinson Grimshaw's stuff is amazing. Have a few framed prints of his works in my house.
I have a 5ft x 7ft oil on canvas that is my favorite.
Herbert Leupin PKZ Ad 1942 - He did a lot of great poster ads.
Everything from Rolex to Vermouth
Just got my hands on an original one of these.
I also qualify designer furniture as art.
Here are some of my favorites: Womb Chair by Eero Saarinen:![]()
http://s7d2.scene7.com/is/image/DesignWithinReach/PD_7876_ENV3?hei=400&…</a" alt="Womb Chair" />
Eames Lounge Chair by Charles and Ray Eames for Herman Miller:
Artichoke Lamp by Poul Henningsen for Louis Poulsen Lighting:![]()
http://s7d2.scene7.com/is/image/DesignWithinReach/PD_4215_ENV3?hei=500&…</a" alt="Artichoke" />
Also Harry Bertoia furniture and Bauhaus architecture.
I had this commissioned several years ago. It hangs facing my toilet
Luckily im in a city with free museums and 5 mins away from Dali, Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Whistler.
I love the one of Plato before he drinks the hemlock, forgot what its called.
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