What is your favourite work of art?

[Kommander]

I'm not much of an art person, but I like a lot of Salvatore Dali's stuff. Thanks to his paintings, I no longer feel the need to experiment with drugs.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I always liked Scott Mutter's 'surrational images' style.

 

[WillsBabe]

It would be either Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation, in the Ufizi, which made me cry when I saw it. Or, Michelangelo's David, in the Accademia, which I found to be utterly breath-taking. Or, Hals' and Codde'sThe Meagre Compay, in the Riijksmuseum, which is opposite The Night Watch and blew it out of the water as far as I was concerned.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Either that or Starry Night by Van Gogh.

How about Starry Starry Trek?

I know it's kind of clichéd, but I always loved Munch's The Scream.

Ah, a close personal friend of mine.

Other favorites already mentioned include Garden Of Earthly Delights and Fallingwater. I don't think anyone has mentioned Liberty Leads The People.

 

[Niorah]

I am a big fan of Rubens, Tiziano and Canova, it's hard to say which of theirs is my favourite work.

 

[ria 75]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winged_Victory_of_Samothrace

I finally got to see my favorite sculpture this summer at the Louvre. It's so beautiful. I got my user name from it, too.

That's cool!
I love the Victory too, a bit more than the Venus de Milo I confess. And it could hardly be better displayed than it currently is.

I find it very difficult to play any favorite game, I don't have top ten lists of stuff I like

I didn't even try. I just thought of this old postcard on the mantlepiece. I thought people would perhaps share a little story of why a certain work of art is meaningful to them, not necessarily one from the theoretical top ten.

Favourite music? It counts as work of art but to me it night have to be a separate thread.

For easy listening among the classics (not strictly classical), I just can't resist Ravel's Bolero. So dynamic! (Though not very original today.) I'm listening to it now and it is putting me in a good mood.
http://www.deezer.com/#music/result/all/Bol%C3%A9ro%20Ravel

Or this famous Spanish guitar tune by Isaac Albeñiz called 'Asturias'.
http://www.deezer.com/#music/result/all/isaac albeniz
(Some may prefer 'Barcelona', which is more langid but perhaps more famous.)

On a sadder tone, there's also the soundtrack to Le Mépris by Georges Delerue: Contempt - Camille's theme.
http://www.deezer.com/#music/result/all/Le Mépris georges delerue
It is absolutely beautiful in its simplicity and usually triggers a strong emotional response. Although I suppose that works better if you've seen the movie. Or if you're simply not hearing it for the first time. I like that song better than the movie itself.
Incidentally, the middle (chorus, I suppose) of that short piece is a bit reminiscent of the more romantic parts of the soundtrack to this lovely B&W Gene Tierney-Rex Harrison movie, The Ghost and Mrs Muir. That's got to be one of my favourite movies of all times. Romance, comedy, charm, balance. Great photography. Great actors. A fun original book to read, too.

[NbOP: Lovely impressionistic painting there, but this post is too long already]
My entire collection of printed sequential art (I think the anglo term is graphic novels -don't confuse with 'comics') also had plenty room; Pratt, Shuiten, Franquin (yes, he belongs there!)

Don't be such a snob! I love Hugo Pratt and François Schuiten and I call it comic books. (But I suppose the common term bandes dessinées is more neutral.) I enjoy Franquin too, BTW. Gaston Lagaffe is almost my role model.

But the one single piece of art I always seem to come back to is Fallingwater by the great US-American artist Frank Lloyd Wright:

Scroll to the bottom of this page and click on the thumbnails for bigger versions of the many views of the house.

Drawn for and into the landscape, build with local materials - I think this is my 'favourite work of art'!

There you go. I don't mind quoting that picture, it really strikes one's fancy.

I always liked Scott Mutter's 'surrational images' style.

How about a few links to illustrate that?
http://www.photographymuseum.com/mutter/escalatorlg1204.jpg
http://web.ncf.ca/ek867/mutter.forest.jpg
http://www.photographymuseum.com/mutter/churchaislelg1204.jpg
http://www.photographymuseum.com/mutter/swan.html
http://www.photographymuseum.com/mutter/revolving.html
http://www.photographymuseum.com/mutter/eagle.html

I'd never heard of this artist. I'm glad I've seen this.

It would be either Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation, in the Uffizi, which made me cry when I saw it. Or, Michelangelo's David, in the Accademia, which I found to be utterly breath-taking. Or, Hals' and Codde'sThe Meagre Compay, in the Riijksmuseum, which is opposite The Night Watch and blew it out of the water as far as I was concerned.

It's a pale copy of the Annunciation, but here it is. A little reminder.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Leonardo_da_Vinci_052.jpg
The visit of the Uffizi is well worth the 2 hours of standing in line for one hour of visit - without the possibility of turning back to a previous room.

WillsBabe, I remember your desctiption of the David from the Most beautiful thing thread. Quite vivid.

 

[MeanJoePhaser]

I always liked this...

http://keithparkinson.com/gallery.php?icid=3&nextid=0&img=kpminion

R.I.P. Keith Parkinson

 

[MIB]

Personally, my current favorite is Cloister Cemetery in the Snow by Casper Freidrich. There's a certian look of enchantment to it that I adore. Not to mention the subduing theme of finality. It's a damn shame the original painting was destroyed in the fire-bombing of Dresden back in WW2.

http://www.songsouponsea.com/Promenade/Cloister.jpg

 

[anais]

Gustav Klimt's golden mosaics stand out to me, in particular The Kiss.

Right now it's Rembrandt's Carcass of Beef. I find it very pretty, in a kind of way. I like how the colors are so spare and dim.

I'm strangely fascianted by Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson. Great use of light.

 

[WillsBabe]

The visit of the Uffizi is well worth the 2 hours of standing in line for one hour of visit - without the possibility of turning back to a previous room.

I was lucky. I visited Florence in the winter. We got to the Uffizi first thing in the morning. There were no queues and the gallery was quiet. Florence and her treasures are so beautiful, they don't need the sunshine.

WillsBabe, I remember your desctiption of the David from the Most beautiful thing thread. Quite vivid.

You do? I don't even remember posting in that thread!

 

[ria 75]

^^Then it must have been somebody else loving the David even more than you do.

Found it! It was PKTrekGirl.

Man-made Beauty - David

Forget about the pictures in your art books. A million photographs of it could not possibly do it justice. The sculpture of David, by Michelangelo and located in the Accademia in Florence, Italy, is, IMO, the most breathtaking piece of art in the world - and having been to pretty much every major art museum on earth (a few of them more than once), I say that as someone who has seen ALOT of art.

I am a huge fan of art and art museums...but this is the only piece of art I actually 'miss'. I have been to Florence and seen David twice, but he is so breathtaking that twice is not nearly enough. I would be very happy to visit him annually, because standing there looking at that piece, all the cynicism I have about the human race just washes away. Humanity, it turns out, IS good for something after all. We ARE capable of creating something pure and good and fundamentally beautiful. Michelangelo created something that reaches into the very core of what it means to be human, and pulls out the most beautiful piece of that core and carves it in stone.

You can't see it in the photos, but there is incredible detail there - you can see the veins in his arms for example - not just on the top of his hands, but in his arms.

Everything is just perfect.

If you never see another piece of art in the world, see David. Forget about the Mona Lisa. It's small and crowded and behind about a foot of bulletproof glass. Fergetaboutit.

The Mona Lisa leaves me with the question "So?" In contrast, David leaves me speechless...which is okay because I don't have to ask the question anyway.

 

[1001001]

My favorite work of art is Hallucinogenic Toreador by Salvador Dali.

It's fascinating. You keep finding new things in it. And the colors are great.

http://www.7-07.com/images/The_Hallucinogenic_Toreador.jpg

 

[Sheliak]

Saint John the Evangelist

 

[WillsBabe]

^^Then it must have been somebody else loving the David even more than you do.

No, sounds like how how I feel about it. I have posted somewhere here sometime in that past about David. This thing seems alive. It's living. It seems like it has the breath of life in it. I swear I saw him breathing. You think if you stand there for just a moment longer he will step down from his plinth. There is a copy outdoors in the square (I forget the name of). You think, when you have not seen the original, that you have seen it when you see the copy. The two things are utterly different. There is no comparison. Sometimes it worries me that he will become the target of a terrorist attack. If this thing gets destroyed, it would break my heart utterly. As it is, he's already nursing a broken finger.

 

[Roshi]

Guernica by Pablo Picasso.

 

[Goliath]

Oh, man--I couldn't possibly pick a single favourite. Here's a list of ten, in roughly chronological order.

An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump by Joseph Wright. I love chiaroscuro.

Nymphs and Satyr by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Dante and Virgil in Hell, also by Bouguereau

Carnation, Lily, Lily Rose by John Singer Sargent. I've seen the original, in London: no photo or scan has ever really done it justice.

Marguerite au Sabbat by Pascal-Adolphe-Jean Dagnan-Bouveret.

Lucretia Borgia Reigns in the Vatican in the Absence of Pope Alexander VI by Frank Cadogan Cowper, last of the Pre-Raphaelites:

How the Devil, Disguised..., also by Cowper:

Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 by Marcel Duchamp

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space by Umberto Boccioni

Li II by H. R. Giger:

 

[Holdfast]

I mentioned fairly recently that I'm very fond of Renoir's Moulin de la Galette and it would be my favourite. But I also have a major soft spot for Caravaggio and Canaletto.

 

[1001001]

I also have a major soft spot for Caravaggio and Canaletto.

Well sure.

Who doesn't?

 

[think]

the greatest artist of all time is me.,, then again I know how acting like that and being that are two totally different things maybe .,

I like acting like the most important person/artist that ever occurred. (the key word is acting like) mostly though each individual is the greatest that ever was is or will be but when we(they/them/I) actualize this reality we become lost in the personalities' point of view from which all occurs sorta.

Art is very subjective with one object being a completely different idea at the person to person level.

http://www.disc-shelf.com/?artist=44 is that a hot link? what exactly is a "hot" link comparatively speaking?

http://members.soundclick.com/m8w

this is my sound click artist site there are links to various groups I have created. These have digital works and audio works and video works that I have upload from my files and works.

what is art and what is beautiful are totally different from what is one persons favorite to another persons favorite.

 

[Kryton]

Guernica by Pablo Picasso.

Seconded. What a tremendous loss.