Question:
Originally Posted by LoneFish did you visit the russian museum often as well? Not as often as Hermitage but I have visited it a couple of times. I like Aivazovsky, Brullov, Kramskoi, Shishkin...
Love this portrait of Shishkin by Kramskoi!
http://www.abcgallery.com/K/kramskoy/kramskoy1.html

Answer:
Originally Posted by fredricktoo
Alfred Steiglitz's portrait of his wife. Reminds me of one of my favorite anecdotes (or is it parable....?):
picasso and steitglitz meet and get into a debate regarding the merits of abstraction versus realism/photography. Steiglitz says "That cubist portrait of yours -- i can't even tell it's a person --" and reaches into his wallet and pulls out a picture of his wife "now here is a picture of my wife. See, she looks EXACTLY like this!". Picasso pauses and replies "Rather small, isn't she".
btw - i'm a fan of gerhard richter, francis bacon, the dadaists and surrealists, bosch, goya, el creco, caravaggio, rothko, hokusai, and have a small collection of medical art books. oh - and my fav painting would have to be guernica.

Answer:
I went to the Hogarth special exhibition at Tate Britain last month
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/hogarth/
(You need to click on some of the less obvious words to be taken to the pictures for this great exibition).
Hogarth was an engraver, social observer, satirist, and one of the first artists in the world to completely eschew the classical subject in favour of the here and the now. This exhibition also demonstated that he was a moralist, hustler, patriot and working class hero.
I'd know 'Gin Lane' for a long time. It contains some of the most chilling imagery since Bosch, (with the added sauce that this is not the product of a fevered imagination but what he saw from his window). I always imagined 'Gin Lane' was a documentary piece until I saw a plate of 'Beer Street' in a book on the history of ale, and I realised the nationalist agenda behind Hogarth's work. His narrative series like 'A Rake's Progress' have been quietly and hugely infuential.
This should not detract too much from an appreciation of a huge artist. He went, he saw, he engraved - with an eye that no-one did before and few have done since.

Answer:
Originally Posted by CoTHukoB Hey, Mario. Have you seen "Camille Claudel"?
You can grab some reviews on amazon or imdb, you know how to get 'round, you've done your own reviews. Since you're interested in the subject matter, i recommend this one unreservedly.
i have three Rodin reproductions. My favorite is the Danaid:
http://www.talariaenterprises.com/products_lg/3822.html
But not in bronze. Not the medium i prefer for this work. Why 'Balzac'? Just curious.
Yes, I saw it when it first came out. Depressing as hell, but good film. If they do a bio on Mozart's sister, they could play on a double bill . . .
The Danaid is one sexy and beautiful statue.
Why Rodin's 'Balzac' ? Not sure. Perhaps because it embodies the heroic triumphalism of the 1890's. The time before the fall from grace brought by WW1, when it was still possible to portray a great man of genius as a demigod, without people snickering at how 'corny' it all is, Hell, even during WW1, there was that one Christmas when they stepped out of the trenches and---well, you probably know that story.
Inconceivable today.
Pax ' all
Mario