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Originally Posted by fredricktoo Alfred Steiglitz's portrait of his wife. Good piece, Gary. Thanks ... oh, and i enjoyed the fractals.

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Thanks for the snapshot of the O'Keeffe exhibition kbe. It would be a real pleasure to view an exhibition of her paintings someday. Makes all the difference when you can see the brushstrokes and true scale of a work, turns appreciation into such a personal experience. For me Georgia O'Keeffe has always been a design icon: her use of line, colour and composition has wonderfully strong graphic elements. I can only imagine that these strengths would be intensified upon an actual viewing.

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Originally Posted by Magnifiscent ... Modigliani ... Any Amedeos in particular? Just curious. Back in '94 i made quick pencil copies/sketches of 32 of his paintings. He was a great draughtsman, and i wanted to see how he used the line.
In fact, Modigliani is the one who got me interested in art in the first place.
edit: Postscript
PS: Did people see the art news today? Some of Pablo's paintings looted! Here's the BBC story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6403837.stm

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Originally Posted by CoTHukoB In fact, Modigliani is the one who got me interested in art in the first place. He has been a favourite of mine for a long while. I had postcards of 'Reclining Nude' and another one (beautiful girl with brown hair and eyes looking sad/wistful) on my wall for years. All that grace and melancholia!
I had the privilege of living about 200 yards from the Sainsbury Museum in Norwich, UK for a year. It is a small collection, but beautifully presented. What they had in particular was a great collection of early C20th art and the African art that was so influential in Paris at the time. You could be concentrating on a Modigliani portrait and shift your sight to a mask from Benin just behind it and see the same lines, same face shape - just beautiful.

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Originally Posted by michaeld39 He has been a favourite of mine for a long while. I had postcards of 'Reclining Nude' and another one (beautiful girl with brown hair and eyes looking sad/wistful) on my wall for years. All that grace and melancholia!
I had the privilege of living about 200 yards from the Sainsbury Museum in Norwich, UK for a year. It is a small collection, but beautifully presented. What they had in particular was a great collection of early C20th art and the African art that was so influential in Paris at the time. You could be concentrating on a Modigliani portrait and shift your sight to a mask from Benin just behind it and see the same lines, same face shape - just beautiful. It was the inward-looking eyes and swan necks that sold me. Gods, i wish he'd lived longer ... and painted more double-portraits ... and the whole ending wasn't quite so tragic.
Which nude, and which girl? Not Alice? Honestly, i like almost all his portraits but despise all his landscapes. On his nudes, it's a three-way; i like many, am indifferent to some, and am frustrated by others. For instance, i do not like the 'Sitting nude' in Antwerp. She annoys me. In Antwerp, i'll take the Fouquet "... with Seraphim and Cherubim" as my favorite work. Years ahead of its time considering it was painted in the mid-fifteenth century. Here's a link: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth...un-diptych.jpg
But back to Modi ... he also led me to Giacometti and Brancusi, and things snowballed from there. One of the greats!
edit: link

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Originally Posted by Magnifiscent Oh... just discovered this thread today.
Where to start? I like so much art, from sculpture to painting, from gothic to modern... Too many names to mention!!!
Giotto , Cimabue, Carlo Crivelli (I'm quite impressed someone named him before...), El Greco, Durer, Bosch, Vermeer, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Leonardo, Raffaello, Van Eyck, Tiziano, Goya, Canova, Bernini, Renoir, Monet, Schiele, Klimt, Matisse, Toulouse-Lautrec, Modigliani, Boldrini, Brancusi, Wharol, De Chirico and many other!!!
Yeah!
Oh, here's one of my favorite quotes:
" I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have. "~~ Leonardo da Vinci
Try topping that one, the next time you feel a wee bit depressed about your accomplishments . . .
OK, some special ones to me:
1. Caravaggio--OK, so he killed a couple of people in brawls. Bankrolled by my family (no, not kidding;http://www.giustiniani.info/bassanoeng.html) back when we weren't paupers.
Damn! I can't even afford a ticket to Berlin to see the collection.
2. Matisse, Van Gogh and Cezanne---I practically jog through museums until I'm transfixed by a painting, then stand staring at it for a looong time. So often, it's by one of these 3 gentlemen.
3. Pierrre Bonnard--love his nudes, favorite Post-Impressionist.
4. Practically all of the German Expressionists; Marc, Nolde, Schiele, Munch etc. Sick tortured puppies, every one-- but riveting.
5. Art Nouvea architecture; Viva Gaudi !
Cheers,
Mario.

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Originally Posted by Mario Justiniani Yeah!
Oh, here's one of my favorite quotes:
" I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have. "~~ Leonardo da Vinci
Try topping that one, the next time you feel a wee bit depressed about your accomplishments . . . "A candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long."
Guess what i am trying to say is that creating comes entirely from within. Like a candle, fire consumes. So, to achieve the sort of quality he refers to might be just a wee bit expensive.
edit: clarification

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Originally Posted by CoTHukoB "A candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long."
Guess what i am trying to say is that creating comes entirely from within. Like a candle, fire consumes. So, to achieve the sort of quality he refers to might be just a wee bit expensive.
edit: clarification Yes, of course, I understand what you're saying. The soul can be too demanding and consume you. The curse of all artists, and the stigmata of genius. Michelangelo once said something to the effect that people envied him, but if they knew what he went through to create, they'd pity him instead.
I remember reading one of Bukowski''s stories where he said that he liked reading about the lives of the great composers. That most of these men's lives had been so tortured; and that he would sit and think to himself: " Well, I'm in hell too,-- and I can't even write music. "
Cheers,
Mario.
P.S.
Forgot to list Rodin. His 'Balzac' is my favorite statue of the turn of the century.

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hey yall, i just thought of a pic i want to set up a link to, botticelli's c1490 annunciation. i've always really liked annuncations, i guess 'cause it's interesting to me to see the very subtle ways the artists interpret the scene -- of course mary is usually reading but sometimes she's so wrapped up in her book she doesn't realize she's being impregnated, other times she's just glancing up, etc. and the expression on her face is always different. gabriel is up to slightly less variation but he's always interesting too. i don't really like botticelli but i do like this one since it was done later in his life when he became some sort of crazy fanatic. it's one of the most emotional, sensual annunciations i can think of. and gabriel is a lot more personalized than usual, imo. anyhow i just like this one a lot. oh i almost forgot the link. http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/htm.../70cestel.html

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Washington D.C. has a pretty good collection of Whistlers in the Freer gallery. Among them is the Peacock Room, a dining room designed to show off a rich gentleman's collection of blue and white Chinese porcelain. It is beyond belief. Apparently artist and patron got into quite a spat about said room. Whistler entertained in it while his patron was away, and quite a few
words were exchanged over the price. The Freer has quite a few Whistlers -
I love the paintings of dark harbors.
I am originally from Chicago and miss the Art Institute's collection of impressionists...
By the way, lonefish, since you are in Hungary I bet you can guess my real last name. (yes, from the German, and I am married).
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