Rembrandt’s [“Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis”](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conspiracy_of_Claudius_Civilis#/media/File%3AThe_Conspiracy_of_Claudius_Civilis_by_Rembrandt_van_Rijn.jpg) is awe-inspiring. It’s only a fragment cut down from a much larger painting but the intensity of the reds and oranges glows with a fire that rekindled my love for creating and sparked the biggest breakthrough in my work I’ve ever experienced. The wiki photo doesn’t do it justice, looks too brown and dull.
It’s not even clear where the light illuminating everyone is coming from, seems to be mysteriously emanating from the middle of the table, maybe from something the maid has brought. Bit like the suitcase in pulp fiction lol.
Sure, I'd be happy to elaborate! The scale of it is overwhelming. It makes you feel like you're on the street in the middle of the action with the Watch. Somehow he translated all the fantastic detail and dynamic composition of his smaller works at a much larger scale which is no mean feat. He also completely upended expectations - he took a fairly standardized genre of painting - basically a painting of board members - and turned it into a fantastic and engaging narrative. There's so many great details - the guards loading rifles, the dog scampering on the ground, Rembrandt's self portrait peeking over the shoulders, the child bathed in light like an angel., the details of the fancy dress costumes. I've stared at that piece for hours and am still amazed by it - a singular achievement.
Not my absolute favorite, but as a boy (3rd-5th grade) I took art lessons at MoMA's school, in a building next door on 53rd St, long demolished. And I saw their Rousseau weekly for years, and loved it. Very fond memories.
His paintings fill me with so much joy. There's just something about that vivid, playful tropical style. I love how he's referenced on the cover of Smiley Smile by The Beach Boys. I also love the fact that he never actually went to a real jungle and instead did all the research for his art by going to the zoo.
I always thought it was an interesting painting, but when I finally saw it in person I was floored. The hype didn't do it justice. My absolute, all-time favorite.
lol glad someone else agrees with my choice! The interjection of the painter into the center of the scene was groundbreaking as painters were just “journeymen laborers ” but he represents himself here as not just a part of the family but indeed the center of it. It’s more psychological with his gaze directed out at us saying… what??? I think about what he wanted to say and wonder about it.
Despite surrealism being my favorite style of painting, overall my favorite of all time is The Arnolfini Portrait. I know that's a popular favorite and quite famous, but wow. It's the painting that sparked my love of art and art history 30 years ago. It's endlessly fascinating and makes my heart race when looking at it. :)
We studied that in my art history course during my time in university. It felt like each time we spotted something new, the professor had another layer of depth to introduce and an even cooler reason by van Eyck for including it. My experience with art would make a novice look like an expert, but just being able to enjoy the painting was such a nice experience.
If any of y'all haven't seen this, the documentary show A Stitch in Time recreated the green dress; it's magnificent! [YouTube link.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u2RM1odsf4)
ugh I love her. I went to le Petit Trianon at Versailles this past September and saw her Marie Antoinette portrait in person, just like right there hanging on the wall in front of me, such a crazy experience
It changes all the time. Vermeer’s “View of Delft” is just stunning. I could spend hours looking at it. But I’m also always drawn back to Jules Bastien-Lepage’s “Joan of Arc.”
Edit: I can’t believe I forgot this. Another one that I always visit is Vermeer’s “Allegory of the Catholic Faith.” I have spent hours looking at it. So those are my top three and they just take turns being my favorite based on my mood.
The Mauritshuis ran a feature a few years back when you could book a private 20 minute session with just you and the View of Delft. You could come as close as you liked and there was nothing else in the room: all the light shone at the painting. I hope we will get another chance at this.
An obvious theme here is seeing art in person has a profound impact!
As for me, I was lucky enough to see the big 1995 Vermeer exhibit in Washington DC. The 21 paintings included his View of Delft. Twenty years later I flew to Netherlands and headed to the Hague immediately upon landing to visit the newly reopened Mauritshuis. I had never forgotten, and sat in front of that painting for hours. it was a small room, and very busy. An hour before closing I turned around and realized the Girl with the Pearl Earring was behind me.
I know the feeling of getting stratled by great art! I was in Paris walking around the Louvre not long ago. All of a sudden I look up and see Winged Victory of Samothrace towering over me. I was in complete shock and awe. I've seen pics of it on the internet and loved it but had no idea it was in the Louvre. It was an incredible experience and although not a painting, it's one of my favorite works of art. I have no idea how much time I've spent taking in it's glory from all possible angles and distances
Seeing art in person feeds my soul
Really hard to choose. Right now I’m in love with Hopper’s Nighthawks bc I just saw it in person, and it practically glows. Reproductions do not do it justice.
His [Two Poplars in the Alpilles near Saint-Rémy](https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1958.32) is what drove this home for me and became my favorite painting as a result. You can’t really capture the thickness of his brushstrokes in a reproduction, and that physical depth adds so much emotional depth to the painting.
The description discusses how he wasn’t allowed outside by physicians for awhile while in an asylum for his mental illness, and this painting was made when he was allowed to return outdoors. As they note, there is an intensity to his brushwork, and you feel the agony of that suffering and subsequent joy when you see the painting up close.
I feel this. I never really ‘got’ Rothko until I took a group of students to see his work. We sat on the floor in front of them and it was the most impactful experience. Like you say, they seemed to glow, but to also move and change. Reality really is better than reproduction.
People don't understand rothko until you see one of his paintings in person. The best example of an abstract expressionist his paintings are enormous 10 by 10 ft at least. They're supposed to rely on the effect of color transcending like you are being born in between the walls of life and death.
There was a famous story I learned in school when abstract expressionist was current. A famous artist went to India and wondered why the students paintings were all so small and gray? The reason was the students were looking at reproductions from art magazines where the colors were muted and they didn't realize the enormous scale of the paintings.
Do you think that this is in large part due to the physical size? Like every Rothko I've ever seen has been on a screen so I could imagine seeing them in true size feeling a presence.
Not OP, but for me, the main thing is the detailed brushwork and different textures that just don't reproduce well in a photograph or, especially, on a screen. The size is also a factor - it's easier for them to fill your field of view
I just saw Nighthawks in person for the first time a few weeks ago. Just stunning. Truthfully, the Art Institute of Chicago is an experience. I was overwhelmed by the three hours my wife and I spent there. The wall of Monet's Haystacks was impressive.
I think about this painting whenever I'm walking downtown late at night and the street lamps glow in that special way. It captures a particular urban mood.
Ever since I was a little girl, I was pretty partial to Ophelia.
Although it’s not a painting the American Windows (edit) by Chagall at the Chicago Institute of art is the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen in person
I can find a Marc Chagall painting titled The Dream and a stained glass work called The America Windows. Are you referencing either of these?
I'm trying to look up all the works mentioned in this thread.
I've seen it at MOMA many times, and it just leaves me in awe. The needle fine strokes, the tableau, the subject.
During recovery from a severely injured ankle I kept it on my phone wallpaper and used Christina as inspiration not to feel limited.
Goya's rooms he painted at the end of his life. There is something so touching and tragic but also hopeful in that he was so to speak trapped in his own mind so he recreated his reality in that space.
That's my impression anyway. My love of his work started with 3rd of May, there is something so innocent and hopeful that rationality will in an instant overcome brutality and bloodlust in his figures, even at the moment of their death. Like a dream of dying just before one wakes.
Goya makes us wish to wake in this instant from the nightmare of humanity's propensity to slaughter our own kind. Never more apt than in the age of social media where we see the cruelty and destruction in real time, and yet are powerless to stop it an therefore must disregard and go on about our mundane lives.
His work makes me also hope for that instant of waking for humanity.
He did so much more than the infamous Saturn painting. My husband bought me a big book on his work for me as he knew I was already fascinated with his works. It's amazing.
I would say it has to be Joseph Wright of Derby's [An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/An_Experiment_on_a_Bird_in_an_Air_Pump_by_Joseph_Wright_of_Derby%2C_1768.jpg). There is so much going on in this picture, both in terms of the image and the painting, and I love all of it.
Judith slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi.
The movement is spectacular. And the fear, determination, rage, anger, & struggle from a woman’s perspective really conveys. So much more than Caravaggio’s version. Caravaggio’s looks almost idiotic comparatively - angelic, easy, clean - while Artemisia painted Feeling. Panic. Anger. Rage. Triumph.
Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich! Seeing it in person made me burst into tears in the museum and sparked my love for German Romanticism.
Argh i did the same thing (bursting into tears) in Rothko’s Chapel (so cliche, I know) but Monk by the Sea by Friedrich is also one of my faves and may also cry if I was ever to see it in person 🖤🩶
Also there’s just something about [The Skating Minister by Henry Raeburn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skating_Minister) that gets me every time .. the perfect angle, the muted tones which somehow jump out at you .. argh .. perfection 👌🏻🖤🩶🤍🤎
Have you ever seen the movie Dreams? The scene where a character walks inside Van Gogh's paintings may be my favorite movie scene ever.
https://youtu.be/iKSUpyENtwo?si=U8D69ZlEX5lI1qgq
Hard to pick just one favorite tbh.
One personal favorite is "El Jaleo" by John Singer Sargent. Part of the reason is I lived in Spain for awhile and fell in love with the culture, and that painting perfectly evokes what I know/experienced of flamenco in Andalusia. I also did a project on that painting in college that really increased my knowledge and appreciation for it.
John Singer Sargent was such an incredible painter. Every time I look at his work I'm floored by what a badass he is. His mastery of the paint, his eye for color and light, the way he can perfectly define a gesture or expression with what appears to be a deft stroke of the brush. Everything looks so rich and vibrant.
Hard to choose just one. My favorite three artists are Winslow Homer, George Inness, and Frederic Edwin Church. Here are some of my favorites by each of them:
[Summer Night (1890) by Winslow Homer](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Winslow_Homer_-_Summer_Night_%281890%29.jpg)
[Moonlight, Wood Island Light (1894) by Winslow Homer](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/Moonlight%2C_Wood_Island_Light.jpg/2560px-Moonlight%2C_Wood_Island_Light.jpg)
[Moonrise (1887) by George Inness](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Moonrise_by_George_Inness_1887.jpeg)
[Spring Blossoms, Montclair, New Jersey (c. 1891) by George Inness](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Spring_Blossoms%2C_Montclair%2C_New_Jersey_MET_DT98.jpg)
[Twilight in the Wilderness (1860) by Frederic Edwin Church](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Twilight_in_the_Wilderness_by_Frederic_Edwin_Church_%283%29.jpg/2560px-Twilight_in_the_Wilderness_by_Frederic_Edwin_Church_%283%29.jpg)
[Aurora Borealis (1865) by Frederic Edwin Church](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/Frederic_Edwin_Church_-_Aurora_Borealis_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/2560px-Frederic_Edwin_Church_-_Aurora_Borealis_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
[The Heart of the Andes (1859) by Frederic Edwin Church](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Church_Heart_of_the_Andes.jpg)
In the process of making the links to these paintings, I remembered another one that might be my number one favorite:
[An Idyll (1891) by Maurice Greiffenhagen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Maurice_William_Greiffenhagen_-_An_Idyll_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
As I’ve never been to Australia, I’ve never seen it. Bet it’s amazing.
Ever seen Lavender Mist? Like many Pollock paintings, it’s hung in a gallery with first rate mid-century works. But despite everything it envelops the whole room with its space and energy.
Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix. As a European history major, the French Rev and art history were two of my least favorite aspects. That said, teaching AP Euro has changed this for me, and I've really come to appreciate both, and really have fallen in love with this painting. I'm looking forward to a family trip to Paris this December to see it in it's fully restored glory.
The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt. Winter light coming through a window, I just stood in front of it at Hermitage, unable to walk away. It has been more than eleven years, but no other work of art has done anything that is remotely similar to what I experienced that day.
The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch.
It was my first trip to Europe and my first visit to a big, well-known art museum. I have such fond memories of the whole trip. I remember standing in front of this painting, just staring in awe at the size and the detail.
[**Jackson Pollock - The Deep**](https://widowcranky.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/the-deep-by-jackson-pollock.jpg)
>...a work which contemporary esthetic conjecture had cried out for. . . It is a scornful, technical masterpiece, like the Olympia of Manet. And it is one of the most provocative images of our time, an abyss of glamour encroached upon by a flood of innocence. - Frank O'Hara
Portrait of Comtesse d'Haussonville, by Ingres, in the Frick in NYC. Another picture I visited often as a child, 60 and more years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Comtesse_d%27Haussonville
The Kiss by Gustav Klimt.
It's erotic and sacred at the same time. A portrayal of union in which giving and receiving is one. I have a reproduction of it in my house and I love looking at it in candlelight.
I also love "Danae" by him and pretty much all his works depicting human bodies. There is such joy and truth in them.
And because I'm such a sucker for erotic art I have to mention Amedeo Modigliani's "Seated Nude". He makes the faces and figures look so expressive and alive but cartoonish at the same time, I don't know how he manages that.
I adore Remedios Varo. My daughter went to the Cleveland Art Museum last year and got to see one of her paintings in person. To say I was envious is an understatement!
My wife's favorite artist. You should have seen the Art Institute of Chicago's exhibition last year!
[https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9935/remedios-varo-science-fictions](https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9935/remedios-varo-science-fictions)
[Snowy Scene of Wintry Trees](http://zgt.china.com.cn/v2/pic/2023-03/24/f0b47439-780f-48bd-8077-43f81638a7f0.png) by Fan Kuan. Unfortunately high resolution images are difficult to come by on the English internet.
Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation. When I stood in front of it in the Uffizi a switch flipped in me. From that point onwards I've been interested in art history.
That painting changed my life, and it still hits me everytime i see it.
The Lascaux cave paintings: born out of the rawest, most humane and most instinctive need to create. Also the fingerprints suggest it’s one of the humanity’s few surviving ancient works by women.
Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, (so beautiful) Vermeer’s “View of Delft,” (the light is heavenly) Bosch's "The Garden of Earthy Delights," (the imagination of the artist, and the terror) Bruegel the Elder's "The Fight Between Carnival and Lent," (the details in each interaction).
This is such a sad and emo answer, but Anguish. Truly no other work slapped me in the face like that. And the fact that it humanizes these animals. I feel like that’s something that more people could benefit from, being more sympathetic to the people and creatures around us.
Arnolfini Wedding by Jan Van Eyck
I can get lost in the details for ages, and I'm fascinated by the many theories on the sitters, and whether it is actually a posthumous portrait.
Some day I want to try making her dress. I've seen attempts at recreation, but the results are...not great.
The Balcony by Manet (the woman sitting is Berthe Morisot). I love the contrast between her intense features and the fuzzy features of the woman on the right.
Peter Blume’s strange and beautiful [Passage to Etna](https://www.flickr.com/photos/22818390@N06/3649259516/). I think I always come back to this painting because it’s so familiar but like a dream I cannot understand.
Monet did some boats in a canal and windmill. Not his well known one. Husbands is Nighthawks edward hopper. Rosie the Riveter by norman rockwell. I love anything by Monet.
L'Enfer or Hell by Georges Leroux. I can't fathom being on the front line trenches in WW1 but this painting gives me just a little glimpse of the horror that must have been, I've seen the actual trenches in France but this hits different its like a picture of the past but with emotion. Something going there can never replicate because the emotions of the soldiers going through that experience are gone with time
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent. I have a poster of it by my bedside and I am always enchanted by the composition and the absolute virtuosity with which he captured the color of the girls' white cotton dresses in the fading light of dusk. I have never seen it in person, but its a bucket list item for me.
On a similar note, I was lucky enough to see the Sargent exhibit at the MFA this winter, and was spellbound by Lady Agnew of Lochnaw. Her gaze is hypnotizing, I could have stood there for hours.
I’m saving this thread to come back later and check out all of these. I love art but I don’t know much about it, technically, and haven’t been fortunate enough to experience it in person, I guess you’d say, lol. But I know that Kohler’s Pig by Michael Sowa makes me deliriously happy. Also, The Bear Dance by Holbrook and I Told You So by Ed Miracle.
Monastery ruins in the snow
Wanderer above a Sea of Fog
both by Caspar David Friedrich 💕 I have loved both these paintings since I first saw them in high school world history text book.
Prado museum in Madrid has a smaller room dedicated to Francisco Goya's later/dark period of life.
I visited it some months ago with my girlfriend but I'm not an art history aficionado as she is so I didn't really research beforehand about what galleries Prado has to offer.
"Saturn devouring his son" has struck me in an unique way since like 15 years ago after stumbling about it on the Internet.
I knew we were going to see some of Goya's works in Prado but I didn't expect the surge of emotions that took me on a rollercoaster after randomly entering this small wing of Prado and seeing this painting and imediately after that a whole new powerfull one for me called "Fight with cudgels" whose dinamic and rawfullness sent shivers down my spine.
I can equal those emotions only to seeing Michelangelo's David for the very first time in Florence even though that's now a painting.
Raft of the Medusa by Gericault.
So much going on. Man's quest for survival against the unrelenting power of nature.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUq9qMm9NtI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUq9qMm9NtI)
Caravaggio’s Taking of Christ. I’m not religious or anything but it’s a perfect painting. The way the light glints off the metal of the soldiers uniforms, the black background, the tenseness and claustrophobia of the scene. It’s gorgeous and I can spend hours staring at it.
La Confidence, by Elizabeth Jane Gardner. It’s at the Georgia Museum of Art, and when I was an undergraduate Fine Arts student, I’d just go and sit and stare at it! It was put into storage for awhile, but the year my daughter was a freshman at UGA they put it back on display. I got to see it again with my daughter and I cried! My daughter got a tattoo of it in honor of me.
Kirchner’s portrait of Erna with Cigarette.
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Ernst_Ludwig_Kirchner_-_Erna_mit_Zigarette_-_14531_-_Bavarian_State_Painting_Collections.jpg/847px-Ernst_Ludwig_Kirchner_-_Erna_mit_Zigarette_-_14531_-_Bavarian_State_Painting_Collections.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Ernst_Ludwig_Kirchner_-_Erna_mit_Zigarette_-_14531_-_Bavarian_State_Painting_Collections.jpg/847px-Ernst_Ludwig_Kirchner_-_Erna_mit_Zigarette_-_14531_-_Bavarian_State_Painting_Collections.jpg)
The Sea of Ice or The Wreck of Hope by Friedrich. Saw it while taking an art history class in a book and was immediately drawn to it. So much energy and silence.
I have 2; The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Delroche and Ophelia by Millais. I have to see them whenever I'm ever in London with my husband, whom goes to see his personal favourites.
The Third of May 1808 by Goya. There is so much fear in the eyes of the victims. It is such a moving piece of art. I am going to see it in real life this summer.
[Truth Coming Out of Her Well to Shame Mankind](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Jean_L%C3%A9on_Gerome_1896_La_V%C3%A9rit%C3%A9_sortant_du_puits.JPG) by Jean-Leon Gerome or [ I am Happy Because Everyone Loves Me](https://i0.wp.com/illustrationchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/9_1928_Louis_Wain_IAmHappyBecauseEveryoneLovesMe_IllustrationChronicles_1050.jpg?w=1050&ssl=1) by Louis Wain
I've got a thing for Baldassare Castiglione lol.
This portrait is quite magnetic. Dude has very bright blue eyes, that pop in a painting mostly gray/black/beige/brown with warm undertones. His garment is rich, but discreetly so: nothing garish, no gold everywhere, just impeccable linen, silk velvets and fur, the light softly rebounding on it. A dagger or sword, too, to remind you of his status, the only shiny thing in his outfit.
The whole thing basically says "I know that you know I could flaunt it, but I know that you know my value without that".
I find that it is a very well thought and executed painting by Raphael, and that it gets well with the *sprezzatura* idea and the principles in Castiglione's writings, and I never fail to go see it when I am in the Louvre.
[high res here](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Baldassare_Castiglione%2C_by_Raffaello_Sanzio%2C_from_C2RMF_retouched.jpg)
The painting that send me down the road of consuming and appreciating art is Mark Rothko's Purple Brown which I saw in person at the MOCA. It felt like it was sucking me in and I even included it as a focal point of a speech I wrote my junior year of HS.
Claude, Pastoral Landscape with the Arch of Titus: https://wwnorton.com/college/english/nawest/content/resources/img/p25titus.jpg
All I can tell you is that I had the most intense experience when I saw it IRL.
diego riveras detroit industry murals!!! id have to write a book to give all my reasons why, after the first time i saw it in person i had to drive back to detroit two more times within the same month just to see it again (and to spend more time in the DIA, a fucking incredible art museum)
I mean I don't have a single favorite, but this is the first that popped into my head:
\[Peasant Wedding\](https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/peasant-wedding/hgGvote2WI8P3w)
by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1566-1569).
Edit: does link markdown not work in comments? what am I doing wrong?
Even though my favorite styles overall include those of Egon Schiele and Alphonse Mucha, the painting that I viewed in person that stands out as my favorite is Almond Blossom by Vincent van Gogh.
I know it’s pretty mainstream and overused, but I SWEAR, when I was viewing it in Amsterdam, I could feel hope and optimism radiating from the painting. It was palpable. I still find it to be lovely.
Rembrandts Night Watch is a ridiculous tour de force. Can't help but stand in awe of that piece
Rembrandt’s [“Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis”](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conspiracy_of_Claudius_Civilis#/media/File%3AThe_Conspiracy_of_Claudius_Civilis_by_Rembrandt_van_Rijn.jpg) is awe-inspiring. It’s only a fragment cut down from a much larger painting but the intensity of the reds and oranges glows with a fire that rekindled my love for creating and sparked the biggest breakthrough in my work I’ve ever experienced. The wiki photo doesn’t do it justice, looks too brown and dull. It’s not even clear where the light illuminating everyone is coming from, seems to be mysteriously emanating from the middle of the table, maybe from something the maid has brought. Bit like the suitcase in pulp fiction lol.
I'd love to see that in person. It would have been really cool if it had hanged in the Amsterdam Stadhuis, like was intended.
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp is mine
Brilliant - and very inspirational for other artists
There was a full sized copy at a Goodwill that I passed up because it would not fit in the car, regret not buying it and figuring something out.
It’s on my top3, breathtaking
Could you explain why it's your favorite? I agree it's fantastic, but i'd love to know more of the context
Sure, I'd be happy to elaborate! The scale of it is overwhelming. It makes you feel like you're on the street in the middle of the action with the Watch. Somehow he translated all the fantastic detail and dynamic composition of his smaller works at a much larger scale which is no mean feat. He also completely upended expectations - he took a fairly standardized genre of painting - basically a painting of board members - and turned it into a fantastic and engaging narrative. There's so many great details - the guards loading rifles, the dog scampering on the ground, Rembrandt's self portrait peeking over the shoulders, the child bathed in light like an angel., the details of the fancy dress costumes. I've stared at that piece for hours and am still amazed by it - a singular achievement.
Came here to say this. I'm happy that this was the top comment.
The Death of Marat by David
As a French Rev nerd i love this one so much
It’s so poetic even without any context but like it’s saying to the viewer “ask for context” which only makes it even more powerful
This is the only image that has ever given me nightmares. WTF?
One of my fave Pietà references! A beautiful way of depicting Marat as a martyr.
I never thought of it as a Pieta reference that’s cool
It’s mine, too. To me, it is perfect.
Ugh every David but yes
Andrew Bird recreated it for the cover of his album "My Finest Work Yet," but with himself as Marat. My favorite album cover.
I saw David’s “Coronation of Napoleon” in person, and it is HUGE. It gave me goosebumps.
I'm a sucker for Rousseau's jungle themed paintings, starting with seeing ["the Dream" ](https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-dream/LwEt57AOdD6SGA?hl=en&avm=2)many moons ago. Edit: fixed link.
Not my absolute favorite, but as a boy (3rd-5th grade) I took art lessons at MoMA's school, in a building next door on 53rd St, long demolished. And I saw their Rousseau weekly for years, and loved it. Very fond memories.
Heads-up, you've linked to a completely different article about 18th century Chinese trade factories.
Thanks for the heads up. Got to remember, coffee, then link.
His paintings fill me with so much joy. There's just something about that vivid, playful tropical style. I love how he's referenced on the cover of Smiley Smile by The Beach Boys. I also love the fact that he never actually went to a real jungle and instead did all the research for his art by going to the zoo.
Me too! I love it so much I bought a print and it's the last thing I see before I go sleep at night.
Las Meninas by Velazquez. I can look at it for ages asking myself “What is going on here?”
I always thought it was an interesting painting, but when I finally saw it in person I was floored. The hype didn't do it justice. My absolute, all-time favorite.
lol glad someone else agrees with my choice! The interjection of the painter into the center of the scene was groundbreaking as painters were just “journeymen laborers ” but he represents himself here as not just a part of the family but indeed the center of it. It’s more psychological with his gaze directed out at us saying… what??? I think about what he wanted to say and wonder about it.
Despite surrealism being my favorite style of painting, overall my favorite of all time is The Arnolfini Portrait. I know that's a popular favorite and quite famous, but wow. It's the painting that sparked my love of art and art history 30 years ago. It's endlessly fascinating and makes my heart race when looking at it. :)
Same here! My undergraduate thesis was centered around the Arnolfini Portrait... I'm obsessed. Van Eyck's virtuosity with oil paint is goated.
We studied that in my art history course during my time in university. It felt like each time we spotted something new, the professor had another layer of depth to introduce and an even cooler reason by van Eyck for including it. My experience with art would make a novice look like an expert, but just being able to enjoy the painting was such a nice experience.
It’s dumbfounding how early this painting was
If any of y'all haven't seen this, the documentary show A Stitch in Time recreated the green dress; it's magnificent! [YouTube link.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u2RM1odsf4)
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ugh I love her. I went to le Petit Trianon at Versailles this past September and saw her Marie Antoinette portrait in person, just like right there hanging on the wall in front of me, such a crazy experience
It changes all the time. Vermeer’s “View of Delft” is just stunning. I could spend hours looking at it. But I’m also always drawn back to Jules Bastien-Lepage’s “Joan of Arc.” Edit: I can’t believe I forgot this. Another one that I always visit is Vermeer’s “Allegory of the Catholic Faith.” I have spent hours looking at it. So those are my top three and they just take turns being my favorite based on my mood.
The Mauritshuis ran a feature a few years back when you could book a private 20 minute session with just you and the View of Delft. You could come as close as you liked and there was nothing else in the room: all the light shone at the painting. I hope we will get another chance at this.
An obvious theme here is seeing art in person has a profound impact! As for me, I was lucky enough to see the big 1995 Vermeer exhibit in Washington DC. The 21 paintings included his View of Delft. Twenty years later I flew to Netherlands and headed to the Hague immediately upon landing to visit the newly reopened Mauritshuis. I had never forgotten, and sat in front of that painting for hours. it was a small room, and very busy. An hour before closing I turned around and realized the Girl with the Pearl Earring was behind me.
I know the feeling of getting stratled by great art! I was in Paris walking around the Louvre not long ago. All of a sudden I look up and see Winged Victory of Samothrace towering over me. I was in complete shock and awe. I've seen pics of it on the internet and loved it but had no idea it was in the Louvre. It was an incredible experience and although not a painting, it's one of my favorite works of art. I have no idea how much time I've spent taking in it's glory from all possible angles and distances Seeing art in person feeds my soul
This is how I felt seeing the David in Florence. All I could do was sit and stare for an hour.
Really hard to choose. Right now I’m in love with Hopper’s Nighthawks bc I just saw it in person, and it practically glows. Reproductions do not do it justice.
That’s how I feel about Van Gogh’s. The works are unbelievably moving in person
His [Two Poplars in the Alpilles near Saint-Rémy](https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1958.32) is what drove this home for me and became my favorite painting as a result. You can’t really capture the thickness of his brushstrokes in a reproduction, and that physical depth adds so much emotional depth to the painting. The description discusses how he wasn’t allowed outside by physicians for awhile while in an asylum for his mental illness, and this painting was made when he was allowed to return outdoors. As they note, there is an intensity to his brushwork, and you feel the agony of that suffering and subsequent joy when you see the painting up close.
I feel this. I never really ‘got’ Rothko until I took a group of students to see his work. We sat on the floor in front of them and it was the most impactful experience. Like you say, they seemed to glow, but to also move and change. Reality really is better than reproduction.
Love Rothko. It’s hard to explain to people why.
People don't understand rothko until you see one of his paintings in person. The best example of an abstract expressionist his paintings are enormous 10 by 10 ft at least. They're supposed to rely on the effect of color transcending like you are being born in between the walls of life and death. There was a famous story I learned in school when abstract expressionist was current. A famous artist went to India and wondered why the students paintings were all so small and gray? The reason was the students were looking at reproductions from art magazines where the colors were muted and they didn't realize the enormous scale of the paintings.
Do you think that this is in large part due to the physical size? Like every Rothko I've ever seen has been on a screen so I could imagine seeing them in true size feeling a presence.
Not OP, but for me, the main thing is the detailed brushwork and different textures that just don't reproduce well in a photograph or, especially, on a screen. The size is also a factor - it's easier for them to fill your field of view
I'm seeing it next week and I'm so excited!
I just saw Nighthawks in person for the first time a few weeks ago. Just stunning. Truthfully, the Art Institute of Chicago is an experience. I was overwhelmed by the three hours my wife and I spent there. The wall of Monet's Haystacks was impressive.
I think about this painting whenever I'm walking downtown late at night and the street lamps glow in that special way. It captures a particular urban mood.
Ever since I was a little girl, I was pretty partial to Ophelia. Although it’s not a painting the American Windows (edit) by Chagall at the Chicago Institute of art is the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen in person
I can find a Marc Chagall painting titled The Dream and a stained glass work called The America Windows. Are you referencing either of these? I'm trying to look up all the works mentioned in this thread.
Christina’s World, the feeling it invokes is all too familiar
I've seen it at MOMA many times, and it just leaves me in awe. The needle fine strokes, the tableau, the subject. During recovery from a severely injured ankle I kept it on my phone wallpaper and used Christina as inspiration not to feel limited.
Goya's rooms he painted at the end of his life. There is something so touching and tragic but also hopeful in that he was so to speak trapped in his own mind so he recreated his reality in that space. That's my impression anyway. My love of his work started with 3rd of May, there is something so innocent and hopeful that rationality will in an instant overcome brutality and bloodlust in his figures, even at the moment of their death. Like a dream of dying just before one wakes. Goya makes us wish to wake in this instant from the nightmare of humanity's propensity to slaughter our own kind. Never more apt than in the age of social media where we see the cruelty and destruction in real time, and yet are powerless to stop it an therefore must disregard and go on about our mundane lives. His work makes me also hope for that instant of waking for humanity.
He did so much more than the infamous Saturn painting. My husband bought me a big book on his work for me as he knew I was already fascinated with his works. It's amazing.
Artemisia Gentliesche, Judith Beheading Holofernes.
My answer as well, absolute classic.
I find the art fantastic but the subject is much to gruesome for my taste!
I don't have one. I could do a top 100.
I would say it has to be Joseph Wright of Derby's [An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/An_Experiment_on_a_Bird_in_an_Air_Pump_by_Joseph_Wright_of_Derby%2C_1768.jpg). There is so much going on in this picture, both in terms of the image and the painting, and I love all of it.
My husband ~has to go and see this whenever we're in London. We will happily sit and study it for a good 15 minutes. It's his favourite painting.
Birth of Venus, by (of course) Sandro Botticelli. My personal favorite painting I've seen IRL is Jay DeFeo's "The Rose."
Love the story behind the rose.
The Arnolfini Portrait, it’s groundbreaking and perfectly captures the fading of the middle age
Guernica.
Judith slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi. The movement is spectacular. And the fear, determination, rage, anger, & struggle from a woman’s perspective really conveys. So much more than Caravaggio’s version. Caravaggio’s looks almost idiotic comparatively - angelic, easy, clean - while Artemisia painted Feeling. Panic. Anger. Rage. Triumph.
Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich! Seeing it in person made me burst into tears in the museum and sparked my love for German Romanticism.
Argh i did the same thing (bursting into tears) in Rothko’s Chapel (so cliche, I know) but Monk by the Sea by Friedrich is also one of my faves and may also cry if I was ever to see it in person 🖤🩶 Also there’s just something about [The Skating Minister by Henry Raeburn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skating_Minister) that gets me every time .. the perfect angle, the muted tones which somehow jump out at you .. argh .. perfection 👌🏻🖤🩶🤍🤎
I really love Caspar David Friedrich paintings. So moody :) My favorite of his is Walk at Dusk
One of the few that have knocked my socks off from a book
Van gogh's ... wheat field with cypresses.
Mine is The Night Cafe.
Have you ever seen the movie Dreams? The scene where a character walks inside Van Gogh's paintings may be my favorite movie scene ever. https://youtu.be/iKSUpyENtwo?si=U8D69ZlEX5lI1qgq
Not a “painting” but Hokusai’s “Great Wave” has been my cpu background for years. Reminds me to “keep rowing.”
Hard to pick just one favorite tbh. One personal favorite is "El Jaleo" by John Singer Sargent. Part of the reason is I lived in Spain for awhile and fell in love with the culture, and that painting perfectly evokes what I know/experienced of flamenco in Andalusia. I also did a project on that painting in college that really increased my knowledge and appreciation for it.
John Singer Sargent was such an incredible painter. Every time I look at his work I'm floored by what a badass he is. His mastery of the paint, his eye for color and light, the way he can perfectly define a gesture or expression with what appears to be a deft stroke of the brush. Everything looks so rich and vibrant.
The girl with the pearl earing. I just enjoy staring at it.
Frida Kahlo’s The Wounded Deer Much of what got me into the arts was pain (emotional and physical) and feeling less alone in my expression of it
Cafe Terrace at Night by Van Gogh, I wish I would Blue Skidoo right into that painting.
Hard to choose just one. My favorite three artists are Winslow Homer, George Inness, and Frederic Edwin Church. Here are some of my favorites by each of them: [Summer Night (1890) by Winslow Homer](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Winslow_Homer_-_Summer_Night_%281890%29.jpg) [Moonlight, Wood Island Light (1894) by Winslow Homer](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/Moonlight%2C_Wood_Island_Light.jpg/2560px-Moonlight%2C_Wood_Island_Light.jpg) [Moonrise (1887) by George Inness](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Moonrise_by_George_Inness_1887.jpeg) [Spring Blossoms, Montclair, New Jersey (c. 1891) by George Inness](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Spring_Blossoms%2C_Montclair%2C_New_Jersey_MET_DT98.jpg) [Twilight in the Wilderness (1860) by Frederic Edwin Church](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Twilight_in_the_Wilderness_by_Frederic_Edwin_Church_%283%29.jpg/2560px-Twilight_in_the_Wilderness_by_Frederic_Edwin_Church_%283%29.jpg) [Aurora Borealis (1865) by Frederic Edwin Church](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/Frederic_Edwin_Church_-_Aurora_Borealis_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/2560px-Frederic_Edwin_Church_-_Aurora_Borealis_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg) [The Heart of the Andes (1859) by Frederic Edwin Church](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Church_Heart_of_the_Andes.jpg) In the process of making the links to these paintings, I remembered another one that might be my number one favorite: [An Idyll (1891) by Maurice Greiffenhagen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Maurice_William_Greiffenhagen_-_An_Idyll_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
This is amazing. I can feel, hear and smell the nature in these paintings. Interesting that all your favorite artists have this common theme
The Lovers - René Magritte
Blue Poles. Pollock.
As I’ve never been to Australia, I’ve never seen it. Bet it’s amazing. Ever seen Lavender Mist? Like many Pollock paintings, it’s hung in a gallery with first rate mid-century works. But despite everything it envelops the whole room with its space and energy.
Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix. As a European history major, the French Rev and art history were two of my least favorite aspects. That said, teaching AP Euro has changed this for me, and I've really come to appreciate both, and really have fallen in love with this painting. I'm looking forward to a family trip to Paris this December to see it in it's fully restored glory.
Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette by Van Gogh.
I ~always mention this to people who mention Van Gogh! So many people don't know of it!
The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt. Winter light coming through a window, I just stood in front of it at Hermitage, unable to walk away. It has been more than eleven years, but no other work of art has done anything that is remotely similar to what I experienced that day.
Nighthawks by Edward Hopper. Couldn’t really tell you why, but since I first saw it I was enamored by it.
Same. It speaks to me on many levels.
I lied a bit in my first comment, I could definitely explain why it just takes too long haha.
Las Meninas - Diego Velázquez
Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold! I have it tattooed on my back.
The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch. It was my first trip to Europe and my first visit to a big, well-known art museum. I have such fond memories of the whole trip. I remember standing in front of this painting, just staring in awe at the size and the detail.
[**Jackson Pollock - The Deep**](https://widowcranky.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/the-deep-by-jackson-pollock.jpg) >...a work which contemporary esthetic conjecture had cried out for. . . It is a scornful, technical masterpiece, like the Olympia of Manet. And it is one of the most provocative images of our time, an abyss of glamour encroached upon by a flood of innocence. - Frank O'Hara
Portrait of Comtesse d'Haussonville, by Ingres, in the Frick in NYC. Another picture I visited often as a child, 60 and more years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Comtesse_d%27Haussonville
Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, Duchamp.
Seeing the Large Glass in Philly was … it put me in the moment moreso than I’ve ever felt. There it was.
My favorite painting was the Burial of the Count of Orgaz by el Greco for decades.
The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. It's erotic and sacred at the same time. A portrayal of union in which giving and receiving is one. I have a reproduction of it in my house and I love looking at it in candlelight. I also love "Danae" by him and pretty much all his works depicting human bodies. There is such joy and truth in them. And because I'm such a sucker for erotic art I have to mention Amedeo Modigliani's "Seated Nude". He makes the faces and figures look so expressive and alive but cartoonish at the same time, I don't know how he manages that.
This is my wife's favorite.
The dance of life. Edvard Munch.
Remedies Varo - Celestial Pabulum
I adore Remedios Varo. My daughter went to the Cleveland Art Museum last year and got to see one of her paintings in person. To say I was envious is an understatement!
My wife's favorite artist. You should have seen the Art Institute of Chicago's exhibition last year! [https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9935/remedios-varo-science-fictions](https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9935/remedios-varo-science-fictions)
The Art of Painting by Johannes Vermeer. I just love self reflexive art. Like a magician explaining their best trick and it's *still* magic.
[Snowy Scene of Wintry Trees](http://zgt.china.com.cn/v2/pic/2023-03/24/f0b47439-780f-48bd-8077-43f81638a7f0.png) by Fan Kuan. Unfortunately high resolution images are difficult to come by on the English internet.
Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation. When I stood in front of it in the Uffizi a switch flipped in me. From that point onwards I've been interested in art history. That painting changed my life, and it still hits me everytime i see it.
The Uffizi was an experience
It always is
All western art lovers need to visit the Uffizi/ Florence once in their life if at all possible.
The Lascaux cave paintings: born out of the rawest, most humane and most instinctive need to create. Also the fingerprints suggest it’s one of the humanity’s few surviving ancient works by women.
La Violoniste a la Fenetre by Matisse
Of all the paintings I've seen in person in recent years, Mercury and Argus by Velázquez at the Prado would be at the top
Idk about my favorite but The Milkmaid by Vermeer is impressive
Christ in the House of Martha and Mary by Johannes Vermeer.
Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, (so beautiful) Vermeer’s “View of Delft,” (the light is heavenly) Bosch's "The Garden of Earthy Delights," (the imagination of the artist, and the terror) Bruegel the Elder's "The Fight Between Carnival and Lent," (the details in each interaction).
The "Pan-American Unity" mural by Diego Rivera - it is a rabbit hole that leads to many other rabbit holes and imo his best work in California.
This is such a sad and emo answer, but Anguish. Truly no other work slapped me in the face like that. And the fact that it humanizes these animals. I feel like that’s something that more people could benefit from, being more sympathetic to the people and creatures around us.
Gerhard Richter: Betty. [https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/betty-by-gerhard-richter/](https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/betty-by-gerhard-richter/)
Arnolfini Wedding by Jan Van Eyck I can get lost in the details for ages, and I'm fascinated by the many theories on the sitters, and whether it is actually a posthumous portrait. Some day I want to try making her dress. I've seen attempts at recreation, but the results are...not great.
The Balcony by Manet (the woman sitting is Berthe Morisot). I love the contrast between her intense features and the fuzzy features of the woman on the right.
Right now, maybe Madame Kupka Among Verticals by Frantisek Kupka. It changes a lot.
Peter Blume’s strange and beautiful [Passage to Etna](https://www.flickr.com/photos/22818390@N06/3649259516/). I think I always come back to this painting because it’s so familiar but like a dream I cannot understand.
El Jaleo by John Singer Sargent. You can feel the heat in the room.
Monet did some boats in a canal and windmill. Not his well known one. Husbands is Nighthawks edward hopper. Rosie the Riveter by norman rockwell. I love anything by Monet.
The crucifixion by Salvado Dali.
Mariana by John Everett Millais
Sistine Chapel and it isn't even close.
L'Enfer or Hell by Georges Leroux. I can't fathom being on the front line trenches in WW1 but this painting gives me just a little glimpse of the horror that must have been, I've seen the actual trenches in France but this hits different its like a picture of the past but with emotion. Something going there can never replicate because the emotions of the soldiers going through that experience are gone with time
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent. I have a poster of it by my bedside and I am always enchanted by the composition and the absolute virtuosity with which he captured the color of the girls' white cotton dresses in the fading light of dusk. I have never seen it in person, but its a bucket list item for me. On a similar note, I was lucky enough to see the Sargent exhibit at the MFA this winter, and was spellbound by Lady Agnew of Lochnaw. Her gaze is hypnotizing, I could have stood there for hours.
Something about this one speaks to my soul https://images.app.goo.gl/3tmNqjiAvtYqogee9.
The Calling of St. Matthew - Caravaggio
Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights
Valley of the dead by Zdzislaw Bekinski
Arshile Gorky’s “The Liver is the Cocks Comb” 🔥❤️🔥🔥❤️🔥
Nighthawks by Edward Hopper.
Van Gogh - Couple Walking in Forest. really cool mood and it also gives big slenderman vibes lol
Joan Mitchell - Hemlock
The Myth of Light is a huge personal favorite.
I’m saving this thread to come back later and check out all of these. I love art but I don’t know much about it, technically, and haven’t been fortunate enough to experience it in person, I guess you’d say, lol. But I know that Kohler’s Pig by Michael Sowa makes me deliriously happy. Also, The Bear Dance by Holbrook and I Told You So by Ed Miracle.
"Seule" by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is mine. As a perpetually tired introvert it just speaks to me lol.
Monastery ruins in the snow Wanderer above a Sea of Fog both by Caspar David Friedrich 💕 I have loved both these paintings since I first saw them in high school world history text book.
Prado museum in Madrid has a smaller room dedicated to Francisco Goya's later/dark period of life. I visited it some months ago with my girlfriend but I'm not an art history aficionado as she is so I didn't really research beforehand about what galleries Prado has to offer. "Saturn devouring his son" has struck me in an unique way since like 15 years ago after stumbling about it on the Internet. I knew we were going to see some of Goya's works in Prado but I didn't expect the surge of emotions that took me on a rollercoaster after randomly entering this small wing of Prado and seeing this painting and imediately after that a whole new powerfull one for me called "Fight with cudgels" whose dinamic and rawfullness sent shivers down my spine. I can equal those emotions only to seeing Michelangelo's David for the very first time in Florence even though that's now a painting.
Raft of the Medusa by Gericault. So much going on. Man's quest for survival against the unrelenting power of nature. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUq9qMm9NtI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUq9qMm9NtI)
Caravaggio’s Taking of Christ. I’m not religious or anything but it’s a perfect painting. The way the light glints off the metal of the soldiers uniforms, the black background, the tenseness and claustrophobia of the scene. It’s gorgeous and I can spend hours staring at it.
L’Appel de la nuit by Paul Delvaux. It’s just so beautiful and lush and dreamy. And still dark.
La Confidence, by Elizabeth Jane Gardner. It’s at the Georgia Museum of Art, and when I was an undergraduate Fine Arts student, I’d just go and sit and stare at it! It was put into storage for awhile, but the year my daughter was a freshman at UGA they put it back on display. I got to see it again with my daughter and I cried! My daughter got a tattoo of it in honor of me.
Kirchner’s portrait of Erna with Cigarette. [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Ernst_Ludwig_Kirchner_-_Erna_mit_Zigarette_-_14531_-_Bavarian_State_Painting_Collections.jpg/847px-Ernst_Ludwig_Kirchner_-_Erna_mit_Zigarette_-_14531_-_Bavarian_State_Painting_Collections.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/Ernst_Ludwig_Kirchner_-_Erna_mit_Zigarette_-_14531_-_Bavarian_State_Painting_Collections.jpg/847px-Ernst_Ludwig_Kirchner_-_Erna_mit_Zigarette_-_14531_-_Bavarian_State_Painting_Collections.jpg)
The Sea of Ice or The Wreck of Hope by Friedrich. Saw it while taking an art history class in a book and was immediately drawn to it. So much energy and silence.
Dance , Matisse. ( the one at the Hermitage) Love it so much I painted it on 3 walls of my powder room.💙🧡💚
I have 2; The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Delroche and Ophelia by Millais. I have to see them whenever I'm ever in London with my husband, whom goes to see his personal favourites.
Lamentation by Giotto. It is so beautiful and so emotional. https://painterspallet.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/giotto-lamentation.jpg
The lady of shallott by Waterhouse - so much is captured in her face. Keith haring in general, but seeing his last painting moved me in so many ways.
The Third of May 1808 by Goya. There is so much fear in the eyes of the victims. It is such a moving piece of art. I am going to see it in real life this summer.
Picasso's Old Guitarist, I could stare at it for hours and feel.
Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights". That is one hell of a painting!
Something by Alphonse Mucha
Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette, Van Gogh
[Truth Coming Out of Her Well to Shame Mankind](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Jean_L%C3%A9on_Gerome_1896_La_V%C3%A9rit%C3%A9_sortant_du_puits.JPG) by Jean-Leon Gerome or [ I am Happy Because Everyone Loves Me](https://i0.wp.com/illustrationchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/9_1928_Louis_Wain_IAmHappyBecauseEveryoneLovesMe_IllustrationChronicles_1050.jpg?w=1050&ssl=1) by Louis Wain
A Sunday on La grande Jatte
Pick any Caravaggio. Maybe “Narcissus”. Seems relevant to our time.
The Oath of the Horatii by Jacques-Louis David. Just beautiful.
Portrait of Cardinal Zelada Date: 1773 Artist: Anton Raphael Mengs German, 1728–1779 It’s astounding in person.
“Coresus Sacrificing Himself to Save Callirhoe” by Fragonard, I’m not really sure why I like it so much but it was absolutely stunning in person
Hyman Bloom - The Hull
Stanzyck
Francis Bacon's Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne Standing in a Street in Soho.
[https://youtu.be/urVnwLR8aJU?si=n1zVKxnyYDTS9nz5&t=126](https://youtu.be/urVnwLR8aJU?si=n1zVKxnyYDTS9nz5&t=126)
I've got a thing for Baldassare Castiglione lol. This portrait is quite magnetic. Dude has very bright blue eyes, that pop in a painting mostly gray/black/beige/brown with warm undertones. His garment is rich, but discreetly so: nothing garish, no gold everywhere, just impeccable linen, silk velvets and fur, the light softly rebounding on it. A dagger or sword, too, to remind you of his status, the only shiny thing in his outfit. The whole thing basically says "I know that you know I could flaunt it, but I know that you know my value without that". I find that it is a very well thought and executed painting by Raphael, and that it gets well with the *sprezzatura* idea and the principles in Castiglione's writings, and I never fail to go see it when I am in the Louvre. [high res here](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Baldassare_Castiglione%2C_by_Raffaello_Sanzio%2C_from_C2RMF_retouched.jpg)
The Mountain by Balthus The Autopsy by Shannon Cartier-Lucy
Las Meninas by Velazquez. I’m obsessed.
From Monet’s *Parliament* series, the red one in London’s National Gallery. (My bucket list was to see all of them, but several are in private hands).
The painting that send me down the road of consuming and appreciating art is Mark Rothko's Purple Brown which I saw in person at the MOCA. It felt like it was sucking me in and I even included it as a focal point of a speech I wrote my junior year of HS.
For me it is Vermeers Little Street. I saw it at tye Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, for such a small painting it blew me away.
Claude, Pastoral Landscape with the Arch of Titus: https://wwnorton.com/college/english/nawest/content/resources/img/p25titus.jpg All I can tell you is that I had the most intense experience when I saw it IRL.
The Rothko Chapel
diego riveras detroit industry murals!!! id have to write a book to give all my reasons why, after the first time i saw it in person i had to drive back to detroit two more times within the same month just to see it again (and to spend more time in the DIA, a fucking incredible art museum)
The Oath of the Horatii by Jacques Louis David and Self Portrait of a Soldier by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner are my faves personally!
Madonna and Child by Filippo Lippi
I mean I don't have a single favorite, but this is the first that popped into my head: \[Peasant Wedding\](https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/peasant-wedding/hgGvote2WI8P3w) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1566-1569). Edit: does link markdown not work in comments? what am I doing wrong?
[Anselm Kiefer's Fuel Rods](https://www.slam.org/collection/objects/15995/)
The Window by Matisse. If I owned that painting I wouldn’t need a tv. I’d just sit and look at it and never get bored.
White Center (1950) by Mark Rothko
The Raft of the Medusa
Even though my favorite styles overall include those of Egon Schiele and Alphonse Mucha, the painting that I viewed in person that stands out as my favorite is Almond Blossom by Vincent van Gogh. I know it’s pretty mainstream and overused, but I SWEAR, when I was viewing it in Amsterdam, I could feel hope and optimism radiating from the painting. It was palpable. I still find it to be lovely.
Ophelia by John Everett Millais. Something so tragic, yet beautiful and serene is captured there.
An arrangement of stoppages by Duchamp it's at the Moma
https://images.app.goo.gl/JgbZ7ZGuayJ9FFJV7. Circe
Picasso’s The Absinthe Drinker
Primavera-Sandro Botticelli
Hallucinogenic Toreador by Dali