Let's Talk Art History

[jadegirl553]

Who do you love? Who do you hate? Do you have a favorite era? A least-favorite era?

I can't pick a favorite, but I've got a couple that I don't like. I'm not a super-big fan of Picasso. I sort of feel like once you've seen one, you've seen them all- and they are everywhere! I also don't like Andy Warhol. I can't really put my finger on why, I just don't.

I love Mannerism and I love American and European portraits from the 18th and 19th centuries.

[eepster]

I love Islamic/Persian design. I hate Rembrant.

I definitely think there are good Picassos and bad Picassos. There are so many Picassos it's kind of anoying. He really churned them out.

[jadegirl553]

Too right he did! I think that's why I don't like him as much- he was just so prolific that he's everywhere! And they're not so special because there are so many of them. Like the opposite of a Vermeer.

I love Islamic art, too! I think it's so interesting the way the geometry has a religious significance. Plus, I like how everything is so colorful.

[melissa17s]

I think Picasso is brilliant! Without him and other Avant Garde artists, we would not have as much innovation in styles that allows so many of us to express ourselves in very individual ways. Plus, when you start learning more about his process and purposes for much of his art- then you realize more amazing his body of work is... to think someone could make so much that is so valued. He was a painter, multimedia artist, sculpter, and ceramic artist- amazing. I especially love learning about the rivally between Picasso and Matisse. Call me a Modern girl. The style I am least inspired by is Minimalism and Conceptualism of the 60's.

[apmama2myboo]

loves and not so much

loves:
dali, max ernst, henry fuseli, da vinci, michelangelo, francis bacon. I LOVE art deco and art nouveau both, across the board, from architecture to fine art to clothing, design, you name it

not so much:
cubism. i understand its place, but i don't like it, not in my taste. I also hate bad hotel room art. I have a mad urge when I see it to rip it off the walls and make it into something worthy ROFL

[eepster]

Originally Posted by apmama2myboo

I also hate bad hotel room art. I have a mad urge when I see it to rip it off the walls and make it into something worthy ROFL

laughup Unfortunately they bolt it to the wall pretty firmly (just ignore the fact that I know that : )

[jadegirl553]

Originally Posted by apmama2myboo

loves:
dali, max ernst, henry fuseli, da vinci, michelangelo, francis bacon. I LOVE art deco and art nouveau both, across the board, from architecture to fine art to clothing, design, you name it

I love Francis Bacon! I love to say his name, too. :

And love, love, love art nouveau! I want to get an art nouveau tattoo.

I like Dali, but he gets to be too much for me after a while.: Especially reading about them and all the meaning and stuff.

[grahamsmom98]

Art History is a pretty wide subject!! By the posts, I take it you are talking about painters as the topic for this thread.

Hmmm, we have pre-Raphaelites in our bedroom. Steve Hanks' nudes in our master bathroom. Wildlife art (Brenders, Isaac, Harris-Ching) in our living room. Vintage travel posters of the Middle East in my bathroom. Photographs of Provence in our guest room. Watercolour originals of regional, native wildflowers in our sunroom. Our guest cottage bedroom is Middle Eastern in style and art (from fil's side of the family), though the living room has wildlife art and the bathroom has Puerto Rican art (from mil's side)!

I majored in Art History. I don't like artists such as Picasso, Pollack and the other "modern" artists of those stylings. Just not my thing (certainly the most difficult parts of the major were studying the artists I loathed and the teacher(s) adored!).

I love the Hudson River School, Art Nouveau (we spent part of our honeymoon in Alphonse Muchas' Paris apartments!) and I like the architecture and styles of the Art Deco movement.

There are so many eras to love, it's hard to choose just a few!

[melissa17s]

I am open to talking about more than just painting. We have a local exhibit that includes gates made by Albert Paley. The exhibit even has the Renwick Gates from the Smithsonian- Amazing to see in person. I got to meet him at the opening for about 2 minutes, and he autographed my book from the show. I am sure he felt like a rock star. http://www.albertpaley.com/

Just a note- Pollock was Post-Modern not Modern, and before he went off on that tangent he studied/worked in the Regional style of his teacher Hart-Benton. I am not a fan of his work either, and do not want to claim it as Modern. I totally understand having an adversion to artists you do not like. Almost all of have an artistic lineage that can be traced through our interests and likes.

[PreggieUBA2C]

Well, my list would be exhaustive, but I'll skip pulling out a hundred books just so I don't forget anyone and just go off-the-cuff.

I adore:
Art Nouveau- everything, everything everything
Klimt
Tiffany (I studied fine glass arts/crafts and then switched into technical and scientific illustration)
Henry Moore
Vermeer
Albrecht Durer
William Morris
Aubrey Beardsley
European Renaissance Masters- pretty much all of them- mostly from the south, but some of the northern artists really capture my eye/mind too
Frank Gehry (I don't really like much of his work, but I am amazed at his innovative spirit and openness to trying what everyone else would say cannot be done- I guess I like him as an artist more than as an architect... not yet history, but he will be one that everyone remembers for sure)
Norman Rockwell


Boy, I was thinking that it would be more accurate to name pieces that have changed my view of life, but that list would be much, much longer.

My 'I do not (typically) enjoy' list is short because it is rare that I don't enjoy or connect with absolutely anything a creative person expresses. Here goes:

Miro- I've never seen anything of his that didn't conjure up some sort of really creepy image (or feeling) besides the one he painted.
Aubrey Beardsley (I know he's on both lists...)
Dale Chihully- hack, hack, hack, imo- he's not yet history, but I wish...
Hmmm... I can't think of anyone else...

My brain is tired I love art history though too, and for me it is as the history of the world, so I place a lot of importance on learning it and understanding it as well as I can from a retrospective look at (possibly revisionist) history. Dh is a philosophy (including the history of) buff and we really enjoy conversations about the interraction between these two 'worlds' of history; we've both had a lot of understanding come from the collision of these subjects.

[GranoLLLy-girl]

I love Pollock. I love abstract expressionism. Love it love it love it.
Love post-modern anything.
I have a house full of Pollock posters.

[debm]

Lets hear it for the female artists who somehow managed to become famous in a man's world!

Sofonisba Anguissola
Artemisia Gentileschi (if you have not read her incredible story you are missing out!!)
Mary Cassatt
Camille Claudel
Louise Bourgeois
Helen Frankenthaler
Frida Kahol
Louise Nevelson
Georgia O'Keeffe
Eva Hesse
Lee Krasner

[primalmommy]

I have a print of this Picasso in my den http://www.authorsden.com/ShortStoryImage/22890.jpg

I hate Fragonard and that whole candy-box era.

I love Rubens and Dutch genre paintings, peasant villages, DeHeem and the still lifes.

I hate the Cremaster series.

I love Durer and etchings and medieval woodcuts, Anatolian pottery, African tribal art and Harvey Littleton's glass.

[valerianella]

I just recently discovered John William Waterhouse and fell in love with his paintings. I wonder why he is not more well known?
I also like E. Munch and Impressionism.

I dislike almost everything that came after Expressionism.

[eepster]

Originally Posted by valerianella

I just recently discovered John William Waterhouse and fell in love with his paintings. I wonder why he is not more well known?

DH is fond of Waterhouse. I tend to notice that the romantic movement as a whole tends to get dismissed. My favorite early photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, is also a romantisist artist. I think the romantic movement tends to get ignored b/c it wasn't about being inovative or shocking like the other movements of the period.

[Starflower]

subbing for when I have more time.

[OceanMomma]

My art tastes are quite eclectic. When I lived in London I used to go to the tate gallery & look around alot. There were stacks of awesome paintings there. My special treat was getting to visit the preraphaelites. I really loved the Vale of rest & one called the Harvest moon maybe? I was stoked when they were having a preraphaelite exhibition here as I figured all the lesser known ones would be there but they were literally all the really lesser known ones so I was very disappointed as alot of them are quite kitsch & chocolate boxy.

To name a few, in no chronological order & I am sure I've missed stacks out. I like early picasso, some works by some of the cubists are quite good too. Rousseau. Some monet, some van gough & some degas. Gaugin. Renaissance art. Cave paintings. War art. I like Klimt. Earlier Salvador Dali. Dorothea Tanning was it who did Eine Kleine Nacht Musik? Max Ernst. Andrew Wyeth, Frida Kahlo, Sulamith Wulfing. Colin McCahone, Maqbool Fida Husain.

[Euromom]

I don't know if I would ever be able to say I hated or disliked an artist if they contributed something to the world. I just don't think in those terms.
There are definitely artists whose work speaks to me more than others. And others who stories inspire me or interest me.

I love a lot of different Czech artists. My favourite at the moment is called Frantisek Bilek. I love Vincent Van Gogh. I love Expressionism and Post Impressionism. I continually inspired by Early Christian art, especially, iconography. Someone who I had an aversion to at first, but am now intrigued by, is Kiki Smith. Her stuff is off putting, yet fascinating, which to me is one of the functions of art. On the completely other end of my taste spectrum is Art Nouveau. I really appreciate it's beauty and technique.

I love the Hudson River School, Art Nouveau (we spent part of our honeymoon in Alphonse Muchas' Paris apartments!)

I lived in Prague for almost 6 years, Mucha country!

I love art history though too, and for me it is as the history of the world, so I place a lot of importance on learning it and understanding it as well as I can from a retrospective look at (possibly revisionist) history. Dh is a philosophy (including the history of) buff and we really enjoy conversations about the interraction between these two 'worlds' of history; we've both had a lot of understanding come from the collision of these subjects.

Funny, my dh and I have a similar relationship. We are both theology students and he went on to study philosophy, ethics, art and theology. And I had the chance to study art history in Prague. I spent the semester walking the streets and visiting galleries. It was amazing. I love understanding art in it's context.

[~Coyotebones~]

It's so great to see you all chatting about art history. I was an art/ art history major and had planned to go to grad school to study the medieval and renaissance periods. Now that I have a toddler, and am pregnant again, that seems like worlds away. Maybe someday...

I was always drawn to the pre-raphalites too, but unfortunately they were completely disregarded in my program. I really felt like I was in the wrong place because the moderns (post 1950) were held in very high regard, and I Just wasn't interested in them. Somehow such recent stuff just doesn't feel like history to me, but more like recent events. I guess for most people it is challengeing to be interesting in things that don't so directly refer to their own times. Again though, then it is not really history.

I mostly focused on Italian renaissance in my last few semesters, and did my final paper on the annunciation imagry in 15th century florence. It was so facinating to learn that there were four different stages of the annunciation story that were depicted, and that people of the time would have been able to discern where in the story they took place. I would have loved to continue this study. Once again, maybe when my real world responsibilities lighten up.

[melissa17s]

I checked out Simon Schuma's The Power of Art the other day at the library. I started reading out of order based on interest opposed to history, and I really like his writing style (somewhere between biography and gossip about a friend instead of dry history). Anyway, I know it was also a series on PBS... did anyone see any of the episodes? I caught the end of the Picasso and part of Rothko. I would really like to see them now.