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wish more places were like London with free museums
When I first met my wife I took her to the Tate.
She's a Teacher and loved it,was supprised because she thought I was a pikey thug.
Still can't understand why She came.
She said I scared her.
She did some beautiful works. Sublime.
http://www.vangogh.net/images/paintings/green-wheat-field-with-cypress-tree.jpg
I've been lucky enough to see this Van Gogh up really close - it's in the National Gallery in Prague, where I went not long after the fall of communism. The gallery was still very un-modernised, very little of the security you get nowadays, just a dozing Soviet-era attendant on a chair in the corner - no ropes, no glass. I could literally have touched it if I'd wanted to - of course I didn't, but standing that close to it, exactly where Vincent did when he painted it, did something that seeing it in a print or behind glass just couldn't… it was like the painting was alive and I was back in 1889 in a field in France. Quite incredible, and something I'd never experienced or expected before.
Also, this week I was in Paris, and I went to see this…
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Mona_Lisa,_by_Leonardo_da_Vinci,_from_C2RMF_retouched.jpg/687px-Mona_Lisa,_by_Leonardo_da_Vinci,_from_C2RMF_retouched.jpg
Yes, I know you've seen it a million times. It's like the Stairway To Heaven of painting, everyone who knows nothing about art picks it as the best painting ever. But it really is - or at least it's on a very short list. Seen in person, even from ten feet away and through bulletproof glass, it's incredible. It has a sort of inner light, somehow - and it makes every other painting of its era (and most others) look ordinary and flat. If you don't know what the fuss is about and you have the chance, go and see it - assuming you can fight your way through the six-deep crowd of selfie-takers in front of it...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
His later style can have that effect. About 10 years ago, there was a Van Gogh exhibition in Edinburgh which I went to (twice). The galleries were laid out chronologically, so you started from his Dutch style stuff, through his impressionist period, and onto the later style. I was wandering through, looking at the impressionist ones, and could see Two Crabs coming up, but was taking care not to look directly at it. When I did, my reaction was palpable - the colours just exploded. I found myself wondering what happened to him to go from the pastelly impressionist style to the riot of vibrant and powerful colours and bold brush strokes - a truly profound change in style.
Since I was into doing copies of his stuff at the time, I had a damn good, close look at his brushwork on many of the later style paintings.
Nomad
Nobody loves me but my mother... and she could be jivin' too...
I haven't been to the Louvre, but I suspect what a lot of people forget is that it's 600 years old. Obviously it's a good painting(!) but if you look at its best contemporaries it's ASTONISHING. The Sistine chapel obviously matches it for good reason, but Caravaggio wasn't even born until 50+ years later.
@sev112 - do go to the MET if you have time. We were there almost all day and did maybe half. I'm not big on galleries in general but it's just fantastic. The Egyptain stuff is particularly incredible.
EDIT: I took this at a focal length of 18mm - ie very close up (roughly equivalent to an iphone camera zoomed all the way out). No waiting for a spot, no leaning over a barrier. I'm not even sure there was a rope.
(Your pic there really captures something of it, with the angle you've used so the three-dimensional texture is very apparent.)
It's not just its modernity - even that image above (which is the best I could easily find online) doesn't do the real thing justice. It's incredibly alive - there's a sort of presence that seems to not be a flat image, and that cliché of "the eyes follow you" is true. And that's even behind glass, it must be phenomenal if you could actually see it directly up close. It truly is one of the greatest works of art I've ever seen.
On the same theme, clichéd "great paintings" which are genuinely great when you see them in reality, I love this one too - Turner, "The Fighting Temeraire"
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/01/22/article-0-031E08000000044D-994_964x713.jpg
One of the things that makes it so is the rest of the title, usually left out "…tugged to her last berth to be broken up". There is much more to it than just a picture of a ship, it's about the passing into history of something significant, and you really see that when you're in front of the full-size painting.
Turner is one of my favourites too, and that's one of his very best.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I like Mark Rothko - you do really need to see his stuff in a proper setting, and the room they have in the Tate is brilliant, its absorobing stuff.
I like pop art, Dan Monteavaro is great, sort of Ray LIchtenstein on speed.
I like Damian Hirst - especially his pharmaceutical series.
The Vatican Museums has some truly stunning work, yes, its obviousl, but bloody hell, the Sistine Chapel really is something, as are the fresos in the Raphael rooms.
I'm not a fan of Titian and the like - similary a lot of the stuff in The National , just bores me.
https://i1.wp.com/dc400.4shared.com/img/lX8xaJjN/s3/git_vill.jpg
http://houmuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Rothko_2000_by_Hickey-Robertson1.jpg
https://mcopesblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/klein.jpg
Why one and not the other? I don't know.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
This is an interactive viewer for The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch.
It's absolutely stunning, and it's just crazy to think it's over 500 years old.
and of course, that you could get your face almost right up to the surface - no glass.
and learning about VG's interactions and successes and then stresses from his work in Arles with Gaugain really helps one understand what was going on in his life and his paintings
some bbc prog on next Sat at 8pm apparently
Medieval is good.