Favourite piece of art you've seen

Muahahaha

yeah that is a great piece of work, I love the idea of loads of paintings inside a painting, its great to zoom in and see all the detail in each one. The depth of field in it is excellent too. .

Thargor

donegal_man wrote: »

Piet Mondrian, Woods Near Oele is without doubt my favourite painting.

Do you have any particular reason? Just curious.

Muahahaha

Another art restoration disaster coming out of Spain to follow on from Monkey Christ back in 2012. This time there was two attempts to restore it with the second attempt getting even worse than the first

Conservation experts in Spain have called for a tightening of the laws covering restoration work after a copy of a famous painting by the baroque artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo became the latest in a long line of artworks to suffer a damaging and disfiguring repair.

A private art collector in Valencia was reportedly charged €1,200 by a furniture restorer to have the picture of the Immaculate Conception cleaned. However, the job did not go as planned and the face of the Virgin Mary was left unrecognisable despite two attempts to restore it to its original state.

The case has inevitably resulted in comparisons with the infamous “Monkey Christ” incident eight years ago, when a devout parishioner’s attempt to restore a painting of the scourged Christ on the wall of a church on the outskirts of the north-eastern Spanish town of Borja made headlines around the world.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jun/22/experts-call-for-regulation-after-latest-botched-art-restoration-in-spain

Scarlet42

Muahahaha wrote: »

Another art restoration disaster coming out of Spain to follow on from Monkey Christ back in 2012. This time there was two attempts to restore it with the second attempt getting even worse than the first


https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jun/22/experts-call-for-regulation-after-latest-botched-art-restoration-in-spain

isn't in unbelievable .. the original looks so beautiful.

Muahahaha

I just wonder the thought process of the 'restorer' while he was doing it. I presume he took a photograph of it before beginning and at the end of attempt no.1 he realised oh sh1t I've ballsed this up. But then he goes for another shot and it gets even worse!

GoatBoy74

https://www.demilked.com/magazine/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/museum-of-bad-art-moba-v17.jpg

Capt'n Midnight

Dryptosaurus was a 7.5m long tyrannosauroid

So first two bad depictions of it and it's big cousin t-rex


Edward Drinker Cope drew this dopey looking tail dragger standing on a rock back in 1869






In 1947 tyrannosauroids were still dragging their tails curtsey of Rudolph F. Zallinger




And then there was this




Back in 1896 Charles R. Knight painted this. 25 ft long apex predators in action.

Purple_Bear

I was mesmerised by Jan van Eyck's Madonna with Canon van der Paele. It's held in the permanent collection of the Groeningemuseum in Bruges. The details, like the lose threads in the carpet and the details of Van der Paele's face, are astonishing. It's worth visiting Bruges just to stand in front of this painting.

Shoelaces

Muahahaha wrote: »

The Scream by Edward Munch in Norways national gallery in Oslo. Its pretty small in real life but theres something about it that is really dark. Then the history and influence behind it- Munch suffered a lifetime of depression and anxiety after both his mother and sister died from TB when he was a kid and then another sister was put in a mental asylum for the insane.

The painting captures a person living a kind of hell on earth inside their head, its like the subject matter is literally on the cusp of losing their mind. After a couple of minutes of staring at it up close it actually feels pretty unsettling.



Rembrandts Nightwatch in Amsterdam. Its the sheer scale of this when seen that amazes, you just feel small standing there looking at it. Then the detail in it, the use of light and darkness and the depth of field is pretty special





One of the Easter Island statues in the British Museum in London. It dominates the room it is in, when you come around the corner and see it for the first time theres a real wow moment. Then theres questions of how a completely isolated island community in the south Pacific came up with this 1,000 years ago and then went on to make another 60 of them. They weigh between 10 and 15 tonnes each and are made out of volcanic ash. Theres an absolute serious level of work gone into each one and they were making them for over 600 years.

Plus the gold plated inscription below it gives you that bonus airbrushing of British colonialist history -"Donated by Captain Powell of HMS Topaze to Queen Victoria in 1869". Eh no lads, you pillaged their islands and stole it.



My favourite of all is Michelangelos Statue of David in Florence. I was absolutely flabbergasted seeing this, its just breathtaking. Its 17 feet tall and then on a plinth of another 12 feet so it towers right above you. I find it incredibile to think that Michelangelo began this with a single block of marble weighing 5 tonnes and chipped away at it for three years to carve it. He had a 3D map in his head of what he wanted to create from it. Heres an idea of the sheer scale of it





Its impressive from a distance but then you get up close to it and it gets even better. The amount of detail in it is just astounding, every muscle, every vein in his body is carved intricately.








So whats your favourite piece of art that you've seen. Something that when you saw it in the flesh you were left dumbfounded.

This is a beautiful post, was feeling low and it gave me a spark. Thank you.

Water John

Interesting point on the Easter Island statues is that, they faced inland not out to sea. Ruthger Bregman in his book Mankind puts forward the theory that they built them, not as part of any religious belief, but simply, it was a community purpose and action, since they had an abundance of food and plenty time on their hands.

Lirange

Not by anyone famous. But I love this oil painting of a flamenco dancer.

Stan27

Not big into art but i was in an art museum in melbourne and come of the pictures painted were unreal.
Serious talent.

ngunners

The terracotta soldiers in Xi’an are a sight to behold.

Faze11

The hens night by Ted Jones. There's a matching one called the stags night. Great artist. Love loads of his paintings. Bonus that he is Irish.

ILoveYourVibes

The children's hospital art installation by the kabakovs.

The Plains of Heaven by John Martin

SmallTeapot

Batrachotox wrote: »

The Plains of Heaven by John Martin

Wow... that is beautiful

This thread is almost a work of art in itself. Truly awe-inspiring to see one beautiful piece of art after another.

And the fact that this is in After Hours is like a rose growing through a gap in the concrete.

Purple_Bear

murpho999 wrote: »

The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer.

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

I think it's just stunning.

I've never been that impressed by Vermeer. His figures have no substance, it's quite obvious that he used a camera obscura.

Purple_Bear

Jan van Eyck's Portrait of a Man in London's National Gallery is another masterwork. Many consider it to be a self-portrait, which I agree with. It's very small, not life-sized like one might imagine it is.

gmisk

Favourite
I would say Van gogh the Starry Night in MOMA in new York.

I love seeing anything by Jeff koons, Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein.
I loved seeing masterpiece in Chicago I think around 2012

Least favourite
The Mona Lisa...I don't get it at all.