Art, Glorious Art !!!

I recently asked my friends to give me suggestions for what my next blog topic should be. One said I should write about what art is or who decides something is art. Personally, I know nothing about art. I never studied art. I'm not familiar with different styles except as terms that get bandied about by experts. I do, however, know what I like. Having said that I'm not someone who says, "oh, I only like modern art" or "I wouldn't hang anything but a Renoir". I like certain pieces that cross many genres of art. I am going to focus on sketches and paintings. I will leave photography, sculpture and music, dance and other performance art for other posts. Whether you like the works below is neither here nor there. These are the works that inspire me, that I would love to hang upon my wall if I had the income acquire them and the space to do them justice.

Lake Nemi, Sunset

Joseph Wright

I really love the colour in this picture. It is soft and warm. The detail in the tree in particular is spectacular. The attention to detail, not just in the major items of the work, such as the tree and the buildings, but to the minor aspects of the painting, such as the birds, is superb. I am quite fond of the artist, Joseph Wright, generally but especially his landscapes and this is my favourite. When I look at it a smile crosses my face. It makes me wistful and dreamy, as if I should like to step into the painting and sit under the tree to pain my own picture.

Landscape with Figure Carrying Staff and Passing Below an Overhanging Rock

Cheng Sui

I do have a fondness for asian art, especially this very minimalist style. I like it's simplicity. Experts say they sense a certain plainness, a melancholy and often bleak and lonely feeling in this and other works by the same artist following the fall of the Ming Dynasty. While I can see how it can be interpreted that way, I do not see it as that forlorn. I see this particular work as man seeking enlightenment through exploration of his surroundings and of his own self.

Pastel

Ralph Balson

It's quite normal for me to fall in love with an artists works. It is also quite normal for me to hate every piece of work by an artist except one. This is pretty much the case here. I am not a fan of Balson's other works generally but this one I like. I like the choice of colour, I like the pattern. I like the abstract lines that flow through the work.

The Starry Night

Vincent Van Gogh

Once again, this is an example of me liking a particular painting while not being a fan of the artist as a whole. It feels slightly wrong of me to say that I don't like most van Gogh works, but it's true. I like this one and that's about it. It reminds me of horror stories (of which I am a huge fan) and of the Night on Bald Mountain section in Fantasia (one of my favourite movies). It is dark and ominous. The sky seems alive, as if it would pick you up and swallow you. The town itself seems to be on the verge of something very sinister, the church steeple rising up in defiance.

Sydney by Night

Ken Done



I've included this work, not because it is one of my favourites, though it was for a long time. I have included it because it was the work that first sparked my interest in owning art. It was the first piece I saw that I said to myself, I want to own that. Of course, being a teenager, I didn't even have the money to buy a print of it, let alone the original. I think what drew me to this work was the fact that it was my home town and it reminds me of New Year's Eve with the fireworks and the reflections in the harbour.

The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba

Claude Lorrain

I would, realistically, be very happy to own any of Claude Lorrain's landscapes but this one is my favourite. The light in many of his works is quite eerie and almost has a supernatural feel to it. Everything in this work draws the eye to it and then allow them to follow the natural lines of the work to a focal point. This work is simply beautiful to me.

The Guitar Player

Georges Braque

I like this work in spite of myself. I'm not a huge fan of abstract art, though a few have made it onto my list of favourite pieces, but generally I don't like it. I don't like the colours in this, except that it reminds me of sepia photos. I don't like the lines that begin and end with no apparent objective. Yet, overall I like this work. I want to not like it, but I can't.

The Scream

Edvard Munch

Once again, the horror story junkie in me loves this. I also love how fluid the work feels, the straight lines of the fence are counterbalanced by the curves of the sky, hills and body of the figure. The demon-esque nature of the individual is striking. It is definitely not human, though it may once have been. The firey colours of the sky also lend themselves to the hellish world inhabited by the creature. This work is absorbing and horrifying and I love it.

Forest Fire # 7

Evan Lee

I first saw this work, along with the other works in the series, whilst on holiday in Canada. It is a masterful meeting of two art forms - photography and painting. The artist used photgraphs of forest fires in British Columbia that he had found and printed them on traditional darkroom paper using an inkjet printer. He then immediately used a paint brush to turn the printed photographs into paintings. The reason that I like this series, and this work in particular, is not just that they are pleasing to the eye. It is the ingenuity behind the thought process that lead to the creation of the work.

Landscape of Four Seasons

Cong Fang Cong

Apart from being a fan of this style of asian art, I am also an fan of pieces that fit together (usually in triptych form, but this is equally as elegant). In each panel there is a celebration of the season it depicts, a joy that escapes and fills the viewer, or at least me. The works individually are subtle and beautiful. As a whole, they transform, with the whole truly being greater than the sum of its parts, into a stunning work that mesmorises me every time I lay my eyes upon it.