What's your favourite piece of art?

What's your favourite piece of art?

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Resolutionary

Original Poster:

1,404 posts

186 months

Thursday 12th June
quotequote all
As per the title, curious to know what PHers hold in high esteem, as art is so beautifully subjective as are our favourite cars and so on.

To kick off, I was about 16 years old and on a trip to New York - as a GCSE student I got turned on to the world of street art and went down a rabbit hole of the origins or graffiti and such like, which culminated in an obsession with Basquiat. By sheer chance, wandering the streets of lower Manhattan with our school group, an unassuming doorway revealed one of those pokey 'white cube' rooms within which was a collection of his works - originals I might add - some on display for the first time in decades.

Proudly displayed in eye-shot of the doorway, at the back of the virtually empty room, was this:

Untitled (Angel), 1982


Its not particularly technical, or even one of his most prominent works, but it gives me 'the feels' decades later. Nobody else in the group particularly cared, so my art teacher and I popped in for a mooch and a moment I'll never forget.

Runner-up, you ask? This - Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights


..because its mental, frankly.

So, what about you? Is yours an obscure, no-name artwork that just resonated? Or perhaps a really established, universally regarded choice? Are you lucky enough to own your fave? Shoot!

Roofless Toothless

6,553 posts

147 months

Thursday 12th June
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Rumblestripe

3,506 posts

177 months

Thursday 12th June
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Dora Carrington - The Farm at Watendlath

loughran

3,049 posts

151 months

Friday 13th June
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Roofless Toothless said:
Good choice, Manet's last masterpiece is studied in depth in this edition of Radio 4's Moving Pictures.

The programme offers the opportunity to study artworks in great detail, zooming into super high resolution images to study the brushstrokes. The narrative offers insights into the time and place.... and the syphilis.

Bass Beer bottles, the refection of the reflection and the trapeze artiste's green boots. Fascinating stuff, it's one of my favourites too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001dn6v

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/a-bar-at-t...

Lots of other great and interesting works covered in that programme too.







Roofless Toothless

6,553 posts

147 months

Friday 13th June
quotequote all
loughran said:
Roofless Toothless said:
Good choice, Manet's last masterpiece is studied in depth in this edition of Radio 4's Moving Pictures.

The programme offers the opportunity to study artworks in great detail, zooming into super high resolution images to study the brushstrokes. The narrative offers insights into the time and place.... and the syphilis.

Bass Beer bottles, the refection of the reflection and the trapeze artiste's green boots. Fascinating stuff, it's one of my favourites too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001dn6v

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/a-bar-at-t...

Lots of other great and interesting works covered in that programme too.
For me it is the perfect meeting of form and content. The girl is trapped in a two dimensional space (the third dimension is deliberately confused) to echo the way the bar girls were trapped in a job where they were expected to be ‘available’ - which is the negotiation going on in the extreme right.

Resolutionary

Original Poster:

1,404 posts

186 months

Saturday 14th June
quotequote all
Rumblestripe said:

Dora Carrington - The Farm at Watendlath
This is a new one to me - wondrous details and texture!

Rumblestripe

3,506 posts

177 months

Saturday 14th June
quotequote all
Resolutionary said:
Rumblestripe said:

Dora Carrington - The Farm at Watendlath
This is a new one to me - wondrous details and texture!
I should perhaps explain. It transports me to childhood holidays in the Northern Dales and Lake District. Of course the figures are too old even for sexagenarian me but the sense of place, peace and wonder, the use of colour and texture. I'm not saying it is the greatest piece of art ever created but it is something that resonates with me personally.

Voldemort

6,875 posts

293 months

Saturday 14th June
quotequote all
Today it's this:



but tomorrow...?

zb

3,264 posts

179 months

Saturday 14th June
quotequote all


The rain is gone - Leonid Afremov

Regbuser

5,521 posts

50 months

Saturday 14th June
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I went past this every day as it was being constructed, and the row of derelict houses were being demolished around it, a powerful piece in its setting.



Makes my top 100.

InductionRoar

2,104 posts

147 months

Saturday 14th June
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I can't restrict myself to one.



Arnolfini Portrait - Jan Van Eyck



Ginevra de' Benci - Leonardo da Vinci

Benni

3,638 posts

226 months

Sunday 15th June
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"The portable war memorial" by Edward Kienholz.

evenflow

8,823 posts

297 months

Sunday 15th June
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I don't know much about art, and this isn't the type of thing I'd naturally tend towards. Favourite changes day to day, but always thought this was amazing.


Lotobear

7,946 posts

143 months

Wednesday 18th June
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Resolutionary said:
Rumblestripe said:

Dora Carrington - The Farm at Watendlath
This is a new one to me - wondrous details and texture!
I had some serious deja vu on first seeing that then realised I've cycled past that farm - it's on one the best MTB rides in the Lakes, the so called 'Borrowdale Bash'

Lotobear

7,946 posts

143 months

Wednesday 18th June
quotequote all
My favourite personal piece

Dave Hedgehog

14,929 posts

219 months

Wednesday 18th June
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Long live the queen by Ian Mcdonald


Mick Dastardly

261 posts

39 months

Wednesday 18th June
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[quote=InductionRoar]I can't restrict myself to one.



Arnolfini Portrait - Jan Van Eyck/quote]

Snap. Read about the fascinating story behind this a while back so picked myself up a print.


Regbuser

5,521 posts

50 months

Wednesday 18th June
quotequote all
Saw this at Sensation at the RA in '97. Immensely disturbing and powerful, because of the subject matter and it's scale.



And repulsive, because once at about 3ft away I realised the artist had used child sized hand imprints to create the piece.

Genius artwork, easy top 10 for me.


Super Sonic

9,564 posts

69 months

Wednesday 18th June
quotequote all
evenflow said:
I don't know much about art, and this isn't the type of thing I'd naturally tend towards. Favourite changes day to day, but always thought this was amazing.

I have an Escher print ('Relativity') on my wall!

yellowtang

1,790 posts

153 months

Sunday 22nd June
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Oil on canvas copy of The Card Players by Cezanne circa 1990’s