What kind of art do you like?

[quasigeostrophy]

vito_excalibur made this post a few days ago and it got me thinking about the question as well. As with her answers, mine are in no particular order (primarily confined to the visual arts):

• Charles Schulz, for his mastery of comic timing, subtlety, and simplicity, and his ability to express the widest range of character expression with the tiniest changes in line and/or form.
  
• Ansel Adams, for his ability to bring out strong emotions from a simple photograph, and for inspiring me to seek mastery of conveying my own visualizations of the world.
  
• Vincent Van Gogh, for his bold use of color and form, and the way he gave painting a third dimension not through perspective but actual thickness of paint.
  
• M. C. Escher, for his mastery of pattern, distortion, and illusion.
  
• Georges Seurat, for his understanding of perception, inventing the pixel well before the age of television without even realizing it.
  
• Piet Mondrian, for his mastery of abstraction.
  
• Chuck Jones (most often when working along with Michael Maltese), for his beautiful and comic character design, and his utter mastery of the animated comic short film.
  
• Michael Turner, for his beautiful line art.
  
• Brooke McEldowney, for his beautiful characters, uncommon perspectives, and geeky humor.
  
• Leonardo Da Vinci, for his mastery of subtlety and his creative genius.
  
• Matt Groening, for his unique characters and mastery of pop culture satire.
  
• Tom Till, for his ability from behind the camera to bring an almost otherworldly landscape down to a tangible level.
  
• Frank Lloyd Wright, for his sense of utility, and the harmony and balance in his designs.
  
• Godfrey Reggio and Ron Fricke, for bringing a powerful sense of awe at both the natural world and the world humans have created within it.
  
• René Magritte, for his masterfully detailed surrealism.

I'm sure I could think of others. Whose work(s) do you like, and why?

Comments

[krasota.livejournal.com]

You get to figure out how tired I get as this goes along:

Marc Chagall for his ability to merge reality and surrealism in a way that makes perfect sense. And I love the way he uses the color blue.

Alexandra Exter, for the way she combined Futurism, Cubism, and Industrialism/Constructivism to create spectacular film sets and costumes. Also, for her consistently evolving notions of the stage set and costume as both character and bystander (from highly stylized sets to costumes which were merely painted on the dancer's body.). . .

Andrzej Wajda, for his portrayals of survival and escape.

Natalya Goncharova, for bringing Neo-primitivism to the spotlight and using icons to influence Russian Futurism graphic printing. That's overly simplified, but she was fucking cool.

Kasimir Malevich, for making abstract art comprehendable (Suprematism, and no, that's not the philosophy, that's just my bitchy estimation. I really like how he used bold colors and geometric figures in ways that don't look like primary school drawings.)

Mayakovsky, because I spent many hours drinking beer and eating chocolates under his statue, while contemplating horrid pigeon sacrifices.

Rodchenko, for his geometric eye in photography, his use of oblique angles, and for choosing Mayakovsky as a subject.

Okay . . . . I need to back away slowly from the Russian Avant-Garde and get some sleep.

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

I need to back away slowly from the Russian Avant-Garde and get some sleep.

Aww, but now I'm intrigued by all this Russian Avant-Garde. I've seen a little Rodchenko but not much. *notes other names to research*

Al and I checked out a Chagall exhibit at the SFMOMA in 2003. I like some of his stuff (the more blue-heavy works, oddly enough), but there was a large chunk at least of what the SFMOMA had that just didn't make me react much.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Mm, I am also a big Mondrian fan. I used to hate him, too. That's why it's so dangerous to think about things: I spent a long time wondering "What do people see in this crap??" and I stared at it until I, too, could see it.

Of course, that makes him sound like a Magic Eye painting, which is not the point. ;)

Ooh, had not heard of Michael Turner! Yet his art looks somewhat familiar. I will have to look into his art further.

It's true, Brooke McEldowney is several degrees beyond awesome.

I love Frank Lloyd Wright for his imagination, but ironically he kind of had a sense of giving the effect of utility. Fallingwater is beautiful but unlivable, you know? And of course, "That's how you know it's a roof." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/787507.stm)

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

That's why it's so dangerous to think about things: I spent a long time wondering "What do people see in this crap??" and I stared at it until I, too, could see it.

I can apply that to so many things in my life, I've lost count. :-)

had not heard of Michael Turner

Witchblade is the series he started while still at Top Cow. His main female characters all seem to be Barbie-shaped, but not all the characters are, and I just find a lot of his layouts to be pretty, even when it's a violent scene.

ironically he kind of had a sense of giving the effect of utility

Good point about Wright. One thing I'll agree with that he admitted was one of his own shortcomings: the man couldn't design usable furniture for crap. A tour of Taliesin proved that to me. :-)