quasigeostrophy | What kind of art do you like? (Reply)

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.