Post a picture of a work of art that has meaning to you

[LynneSin]

I love this picture. It's a beautiful sunny day and these 2 seem to be relaxing, probably from working really hard, underneath the shade of the haystacks. They're even snuggled together.

This picture has always reminded me that no matter how hard I work, it's important to spend time with the ones you love even if it's just for a nap!

[nickinSTL]

1. One of my favorites:

[Heidi]

2. Käthe Kollwitz.

In my opinion, Käthe Kollwitz was one of the great artists of the 20th century, and vehemently anti-war.


War Against War
Postcard with drawing by Käthe Kollwitz, Germany

"The Survivors" was used for a peace congress in 1922 in The Hague, Holland. The text on the right says: Do not teach the children to glorify the war and war heroes. Teach them to despise war.

More about Käthe Kollwitz: http://www.dhm.de/museen/kollwitz/english/artist.htm

[Kathy in Cambridge]

27. I went to her Museum in Berlin. She is one of my favorites too.

I think she lost sons/husband in WWI, if I'm not mistaken.

[SarahB]

3. Mary Cassatt's "Sleepy Baby"

She was pioneering as an artist and for me, I find her work beautiful (especially this one).

[soothsayer]

4. Dali's "Christ of St. John of the Cross"

I think it evokes the mystery that should be part of Christianity, much like the Latin masses used to do for me, and the same way Greek Orthodox masses do with their spooky black robes and incense.




on edit: and even larger image here (didn't want to clog things up in this thread, in case it would have) http://www.revilo-oliver.com/Kevin-Strom-personal/Art/Christ_of_StJohn_of_the_Cross.html

[LynneSin]

7. That's the 3D picture Dali did...

...it was in Philly, there were special glasses to use to look at the 2 paintings setup side by side and it looked like the cross was just floating there!

[Jara sang]

8. Dali also did this one of Christ:

[soothsayer]

11. yes, yes! love that one too. Best illustration of the 4th dimension!

Good call.

[Richardo]

37. That is my mother's favorite painting too.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

5. delete, sorry

MKJ

[swag]

6. Two from Francis Bacon

The first is probably the most extreme example of the horror that's there, implicitly or explicitly, in so much of Bacon's work. The second just has it all - Velasquez, a screaming pope, Baconian meat-smears. Lovely.

[ghostsofgiants]

41. Woah, that's some really cool stuff

I'm gonna have to check out this guy's work.

[JimmyJazz]

9. this one touches me in a way that I just can't really describe:

[cleofus1]

13. i feel the same way

i think it's the subtle brushwork and the complicated use of chiascuro...

[WCGreen]

14. Dude, you stole that from my College Apt....

I want it back along with the two bongs, the Steve Miller Joker album and my autographed picture of Fee Weeble.....

[LynneSin]

22. I'll touch you in a way that can't be described

:grr:

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

28. ROFLMAO

:spray: coffee everywhere! MKJ

[alarcojon]

83. Or this version, called "A Friend in Need"

I love how the dogs are passing aces back and forth!

[cleofus1]

10. Thomas Hart Benton

my favorite artist and my favorite peice....
stunning...

[WCGreen]

15. How did Benton know I was there.....

[cleofus1]

17. hey dude

the hills have eyes

[soothsayer]

36. that reminds me of this one for some reason

Hey! Found this pic the her site; I actually own the original (by the same artist--- Marion Peck)



It's brighter in person. She's reading Kant. Still cracks me up!

[cleofus1]

44. so...

is it hung over your pool table?

[soothsayer]

46. Nope! "Venus" corner of my bedroom

Just slays me

[tenshi816]

55. That is one scary bunny!!!

Not like my Miss Lolabunny:

[soothsayer]

71. Miss Lolabunny is cute! This bunny is frightened of the scary

snowman!

(Same artist)

[tenshi816]

78. That scary snowman

has some impressively perky breasts while still managing to somehow look like Dick Cheney. No wonder the bunny is frightened.

[soothsayer]

79. lol! he DOES look like cheney, doesn't he?

[Shell Beau]

12. Anything photgraphed by Ansel Adams

He does beautiful things with the camera.

[Fenris]

16. Marc Chagall - "White Crucifixion"

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

18. It's actually a photo taken by the Hubble telescope of the Helix Nebula

I was going to post Monet, who is one of my all time favorites, but on the wall in my home right now is the following photo, which I find beautiful and mysterious.






It has been nicknamed the "Eye of God", for evident reasons. MKJ

[soothsayer]

19. oh, no, a blue-eyed god!

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

23. LOL, good one! n/t

MKJ

[XemaSab]

49. Looks a little more like the

eye of sauron than I am comfortable with, frankly.

[Catchawave]

20. Washington Crossing the Delaware

Don't know why, it just moves me. The full size original is at the Met (NYC) and is floor to ceiling, wall to wall HUGE.

[LynneSin]

24. You know he had to pay a toll to cross that river

something like 2 pence or something like that. No one crosses the Delaware without paying a toll!

[Catchawave]

30. LOL..........n/t

[JimmyJazz]

33. ...

good one.

[LynneSin]

34. It was a PA/NJ toll

Before some blames Delaware Politicians!

[northzax]

47. except for that one bridge...

but we've had this discussion this week, haven't we? :)

[Terran]

21. I'm not sure this qualifies as "art", but

This is a photo taken from the Hubble Telescope "Deep Field" project. NASA aimed the Hubble at a small area of Earth's sky that has always appeared to be completely empty to smaller telescopes, and this is what it revealed. All those blobs of light are galaxies. This is a corner of the universe normally completely invisible to us on Earth, and yet, there it is. I have trouble articulating what this actually means to me, but it's part of my sense of being a part of something much much larger than myself. The majesty of the physical universe is unimaginable.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

26. The Hubble photos are stunning. I posted one earlier in the thread

These photos give us an opportunity to see breathtaking images of the vast universe around us. Thanks for posting. MKJ

[Terran]

48. Yes, and I love that one you posted.

I had never seen it before. Just awesome!

[XemaSab]

50. That's an amazing photo

reminds me of a thin section of a mineral.

[Terran]

52. Nice analogy!

Considering it's not hard to imagine a universe inside the material that makes up rock (molecules as galaxies...okay, I'm a sci-fi geek!).

[XemaSab]

56. It's amazing

how many shapes and patterns are ubiquitous in nature.... spirals, dendritic patterns, and crystal shapes especially, in both living and "non-living" things.

Dendritic patterns especially fascinate me for their universal efficiency, from trees to rivers to lungs and kidneys and the visible veins in one's wrists and hands.... it's almost like a fractal pattern in terms of the repetition of the theme on different scales.

[Terran]

57. Well, mathematics is nature too, so

maybe it's no coincidence, the similarity between fractals and dendritic growth patterns. I guess nature goes with works, no matter where or how it works.

[XemaSab]

58. Amen to that

Nice argument against ID... that lifeless systems create the same patterns from efficiency at rates that we can witness.

[Terran]

62. I'm not against ID as a personal philosophy

and I'm not sure that what we've said here is really an argument against it. If one believed in a conventional "God", one could argue that God has influence over those "lifeless" systems. My personal belief is that there is some kind of unseen unity to the universe that we cannot comprehend. It's not intelligence as we think of it, and it's basically unknowable to us, but I think it's quite possible that it is what forms, as you have shown, this apparent connection between mathematics and morphology in nature.

Or not, as the case may be. :silly:

By the way, I should congratulate you on that connection you made. That was very insightful, not something I ever noticed before.

Just to be clear, I DO NOT approve of ID or anything like it being accepted as a substitute for science, being taught in schools, etc. It's purely a spiritual/philosophical matter to me.

[XemaSab]

65. ID in my post

was shorthand for "religious fundamentalists trying to thwart the teaching of evolution or anything that contradicts a narrow, narrow view of the Book of Genesis."

I'm willing to accept a spiritual force in the universe that may guide the universe, but not the big white dude with a beard who smites people that the fundies want to push on us.

Math is an elegant subject, once you get into it. I hated math, just suffered through it, except for trig and geometry, and then when I got to calculus I finally realized why algebra was so important, and I wished I had studied it much harder back in the day.

[alarcojon]

87. I was just lecturing a group of young people

about the apperances of the Fibonacci sequence in nature. They seemed to think it was pretty cool. One demonstration is how the shape of a Nautilus shell comes from the Fibonacci sequence:



The sequence also shows up in the pineapple:

Examine a pineapple, looking for its three different sets of spirals. Use a toothpick to mark a starting place, and hold a pencil at the bottom of one spiral. Count the number of spirals of this type, moving the pencil as you count. Stop when you get back to your starting place. Now count the spirals in a different direction. See if you can find the third direction. Record the number of spirals in each of the directions. What do you notice about these numbers?

http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/learningmath/number/session9/part_c/

I'll give you a hint: they are F________ numbers.

[XemaSab]

89. Pinecones too

n/t

[soothsayer]

69. i see jewels!

[cleofus1]

25. fluid and alive...even steel gains an organiic quality

[XemaSab]

51. How did Bush's dress

get draped over the side of a ship like that?

Could he be cavorting with the seamen within???

:shrug:

(That's a cool picture, I like that period... the right blend of realism and stylization (sp?). There's also clearly a story taking place, which adds to the sense of motion of the picture.)

[hyphenate]

29. Several

Edward Hopper is one. This piece just exudes solitude:




And Schim Schimmel who brings so many elements together like no other contemporary artist.

[Rabrrrrrr]

60. Nice! I love Hopper, and I have a couple Schimmel's at home

one is a beautiful one of dolphins swimming in space.

[hyphenate]

61. Yeah, Schimmel is definitely cool

And really makes pleasing images. I have two framed--one called Serengeti Soul with a lion, and another with wolves.

As far as Hopper is concerned, he's not that well known outside of New England as much (NE is his forte),except for the diner picture, Nighthawks. Many people associate him with that, and that alone.

Another couple of artists I like as well are Winslow Homer and Andrew Wyeth.

Here is Wyeth's most famous work:





A couple of years ago, I was in Toronto and went to the AGO--the Art Gallery of Ontario, and was very taken with the "Group of Seven" a group of Canadian artists who lived at the beginning to middle of the 20th century and formed an alliance. I can't name them all off the top of my head, but their work is great.

[Zuni]

31. Here are some

and last but not least

[cleofus1]

32. James Whistler...

symphony in white

[Spacemom]

35. I can't find a picture of it

But it's a sculpture by Elisabet Ney. http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/elisabetney/

It's titled "Lady Macbeth." My mom and I had just moved to Austin and were exploring the city. We stumbled upon the Elisabet Ney Museum. We stayed for hours looking at all the beautiful pieces Elisabet Ney did. When I first saw Lady Macbeth, it was so stunning it literally took my breath away. I wasn't even seeing the final piece, just the plaster version. The marble one is in the Smithsonian. It's my secret dream to break in and steal it. :)

[Heidi]

38. Here's the marble version.

Lovely.

[Spacemom]

40. Thank You

It's awe inspiring to see it up close. The emotion conveyed in her face is palpable.

[ghostsofgiants]

39. I love Dali's "Elephants"

I'm just a sucker for surrealism.

In fact, I intend to get each elephant tattooed on each of my triceps.

[cleofus1]

42. princess from the land of porcelain

James Whistler

[Kathryn STone]

84. hey cleofus1!

quit posting so many pictures it's taking up other people's BANDWITH. (perhaps you've heard of it?)

[Kathryn STone]

85. I never thought I'd see Leslie West post on DU under a fake name...

[sundog]

43. thomas cole - the voyage of life

4 paintings in a series... childhood, youth, manhood & old age

saw them in the nat'l gallery of art... it was an amazing moment in my life

youth:

[frogbison]

45. Charles Burchfield

An American artist I had never heard of before, painted the picture seen below and called "Orion in December," in 1959. I came across it in a book entitled Essential History of American Art. Beautiful!

[chaska]

73. Cool. It reminds me of a photo I bumped into last night (see below).

It's a picture of a UFO that someone made for the kids at Halloween.

[XemaSab]

53. Franz Marc's "foxes"

I don't know much about art, but I know what I like...

[Samurai_Writer]

54. Le Juene Martyre by Paul de la Roche

The first time I saw this print, in a calendar book my mom bought me from the Louvre gift shop, I was instantly drawn to it. I hope to get to go to the Louvre one day to see the real thing.

[bicentennial_baby]

59. Goya 'TheSleep of Reason Produces Monsters'

[chaska]

63. good one

[XemaSab]

68. Straight outta

Harry Potter... except for the tights.

We've got owls and Crookshanks represented. Harry's clearly feeling overwhelmed here. Tragic.

[chaska]

64. Here's one I own. I love it for the very reasons you (may) hate it.

I just realized I have photos of none of my pieces. Must rememdy that.

[chaska]

66. Here's two more by the same artist that I wish I owned.

[no name no slogan]

67. Not pleasant, but important

This is a famous photo by Robert Capa of a Spanish Republican militiaman captured at the moment he was killed by fascist soldiers.

The publication of this photo in Life magazine in 1936 galvanized world opinion against the fascists in Spain and rallied a number of people to support the Republican cause, including Ernest Hemmingway, John Dos Passos, and many other artists, musicians and actors.

Art isn't always pleasant, but it's always emotional.

[Lilith Velkor]

70. Latuff - Dirty War

[baby_mouse]

72. Can I post one of mine?

Shucks, I'm going to...



Hope ulike!

[chaska]

74. Wow, yeah! That's awesome! What do you mean by one of your own?

[baby_mouse]

75. I, uh, drew him

He's one of my "arts" that I drew.

:)

glad ulike!

[soothsayer]

80. Looks like a skeleton that would belong to "alien"

[chaska]

76. Here's another one that i own.

I wish you could see it better. The blue writing is not part of the actual piece, just like a copyright or something.

I paid $10 for this. I like cheap ebay art. I've never paid over $25 for anything.

[u4ic]

77. Sisley's "The Seine at Suresnes"

[lpbk2713]

81. Picasso says a lot with Guernica.

FWIW, Yahoo did a better job on an image search on this than Google.

[hyphenate]

82. Another artist I like is Rassouli

People can check out his art at his website at http://www.rassouli.com

His style is unique and completely filled with vivid colors and imagery. Very soothing to look at, very new age. Here's just one of his many pieces.

[elshiva]

86. Vision of St. Angela Merici:

[alarcojon]

88. Osvaldo Guayasamin, Ecuadorean indigenist painter

titled "Autoretrato" or "Self-Portrait"

[greendog]

90. Six Persimmons

The perfect painting.

[In_The_Wind]

91. this set will have to suffice until I photograph a painting by ~ Nybor

>>
>>

but I enjoy seeing the illusion of love fixed in time forever