Visual Art

I draw (pencil, charcoal, and conte crayon) and paint (pastel and watermedia), but generally I enjoy other people's artwork to mine. I especially like landscapes – as you might figure from my selection of favorite painters. I also like photography, which is not an art, so I include it on a separate page to not reinforce current established views on the subject.

§ Drawing

• Albrecht Dürer – His woodcuts. Some of his other drawings too.
• Francisco de Goya – I don't care for his paintings much, but his drawings are captivating.
• Gustave Moreau – I liked his drawings better than his paintings, though the latter were sometimes quite good. I saw his works in June 1999 at the Met.
• Rembrandt – Just about any drawing by him.

§ Painting

• Lawrence Alma-Tadema – He might be formulaic, but I like him. "Expectations" and "Ask Me No More" are among my favorites of his.
• Albert Bierstadt – Almost any landscape of his will do. He seems to squeeze the whole world into a canvass without making it look stupid.
• Adolphe-William Bouguereau – "The Bohemian" and his other non-religious works.
• Paul Cezanne – Still lifes and landscapes.
• Gustave Courbet – Landscapes.
• Caspar David Friedrich – "Chalk Cliffs on Rugen," "Cloister Cemetery in the Snow" (original is lost), "Riesengebirge," "The Sea of Ice," "Tetschen Altar or Cross in the Mountains," and "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog" are my favorites of his. The last is my favorite of the favorites.
• Winslow Homer – Landscapes and seascapes. I used to like him more.
• George Innes – Landscapes. I don't like him as much as Bierstadt, but he's still good and seems to have a far wider range of subject matter.
• Louis Remy Mignot – His landscapes, of course!
• Thomas Moran – Landscapes, of course.
• Camille Pissarro – His paintings of the French countryside and small town roads.
• Rembrandt – Many of his more domestic scenes. I don't have a catelog of his works on hand.
• Nicholas Roerich – His landscapes too. I've seen a lot of his stuff at the Nicholas Roerich Museum in Manhattan.
• Jacob Ruisdael – His landscapes.
• Alfred Sisley – His landscapes.
• Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida – I find his works very light and joyous. Peter Saint-André turned me on to him.
• Joseph William Mallord Turner – Many, though he can bore me after a while.
• Vincent van Gogh – I'm not into the usual stuff. I'm mostly into his paintings of flowers like "Irises" and "Two Cut Sunflowers, One Upside Down." The latter I've seen up close and personal at the Met.
• Jacob van Ruisdael – Landscapes! I saw quite a few of his paintings at Princeton in July 1999.
• Adolf von Menzel – Landscapes.
• John W. Waterhouse – "The Lady of Shallot" (1888), "A Naiad," and "Hylas and the Nymphs" among others.
• Andrew Wyeth – Lots, but mostly his landscapes. I had the good fortune to see an exhibit of his works in 1998 at the Whitney.

§ Sculpture

• Frederick Macmonnies – "Horsetamer."
• Michelangelo – "David."
• Frederic Remington – Some of his stuff is okay, though he seems to descend to formula.

"I can still find no better definition of art than this, Art is man added to nature – nature, reality, truth, but with a significance, a conception, a character, which the artist brings out in it, to which he gives expression, which he disentangles, sets free, and interprets." – Van Gogh