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Art For Arts Sake

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Bargepole asks a simple yet complicated question – what is your favourite piece of art, be it painting, sculpture, whatever – illustrations welcome.

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  4. Christ – how is it possible to answer this question?

    Could be any of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, America by Ginsberg, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, A Change is Gonna Come, Full Fathom Five, St Paul’s Cathedral, Cerebus the Aardvark or the Invincibles.

    Will have a think and add photos when I’m back on a desktop.

  7. Gah, I forgot Bobby Fischer vs Donald Byrne, Maradona’s Mexico 86 and Mozart’s Requiem.

    Actually, on reflection I know what it has to be: the theory of special relativity. It’s the single most headfuckingly beautiful thing that ever came out of another human being’s brain.

  13. Growing up I was all set to follow an art path, but I wanted to draw comics. This was pre Dark Knight, Watchmen so it was tolerated then pushed aside; brushes and oils put in my hands instead of ink pens. I kind of stopped then and moved my obsession onto the guitar that I’d been given as a present in my mid teens and that was that. But I still see comic art as lovely, still have it take my breath away.

    There are a couple of artists from my younger day who I think of as the cream of the crop.

    Barry Windsor-Smith, who drew Conan The Barbarian for a while. This is in my head on a regular basis:

    http://raggedclaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/bws_the-lord-of-the-black-corsairs_tupenny-conan_plate3_1974.jpg

    And P. Craig Russell. Both of them produced gorgeous romantic dreamlike frames that resonate around my head all the time.

    http://40.media.tumblr.com/3be72a0757cd9d628980cdf3bff00525/tumblr_n2djtri9DQ1rhjbado1_500.jpg

  14. No idea how to post pictures, but the following obvious ones push my buttons.

    The Alhambra Palace
    The Reform Club in London (or you could go to the source and have a wonder around Florence).
    Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses in Oak Park/Chicago.

    Ordnance Survey maps, particularly those covering Snowdonia and the South West path near Weymouth. I can look at them for hours.

    The Macdonald Gill map of Tea Revives the world.

    A William Orpen painting (forget the title), portrait of a soldier in a café with a bottle of wine.

  17. Way too difficult to come up with one piece so I’ll mention my favourite exhibition instead. The Antony Gormley show at the Hayward Gallery some years ago. It was the one where he placed metal mannequins of himself on rooftops and other locations nearby (you can still find a couple of them on the Euston Rd nose to nose either side of a shop window). It was the first time I’d missed the cup final on tv and I was completely absorbed by the whole thing. The “fog cube” was so much fun.
    Special mention also for a Grayson Perry exhibition a year or two back. I finally “got” him. Great stuff.

  21. I could look at Montague Dawson seascapes all day

    And what can you say about Bosch, I’ve been fascinated with his paintings since I was a kid.

    I also love Bill Sienkeiwicz, too tough to pick a favourite image though, probably the first splash from New Mutants #18, when I realised that not all art had to look like Kirby\Adams et al. knock offs

  26. This painting has been a favourite for over 30 years. One of the first dates I went on with my late wife was to Aberdeen Art gallery, where we were both entranced by Maternite by George Hitchcock. It’s partly the colour – the photo doesn’t really do it justice – which evokes a hot Mediterranean summer. There’s religious symbolism there, of course, though that doesn’t have any particular appeal. We fell in love with it – and, indeed, each other – a print hangs on the bedroom wall.
    http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/af344/embraman/maternite.jpg

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