Tyler Green has a “top ten artists” list to beat off the summer doldrums and he invites others to play. My attempt is below. His is a good list, smarter than mine, really, but still: I could never get into photography enough to put it on a top ten list (heresy, I know.) And Barnett Newman? Really? I used to think of him as the pompous Jerry Lewis of painting – only the French liked him. Anyway, nothing wrong with a little harmless fun, and doing this probably helps clarify my taste. In no particular order:
Gerrit van Honthorst. Oh, to be in Holland.
Henri Matisse. Everyone’s favorite.
Richard Diebenkorn. A footnote to Matisse? Sure, but who cares?
Stuart Davis. Your body needs Cubism.
Sean Scully. I like bars.
Francois Boucher. If only for the portrait of his wife in the Frick.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. Is that music coming from the landscape?
Mark di Suvero. Size matters.
Joan Miró. Biomorphic!
Anonymous. Where would we be without that gal?
I can’t believe I didn’t include Kandinsky or Max Beckmann. Tyler stayed with modern and contemporary but we've strayed a bit. Our dirty secret: sometimes we're not so modern. Too long-winded to stay with a single word description as well. But that was fun, anyway. So what do we do for the rest of the month?
UPDATE: Thanks to Tyler and Kriston Capps for the links. New visitors, feel free to poke around a bit. There are posts on art, politics, music and poetry to be found on the main page or in the archives and categorized links at left.
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