Worlds Greatest Paintings

First, let's meet the guides

Rebecca

Ramona

Ruthie

Rhianna

and there will be others as well

Top Three

Mona Lisa by Da Vinci

The Mona Lisa is the
world's most famous painting
(Until FWB gets better known, of course)
-So tell us about it. What's she smiling about?

        She just found out she is pregnant.
      Or maybe she has a hot date tonight, and       is planning to get pregnant, more likely.
       ​That's why it is such a great painting-
 not easy to paint such a faint, 
suggestive smile and wise,
warm eyes the way Leonardo has done.
Where is the painting?
Everything is on Google Images.
No, the actual physical painting.
The Louvre, in Paris France.  It always has
quite a crowd of people gaping at it.

Starry Night by Van Gogh

Demoiselles of Avignon by Picasso

This is Da Vinci's Lady with Ermine, and take a look at her hands. He made Lisa's hands a little more prominent than they needed to be, and he takes that to an extreme here. As art historians note, her little friend copies her gesture with its paw.

And here is her girlfriend Donna Velata by Raphael

No one could paint women more beautifully, although Renoir tried. Twinkle, what are you doing here? {Twinkle is Cocoa's mother}
She had a little doggie just like me, and I would play with it and her ermine when the girls went out for Starbucks.

Renaissance: it's time for some old church guys.

But we will come back to you, Ms. Carpathia, because here is a modern painter who is giving Raphael a run for his money!
Who are you?
-​I'm Metri di Trecce.  Call me Darren.
​Will Wilson painted both of us.

Five Six hundred years ago, the Popes had kids.
Here is Velasquez's Pope Innocent the 3rd and his grandsons. Are they trying to pull a fast one on him, or attending to his needs? And is he wise to them or not? This ambiguity is part of the power of this painting.

Velasquez also painted the pope himself, which is a more polished portrait - the folds and shading of the fabric create a lot of visual interest. 

La Disputa by Raphael

God Almighty, what's going to happen to me when I die? is what he's thinking.

    Unlike Raphael's Pope Leo X and his boy toy cardinals, who have other thoughts and definite plans for the future, centered around money and power, more so than ecclesiatical matters.  As Medicis, they are rulers of the Florentine city-state.

Here is my friend Mario. (Caravaggio's Boy with Basket of Fruit) We're going to a party in Rome tonight. I'll spare you the banana jokes.

Caravaggio was a master of light and shadow, but also a man of passion and violence, and his paintings are a far cry from the blissful madonnas of his contemporaries.

In his CardSharps, the boy is getting tricked out of his money and worse is to come.

I think Caravaggio inspired Arcimboldo and his Veggie Man (I am the Foot Yam)

Arcimboldo Veggie Man

Georges la Tour's The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds is a more lighthearted treatment of the same subject. The shady character is just that, but in this privileged whitest of white girls world, nothing too bad is going to happen.

Here is another party scene, but in a happier outdoor setting - Renoir's Boating Party (Men still wore top hats then. And see below for when he goes bar-hopping)

Here is the river they were just on - Manet's Banks of the Seine.

I like to Set Sail myself some times. And all the folks on Seurat's Grande Jatte Island like to watch me on Sunday.

This is a big picture - it takes up a whole wall in Chicago's art museum

Hey, time to get off the beach - we got a wedding to go to tonight! This is Van Eyck's wedding. Quite a outfit the man (boy?) is wearing. But at least the dame is willing.

Unlike the damsel who is this poor sap's object of affection. He is (WInslow Homer's)
           Waiting for an Answer 

(I am Fred the California doggie.  When the real Fred doggie saw this commissioned portrait of himself, he barked!) 

If she doesn't say yes, we will have to consider Benton's Ballad of the Jealous Lover.

Benton's paintings always look like he is doing drugs! Here is another visionary artist - Chagall's Newlyweds at the Eiffel Tower.

His paintings depict imaginary scenes of G-rated lovers, completely unlike the reality of war-torn Europe that he was so happy to escape from and come to the US.

Not his famous Kiss, but another fine painting by Gustav Klimt, of Adele Bloch Bauer, his 'golden girl'.

Compare her to ​King Louis XIV (fourteenth) of France, Rigaud's most famous and greatest painting. Similar poses, each regarding the viewer with a steady gaze, as I do (I am Embrace).

 This is a big picture - it takes up a whole wall in Chicago's art museum 

Above is Matisse's Woman with Hat,
below is Duchamp's Nude descending a Staircase, and I am Steppin' Out. Also Sonia Delaunay's Love of Circles. She was one of the earliest and still a top Op Artist.

Nude Descending a Staircase by Duchamp

Love of Circles by Sonia Delaunay

The slight distortions and adventurist colorations of Impressionism caused fits of apoplexy among the Salonists of the gilded age, but progress could not be stopped, and the new (20th) century opened with some really weird stuff, like Cubism, leading directly into Abstractionism (if that is a word). Here are two Picassos, from his early blue and pink period and his later signature both-sides-of-a-face at once ouvre.

I am Dijon the daddy of Cocoa! Right is one of the zaniest paintings of the whole 20th century - Dali's visionary Temptation of Saint Anthony, and also to the right is a powerful Alice Neel portrait. She simply did not care about Abstract Expressionism.

Now for a few landscapes with people in them. Gaugin's ladies of Tahiti (Muse Arearea)

Botticelli's Birth of Venus. Violating the museum's no-nudity policy for the first and last time because the intent is not prurient, her face is sweet and beautiful, and the composition is so harmonious.

I am Grace, and this is Vermeer's View of Delft

Also Mondrian's subdued Pier and Ocean. Not sure if this qualifies as a Water Painting. When you actually see it in person, the white spaces look pink

Speaking of paintings full of empty spaces, here is Edward Hopper's Western Motel

and Hopper himself.

Here is another hill which Christine is climbing. She is handicapped and can't stand up, so this is how she gets around. (Andrew Wyeth)

Cecelia Beaux was a master of warmer, more intimate scenes. Her Last Days of Infancy, and her cat Sarita

Chardin's Lady Taking Tea

Renoir's Flowers in Vase

Chardin was fascinated by teapots. Great indoor paintings! Here is a fancy French countess by Ingress, and a lovely water lily pond outside by Monet. Ingres was an awesome photorealist, a prized skill before cameras were invented. Look at her reflection, and the flowers in the shadows. Whereas impressionists like Monet became all the rage once cameras were in common use, because this was a new way of looking at things.

Portrait by Ingres

Water Lilies by Monet

I am Rhonda. I think David Hockney was influenced by Cezanne, with a little bit of Georgia O'Keefe thrown in - her Music pink and blue.

Henri Rousseau — The Waterfall

Romare Bearden — Purple Eden

Here are two wonderful visionary landscapes by self-taught artists Herni Rousseau (Waterfall) and Romare Bearden (Purple Eden).

Landscape by El Greco

Saint Peter in Penitence by El Greco

I am Red Dress. This is my grandmother - (Corot's Woman in) Blue Dress! She is not playing her mandolin at this moment. That is what most of his women do. He was also celebrated for painting hazy landscapes.

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère by Manet

That's my friend Brigette tending (Manet's) Bar at the Folies-Bergere. She is having second thoughts about her boyfriend, [ yeah, he's always short of cash, and he doesn't kiss me like he means it.  I don't want to end up in a Toulouse-Lautrec painting — I can do better! ], so she is checking out boater boy who seems to be interested in her, too.

Below are two of Jessica Park's finest works, the Flatiron building and Noah's Ark.​ She does not paint portraits.

But El Greco does, along with landscapes, all moody. St. Pete in penitence

The Flatiron Building by Jessica Park

Noah's Ark by Jessica Park

Sargent charcoal sketch

Daughters of Edward Boit by John Singer Sargent

Here is John Singer Sargent's Daughters of Edward Boit. They are also the daughters of Mary Cushing Boit, who must have been a good mother because the kids all look happy. The 8 year old is looking after the 4 year old, while 12 and 14 hang out in the hallway. This painting reminds me of the great Velázquez painting of the Spanish princess all dolled up, also with the dark central interior.

La Disputa

I will close with undoubtably one of the greatest works of art ever created in any medium, and my personal favorite painting.  This is Raphael's "La Disputa" (Disputation of the Holy Sacrament), a breathtakingly harmonious and majestic work.  Sure, it is a statement of Christian religious doctrine, but you don't have to believe in this particular faith or any religious tradition to admire its beauty. Look at it afresh, like you were one of the Tomato People, first time ever in this solar system and just landed on Earth.  Essentially, a bunch of guys are sitting and standing around talking about some thingamajig on a table and a bird.  No one fully understands what is going on, but everyone has an opinion. The discussion is animated but civil. Everyone gets a turn to talk.  At the end, you can bet a fancy sit-down meal will be served on both levels (presumably by all the women not in the picture), with each side toasting the other. And then they will watch the game.

Consult any good art history book for an explanation of the circles, projections, and other geometric devices that Raphael employs, to gain a deeper understanding of its symbolism and vision.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK4DBIMyHsEA

A special welcome to all my foreign visitors from China, Japan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and other distant locations.  Thingamajig is an English slang word synonymous with Doohickey, meaning a strangely shaped object that you do not know what to do with or how to otherwise describe.

I am Cocoa! (Go to the WGP2 Tab to see more)