UsernameEmailRegionInterestAOL IMICQ IDYahoo! IDMSN IDJabber

.002 - Art of 1860 - 1910
The period was rather difficult to pick since I had trouble thinking of paintings I actually knew the name of and like. Most didn't come between 1860 - 1910 or aren't available for viewing at all in the nearest museums. I'll probably have to pick another couple of work of art or two for a museum visit.

My favorite painting of all is The Scream painted by Edvard Munch. You know that painting with the alien-looking person putting his hands on the side of his face and screaming? Currently it's own display in Munch Museum in Oslo --- which is all the way in Norway.

I like The Scream because it's unique. My mother gave me an umbrella with the painting on it when I was a lot younger and I've been buying the same exact umbrella every time it breaks because I like it so much. I use to think the painting was of an alien but looking into it and what every art book says it's probably something inspired by a Peruvian mummy mixed with insanity. It's said to represent the "universal anxiety of modern man."; It makes you think and I quite enjoy it. The use of color and how everything in it just seems so completely bizarre is part of what I think makes it a really famous work and why people would want to steal it a lot.

MoMA unfortunately only has a single painting actually on display as far as I'm aware from Munch called The Storm. It's a depressing piece and absolutely pales in comparison to works of his that I've seen. It's dreary and doesn't have a lot of color-- but then again he is painting something taking place during a storm so that's probably what he was going for there.

There is a painting actually in the MoMA that happens to be a favorite of mine. The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh. It doesn't matter the history behind why he actually painted it and if he did it because he had a "terrible need for religion" or whatnot. What matters is that it's so intricately put together and inspirational that I've ended up basing a majority of things I draw on how it's put together. The many many careful little strokes put together in flowing lines to make up the image is incredibly difficult to do instead of making one single stroke with a single color. You lift your hand up and put it back to make up the image.

I always found the swirls relaxing and showing the window blowing and the clouds and starts without actually drawing out the clouds or a star shape like so many other artists might. Just a careful use of color and it's all right there.