What's the greatest piece of art ever created?

[Durbs]

If i had to choose an art painting, like what the poofs look at and that, it'd be Whistlers mural at Plas Newydd. Quite spectacular in the flesh.

[Tarquin Farquhar]

Vermeer's View of Delft. I don't know why, but reproductions don't do it, you have to see the original. Then it looks great: not in-your-face, but great.

You go into this room in the Mauritshuis and you see the famous Girl With Earring, which you knew was good, then your eye catches the View of Delft and your jaw drops.

I don't know why it is so great, but Van Gogh agrees with me and he's no mean artist himself.


Apart from that I'd nominate a series of paintings as one work: Rembrandt's self-portraits. The image of this young prat becoming a grumpy old man, with good reason (as Yeats said, Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad), and the painful process written all over his face, is an education and a strength to those of us who have our own such process. All of us, probably.


Hmm: 3 artists, all Dutch. I should probably improve my inner life, by living there.

[Gibbon]

Michelangleos Pieta and nearly anything by Caraviaggio.

[Tarquin Farquhar]

Michelangleos Pieta and nearly anything by Caraviaggio.

Mmmmmmm. The Pietà is absolutely gobsmacking. And I'm an atheist.

[snaw]

Not a piece as such, more an experience.

But the Picasso museum in Barcelona, basically displays his work chronologically. As much as it's possible to appreciate an artist, and how they develop etc then that did it for me.

[Tarquin Farquhar]

Not a piece as such, more an experience.

But the Picasso museum in Barcelona, basically displays his work chronologically. As much as it's possible to appreciate an artist, and how they develop etc then that did it for me.

The best view I saw of Picasso's work was by accident. I went to the Centre Beaubourg (Pompidou Centre) in Paris some years ago, but half of the art gallery was closed for renovation. Normally that is a real loss for a visitor, but this time I gained something special. They had crammed a load of stuff into fewer rooms than usual, and in one room, in a single glance, I could see early Cézanne, late Cézanne, early Braque, later Braque, and early cubist Picasso. In a flash I saw it all as a single series. Magic. Light bulb moment.

[snaw]

The best view I saw of Picasso's work was by accident. I went to the Centre Beaubourg (Pompidou Centre) in Paris some years ago, but half of the art gallery was closed for renovation. Normally that is a real loss for a visitor, but this time I gained something special. They had crammed a load of stuff into fewer rooms than usual, and in one room, in a single glance, I could see early Cézanne, late Cézanne, early Braque, later Braque, and early cubist Picasso. In a flash I saw it all as a single series. Magic. Light bulb moment.

I saw a Picasso / Cezanne exhibition at the MOMA in new york, which did the same for me. Put them in context, with their peers and it all becomes clearer.

[Scary]

Preferred the Dali museum, most of the Picasso stuff looks like it was painted by a three-year-old.

[EternalOptimist]

Does it have to be a painting ? or will you accept
Stone art

[snaw]

Preferred the Dali museum, most of the Picasso stuff looks like it was painted by a three-year-old.

That's the beuty of seeing his work chronologically, you realise that's he's a master of painting before he heads off on the Cubism direction.