Contemporary, portrait, landscape, painting, best, top ten, paintings, oil, artist, artists, painter, gallery, life, figure, graphite, sketch, Snowdonia, drawings, pencil, Art, geometry, composition, Master, Masterpiece, Welsh, Wales.
The first nine results......
I assumed that in the first tranche I would see people like Turner, Constable, Rubens, Claude Lorraine, Friedrich, Corot, Cezanne, Van Gogh and so on. And then somewhere down the list, maybe after a hundred paintings or so, would appear artists that are a little more obscure.
So I was surprised to find that amongst the first group that appeared were none of the artists that I mentioned and yet there were others that I have never seen or heard of before. Take a look - and see what you think.
Coming in first is a painting promoted online by 'Scottish Art Gallery'.
Secondly, (Phew, someone I know), the great Jacob van Ruysdael with 'Landscape with Riders".
The third to appear was . . . . .Monet. Oh, but hang on, - on second glance, - it's not by Monet - it's a commercial copy!
Next, in fourth place, we have. . . . .R.C.Martin. (Who? . . . just check Wikipedia, oh, it says - 'does not exist').
Coming in at five, is . . . . 'Looking down Yosemite valley' by Albert Bierstadt. A very good painter of the Hudson River School.
Positioned at six is . . . well, can't tell the artist but I know there's 10% off!
The seventh painting is by Edgar Payne,
Number eight is another 're-creation' this time by Leonid Afremov called 'You and Me'.
And then, at nine, is 'View of Dedham', by Thomas Gainsborough. An excellent painting by a great landscapist.
Bit of a mixed bag, all in all. And I can't help but feel that considering the difference between my expectations and what actually appeared, this exercise highlights either my own ignorance; that google's searches are rather arbitrary; that some commercial marketeers are very successful at prioritising their own 'product'; or there is some other unknown explanation. I'm baffled!
And here's the first few which appeared when I just googled 'Landscape Paintings by World Famous Artists' a couple of minutes ago. Slightly different grouping, (with a welcome appearance of Van Gogh) but if anything, a larger preponderance of fairly tacky paintings!
quiz quiz quiz quiz quiz “details, details............” quiz quiz quiz quiz quiz
In which painting do we find these cherubs, and who painted them?
(The answer will be in the next posting.)
And here's the answer from the last posting -
'The Surrender of Breda'.
by Velazquez, Before 1635, Museo del Prado, Madrid
quiz quiz quiz quiz quiz “details, details............” quiz quiz quiz quiz quiz
"To talk about paintings is not only difficult but perhaps pointless too. You can only express in words what words are capable of expressing - what language can communicate. Painting has nothing to do with that."
Gerhard Richter.
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Music:
Music:
Beyond painting, my other preoccupation is music - particularly songwriting.
I've recently started, just for fun, linking the two preoccupations together, by featuring a few paintings along with one of my songs. If you have a spare minute, you're welcome to take a look. . . . .
.......... these are on YouTube, and I'll add more as time goes by.
They will also be found on iTunes, Spotify, CDBaby, etc, - (my intention is to put a new song on monthly from September 2017)
Also in the last period I've been recording some songs with some friends - have a listen here if you have the time.
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. . . . and now, a Recommended Read . . . .
From the Holy Mountain.
by William Dalrymple
I've read quite of few of Dalrymple's books, and they are always excellent and intriguing. But this early one was the one that got me hooked on his writings.
'In AD 587, two monks, John Moschos and Sophronius the Sophist, embarked on an extraordinary journey across the Byzantine world, from the shores of the Bosphorus to the sand dunes of Egypt. Their aim: to collect the wisdom of the sages and mystics of the Byzantine East before their fragile world shattered under the eruption of Islam. Almost 1500 years later, using the writings of John Moschos as his guide, William Dalrymple set off to retrace their footsteps.
Taking in a civil war in Turkey, the ruins of Beirut, the tensions of the West Bank and a fundamentalist uprising in Egypt, William Dalrymple’s account is a stirring elegy to the dying civilisation of Eastern Christianity.' . . . . . from Amazon.
Published on Flamingo
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