Five Things | Favorite Works of Art

"Art is the uniting of the subjective with the objective, of nature with reason, of the unconscious with the conscious, and therefore art is the highest means of knowledge." - Leo Tolstoy

Art is a very personal thing. It affects us all in different ways. We see, interpret, and judge art on a set of individual criteria that only we know. What is garbage to one person might be a masterpiece to another, and I'll bet that everyone who has roamed this earth has been touched by at least one piece of art in their lifetime.

I have always loved art. I was an art major in college before I switched over to English/journalism. I wanted to be a graphic designer. It had been a childhood aspiration of mine to design cereal boxes. While art school ended up not being for me, I did learn a lot and I often miss getting to witness all of the art that was being made, whether it be painting, sculpture, performance art, or photography. Thankfully, there are a lot of comprehensive digital resources out there so I'm still able to get my art fix, not to mention the plethora of museums that are only a short drive in a number of local metropolitan areas.

During the last few months of pandemic quarantine, I've been bingeing a lot onThe Art Assignment videos on YouTube. One series they do that is a favorite of mine is called Five Favorite Works of Art. It's where a celebrity (or anyone, really) shares their five favorite pieces of art. This leads to an interesting question. What is a work of art? Is it strictly a visual form that is created out of materials we most commonly associate with art? Can it be music or literature or performance?

When I sat down to write out my list of five favorite works of art, a few of them instantly came to mind, but I took some time to remember all of the art I've ever experienced and narrow my list down to just five favorites. For the purpose of this post, I've only included traditional art - painting, drawing, sculpture, and design. Perhaps I'll share my list of favorites in other forms of art in the future. For now, here is the art that moves me.

(1) Number 3 (1948) by Jackson Pollock.

Something that I learned about myself when I was studying art in college was that I was most drawn to abstract modern art. I get more out of a piece when it isn't literal, when I am left to interpret on my own. I don't like being told what to see or think. I prefer to decide for myself and Jackson Pollock is just the artist to let me do that. While he has many more famous paintings, Number 3 (1948) is the one that I would buy for my own collection - if I had an extra $50 million hanging around. There is something soothing about the rich primary colors used, and it reminds me of dance, but truthfully, I see something different each time I look at it. I could stare at it for hours and this piece will stir emotion within me until the very last moment.

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(2) The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh.

This painting might look whimsical and dreamy, but it was created in what is believed to be one of the darkest times of van Gogh's life, just a year before he took his life at the age of 37. Shortly before, he had checked himself into a mental health institution after mutilating his own ear. In that hospital, he writes that he found peace in looking at the night sky. I have felt this peace in the midst of my own life's depressive lows. Gazing up at the moon, stars, and far-off galaxies, you feel small. Your problems feel minuscule in comparison to the vast space before you. This piece of art perfectly captures that feeling. It helps me remember that no matter what I am going through, looking up at the night sky can help put it all into perspective.

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(3) Untitled (Orange, Red, and Purple) by Luis Feito.

This is one of those pieces that looks like it could have been done by a preschooler with some finger paint. It is actually one of Feito's most vibrant paintings, as he usually preferred to use only the hues of black, red, and yellow. It reminds me of that moment you are enveloped in a warm hug after a tough day. To me, the paint streaks and smudges bring a sense of urgency (as in being greeted at the door by a puppy,) and the shapes wrap in on themselves, looking like they are, themselves, representative of an embrace. The colors are bright and cheerful, but their gradient shows a cooling down from the hot red almost melting into the orange. It is simple and comforting, and to me, this is what home feels like.

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(4) A shooting star sculpture by Robert Rosselle.

If you've been a long-time reader here, you might be familiar with my favorite sculptor. I wrote an entire post about him a few years ago and was happy to receive quite a bit of feedback from other patrons who were touched by his work. Rosselle was a local artist from the Washington, D.C. area who was a long-time resident of The Torpedo Factory until his death in 2015. My all-time most beloved piece of sculpture is one of his reticulated forms of diorama that looks like a stoneware urn from afar, but peeking into a small hole punched in the side, you see a man and boy looking up at the most magnificent night sky. The first time I saw this sculpture, it took my breath away, and I still remember the wave of emotion that washed over me each time I visited Rosselle's studio. In short, it was an urn full of magic.

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(5) Heart and its Blood Vessels by Leonardo da Vinci.

One cool thing about da Vinci is that he liked to figure out how stuff worked. You can see evidence of this in his anatomical studies, both human and animal, where he sketched frighteningly accurate depictions of muscles, bones, and organs. How was he so knowledgeable about the body? Yep, he dissected human remains. In a less gruesome example, his engineering blueprints for things like a crossbow, a mechanized chain belt, and a water wheel demonstrate the man's brilliance. He is famous for paintings like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, but I really love his anatomy sketch and study work. It brings out a curiosity in me. To think of the dedication he felt that made him want to open up a human body and draw what he found, and knowing that his work led to some of the greatest discoveries of our day, is fascinating. I'd like to sit and flip through his sketchbooks and read all the little notes and measurements he made, and then try to apply that inquisitiveness to my own life.

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And a few runners up...

(A) Morning on the Seine at Giverny 02 by Claude Monet.

Impressionism is the style of painting that I most use when I'm working with pigments and canvas, and Monet is the king of this movement. I love the way he could take various tints and shades of the same color and create such depth and character in his pieces. There are quite a few paintings in the Seine at Giverny series, but this one is my favorite. It's serene and just abstract enough that you have to sit and take it all in to notice the little details, like light reflecting off the trees and the rippling of the water. It's a painting that could easily be passed over because it's lacking a lot of movement and color, but if you are patient and pay attention to the brushstrokes, this beautiful French river scene comes alive.

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(B) Darth Vader by Romero Britto.

I first saw Britto's work hanging on the wall of someone I followed on Instagram. I immediately researched some of Britto's other work and fell in love with the simplicity, symmetry, and playfulness of his paintings. This particular one of Darth Vader is especially neat because the colors and patterns help bring out the gaiety in an otherwise ominous character. Being a huge Star Wars fan, I would be ecstatic to fill my home with the full line of his "force" players paintings.

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