LIVING WITH GREAT ART

It occured to me recently that, thanks to the internet, I could have the world’s best art on my walls. I’ve always had the world’ best literature in my bookcases and now I could have the pictures to go with it.

Downloaded art may not have the intimacy of real-life brush work or the excitement of light gleaming on a paint smear and maybe the colors aren’t exactly the same, but wow, Leonardos and Giottos and Rembrandts on my very own walls. Thrilling. 

Every time I walk past one of my favorites, hot fudge fills my chest as I savor again Uccello's beautiful compositions, grin at Picasso's arrogant angles, wince at the agonies of Bacon. 

Living with great art makes you straighten up as you pass a masterpiece and aim a little higher in your endeavors.

 

GUERNICA - a mural-sized painting 11′ 6″ x 25′ 6″
Oil on canvas by Spanish artist Pablo PICASSO
 April 26, 1937–June 1937, in Paris.
(Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain)

- Picasso requested that Guernica should remain
 at MOMA in NY until Franco died and 
only then be returned to Spain. 
Being an expressionof national outrage,
this painting has never been sold.

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 RHYTHMS OF A SLAUGHTER Triptych, Three Studies for a Crucifixion, 1962 

Oil and sand on canvas by Francis BACON Irish-born British artist 1909-1992
(The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York)
- Bacon’s work isn't easy on the eye but I do like the cheery tangerine of 

these three paintings despite the cowering lumps of bloody gristle.

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THE BATTLE OF SAN ROMANO, another triptych, 

this one by Paolo UCCELLO. Tempera on wood panels. 1435 - 1460

(National Gallery, London /Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence /Musée du Louvre, Paris)
- Uccello is easy on the eye: fat, prancing horses, designy lances, 

colorful pennants and turbaned warriors fighting in an orange grove.

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art, uccello, picasso, bacon