I can't believe I never saw this thread before!
I have to post. I love so many artists, I think I could go at this for days!
As some of you know I am an aspiring artist and I work in an art gallery so I am privileged to see a lot of art every day.
A few of the artists posted here I didn't know, particularly Odd Nerdrum. What an interesting thread. There's things to be learned every day...
Here are some of my picks - I will not go into extensive biographies for each artist otherwise this prohibitive thread will become even more impossible!
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From Post-Impressionism, and a precursor to german expressionism:
Edvard Munch (Norwegian) - most famous for his "The Scream" painting, he was a very anguished painter and his works were very poignant and full of hidden emotions.
The motifs painted, scenes with figures or landscapes, often expressed his turbulent emotions and sense of isolation from the world through the agitated brush strokes or symbolic imagery.
He also has many paintings on the subject of women which I think are well expressed and ahead of his time (late 19th century).
The Scream:
The Kiss:
The Dance of Life:
Puberty:
Death in the Sickroom (relating to the death if his sister when he was a child):
From Art Nouveau: Alphonse Mucha (Czech painter and illustrator)
From The Blue Rider group:
Wassily Kandinsky - the early expressionist years
Most people don't realize that before Kandinsky became the father of abstract art, he painted expressionist landscapes, which I love. Here are a few:
Surrealism:
I love Dali, but also there is the surrealism of Belgian René Magritte, who has some really great works:
Black Magic:
The False Mirror:
The Lovers:
The Empire of Lights:
And the mathematical art with a high quality of execution in MC Escher:
The Balcony:
Up and Down:
Belvedere:
Eye:
Blowball:
Gerhard Richter, a versatile painter with a diversity and a style all his own. His early work is of blurred figurative paintings, both with and without colour followed by seductive abstract paintings:
I'll post some more on contemporary art later on!