Takashi Murakami is a Japanese pop/contemporary artist known for his wild imagery and inviting yet bizarre works. Murakami’s work uses extremely bright colours,  reoccurring characters and images, anime-inspired imagery and a mix between glossy and matte mediums on the same work. He was inspired by ukiyo-e prints, post-war Japanese low art like manga, and modern pop culture in japan to create what he deemed “Superflat” art. This term refers to both how his art uses flat planes and how the differentiation between high and low art has disappeared and become flat. Murakami makes statues and high art as well as products for the general public like clothing, album covers, merchandise, and animations.

I went to his 2016 show “Juxtapox x Superflat” at the VAG and remember being amazed by the massive scale of his work and how beautiful the imagery was. I personally feel he is one of the best artist working today as his art is for everyone and still shows an immense prowess and love of the craft.

Mondrian was born Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan but changed his name so it was an anagram of “I paint modern”. Co founder of De Stijl, an art group focused on true abstraction and reduction of form. Mondrian created the movement he called “Neoplasticism” which used primary colours, values and vertical and horizontal lines to create a “dynamic balance”.  his work, though simple to the eye, took him months to complete and an immense amount of thought- definitely more than i put into most of my work. He used plasticism to represent modern reality through his colours and the action portrayed in his pieces as well as his need to pair everything down to the simplest forms. His work has helped to develop modern abstract art in a profound way and still is heralded as one of the most important artists of the 20th century

Broadway Boogie Woogie

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78682

Bridge of Moret

Alfred Sisley Paintings

Ingres is a painter hailing from France who worked under Jaques-Louis David and is famous for his neoclassical work. Ingres hated romantic artists with a passion and made his style to be the antithesis of their work- using purity of colour, distorted proportions, extreme levels of realism, and stiff portraits. His warping of anatomy and figures was inspired by the Mannerism movement (late renaissance).

His piece titled “Napoleon I on Imperial throne”  was controversial and critics deemed him “Gothic”, a title it would take him years to get out from under.

Bosch’s most famous work is a triptych called “The Garden of Earthly Delights” and depicted on the three panels are the garden of Eden, an otherworldly garden, and the last judgement. This piece has many interpretations as the symbolism is so heavy but the two majorly believed ones are that it is a warning as to the dangers of sinning or that it is a piece depicting a paradise long since gone. The depiction hell he painted is done with deep blacks, browns and fleshy tones to give an unsettling feeling to the image. The hellscape is littered with torture, demons, mutilation and surreal images the likes of which people had never even dreamt of.