Thread: Your favourite works in each of the fine arts.

Hello all.

I though a good idea for a topic might be people's favourite works in each of the (primary) fine arts.
Music is probably the most appreciated art on this forum - certainly the most discussed - but I thought it might be interesting to hear which other works of art people love, like or admire.

These are the primary fine arts I think should be included:

- Music
- Literature
- Poetry
- Painting
- Sculpture
- Architecture
- Film
- Theatre (incl. plays, musicals, operas and ballets)
- Photography

If you are unfamiliar with one or more fields, just list your favourites in the others. And please try to limit it to only a few (a max of five, I'd say) in each category - or even just one work if you have an absolute favourite.
Also, if you feel like it, it would be fun to see which of the fine arts people consider the finest of all.
Some discussion and comments would be great, too!

Here is my list:

Music:
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony
Mozart's Clarinet Concerto
Bach's Second Violin Concerto
Painting:
Michelangelo's "The Last Judgment"
There's no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest piece of painting art in the world. It's incredible.
Sculpture:
Michelangelo's "Pietà"
Architecture:
Pantheon, Rome
Film:
Frank Darabont's "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994)
Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" (1982)
Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968)

I consider music the finest of the arts.

I was going to reply, but then I decided it would be too hard to narrow it down to just five.

It is hard for me too, esp. in some areas which I love lots of (eg. music, not surprisingly). So I will just put down what comes to mind.

Music
- A bit of everything. Favourite classical composers are Beethoven, Janacek, Messiaen, Haydn, Bernstein, Brahms, Shostakovich, Australian music, among many others (as all of us here, I guess).

Literature
- A lot of things, Charles Dickens was an early favourite, as was R.L. Stevenson and Jules Verne (eg. the classics).

Poetry
- Not much here. I often come across these in classical music. Eg. authors of texts to song cycles I'm listening to. I have found Baudelaire's and Rimbaud's stuff quite interesting, I like the images they bring to my mind, their symbolism, etc.

Painting
- Too many to mention. One of my favourites is Marc Chagall. Also the Surrealists, Pop Art, the Fauves, a lot of 20th century.

Sculpture
- I quite like 20th century sculpture. One is Ivan Mestrovic. Just that simplicity mixed with directness of expression.

Architecture
- Georgian style architecture (originated in UK). Some images from a quick search HERE. Basically I like the human scale of this style as well as its simplicity, restraint and elegance.

Film
- directors such as Carol Reed, Elia Kazan, Stephen Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, and Australian ones as well (eg. Fred Schepsi).

Theatre (incl. plays, musicals, operas and ballets)
- Musicals are my favourite of these. Cabaret by Kander/Ebb is at No. 1 spot. I also like Leonard Bernstein and Andrew Lloyd Webber. In terms of opera, favourites are Berg's Wozzeck, Beethoven's Fidelio, Puccini's Turandot, Verdi's Aida, Berlioz's Damnation de Faust (if it's an opera?) & Rossini's Barber of Seville. Operetta is good too.

Photography
- Australians such as Max Dupain, but also Europeans like Cartier-Bresson and Americans like Alfred Stieglitz.

Music:
Bach's two violin concertos
Vivaldi's Four Seasons
Sibelius concerto

Art: Painting:
Mona Lisa ( )

Art: Sculpture
No idea

Films:
I think it's called Gone with the Wind. It's extremely long, but it was great! They probably made re-makes of it, but I like the original (well, I think it's the original...).
Pirates of the Caribbean, no. 1. *Coughs*

Poetry/Literature:
Shakespeare *Duh*

Music: Bruckner (everything), Wagner (everything), Mahler (almost everything).

Literature: Virgil's The Aeneid, Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, John Milton's Paradise Lost, Dante's Divine Comedy. Also, Wagner's librettos are literature, and up there with the best.

Poetry: technically, all my favourites in literature are poetry, just see above. But if we're talking about poetry in a shorter form, T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is my all-time favourite. I also like Michelangelo's passionate verses and Li Po's eastern elegies that also inspired Mahler.

Painting: Jacques-Louis David: Oath of the Horatii and The Intervention of the Sabine Women, Delacroix's The Death of Sardanapalus, Rubens' Fall of the Rebel Angels, Tintoretto's Crucifixion.

Sculpture: Gianlorenzo Bernini takes the cake with Ecstasy of St. Theresa, Blessed Ludovica Albertoni and many more. Michelangelo's greatness is also undeniable with pieces like David and Pietá. Canova's Amor and Psykhe must also be mentioned, and I'll add Cellini's Perseus with the Head of Medusa as a personal favourite. Still, I must squeeze in The Dying Gaul and Praksiteles' Hermes and Dionysos from the ancient times. And I'm quite confirmed that the Zeus of Phidias was the best sculpture ever.

Architecture: I like all the classic styles, and my favourites are the obvious textbook ones: the Parthenon in Athens, Hagia Sophia in Istambul, St. Peter's in Rome, The Cathedral of Amiens in, uh, Amiens, and finally, my hometown hero C. L. Engel with his neoclassical/Empire-style Senate Square with all the adjoining buildings, in Helsinki.

Film: today's top five could be something like Renoir: La Grande Illusion, Bresson: Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut, Visconti: Il Gattopardo, Eisenstein: Ivan Groznyi, Welles: Citizen Kane.

Theatre: if Wagner counts, then everything that he wrote; but if not, then Goethe's Faust, even if it's better read than performed.

I really don't know which art I should name as the highest. The other Muses might be angry at me, and you know, Hell hath no fury like... Perhaps I should name Wagnerian Music Drama Performed At Bayreuth as the highest art - at least, almost all the Muses have their spoons in that particular soup.

Great replies, everyone. Thank you.

Sid James, you mention Marc Chagall and the surrealists as some of your favourites in painting. I'd be interested to know which specific works you like. I, too, find Chagall is quite interesting, though his paintings are perhaps a little "too much" for my tastes. I really like Salvador Dalí.

Xaltotun, it's interesting that you should mention St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It's a very impressive building - especially internally - but it really doesn't do anything for me. I mean, it's sheer size is incredible, but that's it. It doesn't present any particularly remarkable engineering or architectural achievements - like the Pantheon with its concrete dome and solid stone pillars. Have you visited the Basilica?

Okay, here goes:

Music:
A few favorites would be Schumann (duh), Beethoven, Chopin, Bach, Janacek, Britten, Machaut, Byrd, etc... Tried to get at least one from every period in there.

Literature:
Dickens and Dostoevsky. If I had to pick a favorite work it would probably be either Crime and Punishment or A Tale of Two Cities.

Poetry:
Heine and both Brownings.

Painting:
Pretty unfamiliar ground for me. I'm gonna say Rembrandt.

Film:
Pixar.

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220px-Cameron_julia_jackson.jpgart-deco-inspired-design.jpg[17-car-ice-sculpture.jpgSinging_Waters3.jpg

Originally Posted by jttoft

...
Sid James, you mention Marc Chagall and the surrealists as some of your favourites in painting. I'd be interested to know which specific works you like. I, too, find Chagall is quite interesting, though his paintings are perhaps a little "too much" for my tastes. I really like Salvador Dalí.

...

I basically like anything by Chagall. Favourites include Time is a River without Banks ; Lovers and the Eiffel Tower ; and even the less typical stained glass windows he did in Israel, which show a more hard edged Modernist bent.

Re the surrealists, again any of them basically, including Dali who you mention. Others are Magritte, Delvaux, Tanguy, Roland Penrose, Balthus, Australians like James Gleeson, and so on. I think that the period between the two world wars was a very fertile & fascinating time for the creative arts, but of course unfortunately not a very good time on the political or economic front.

- Music: Mahler's 2nd Symphony
- Literature: Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
- Poetry: Reluctance, by Robert Frost
- Painting: Apostle Paul Preachin on the Ruins, by Giovanni Paolo Pannini
- Sculpture: I don't know enough sculptures to say lol
- Architecture: Petra, Jordan
- Film : Barry Lyndon
- Theatre (incl. plays, musicals, operas and ballets): Handel's Rinaldo
- Photography: Ansel Adams picture of the Snake River overlook

Music: Wagner - Tristan und Isolde

Literature: Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen

Poetry: Wagner - Tristan und Isolde

Painting: Saw something nice in a Best Western the other day

Sculpture: Winged Victory with a bust of Wagner's head placed upon it.

Architecture: Wagner - Bayreuther Festspielhaus

Film: Wagner starring Richard Burton

Theatre (incl. plays, musicals, operas and ballets): Wagner - Parsifal

Photography: Photos of Wagner

Originally Posted by jttoft

Xaltotun, it's interesting that you should mention St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It's a very impressive building - especially internally - but it really doesn't do anything for me. I mean, it's sheer size is incredible, but that's it. It doesn't present any particularly remarkable engineering or architectural achievements - like the Pantheon with its concrete dome and solid stone pillars. Have you visited the Basilica?

You know, I'm a very poor person who can rarely afford going outside of my apartment, let alone my home town! So no, I've never been in Rome, or in any of the other locations of the buildings that I admire. I base my admiration on pictures I've seen in books and in the Internet. Concerning St. Peter's, I love the excess of it all! It does seem to lack unity a bit, but it seems organically grown instead - much like the Catholic Church itself, I think. Outside, the "reaching" colonnades encircling the St. Peter's Square are certainly an innovation, don't you think? And the sheer number on statues on the colonnades! Quantity has a quality all of its own, like someone said

The massive baldacchino, the bronze structure in the middle of the basilica, must be seen as an innovation as well - I've never encountered anything like it. Its spiral columns gave inspiration to a whole generation of baroque artists and furniture-makers, I think - one can see this shape dominate in baroque art. And the papal throne is a Gesamtkunstwerk if there ever was one. Fit for the ruler of the world, I think it epitomizes the dreams of world domination of the counter-reformation. Bernini's statue of Longinus is also a remarkable feature of the interior.

I'll admit, though, that the knowledge of Michelangelo and Bernini designing the whole thing may affect my judgement... they are two of my favourite artists!

When it comes to the Pantheon, I don't think that any building surpasses it philosophically (except maybe the Hagia Sophia), and I love the idea behind it all, the universality, the untouchable sphere of light created by the Oculus... I just haven't seen the best pictures of it! If I were to see those, or even better, see a film about it, or, gosh, actually visit it, I'm sure my appreciation of it would soar. But at this point I have to be honest to my senses.

Sounds like fun, here goes nothing:

- Music
Beethoven's 9th symphont
- Literature
One Hundred Years of Solitude
- Poetry
Collected works of Pablo Neruda (cheating? Yeah.)
- Painting
Wanderer aove the sea and the fog
- Sculpture
Can't say.
- Architecture
Can't say.
- Film
There Will Be Blood
- Theatre (incl. plays, musicals, operas and ballets)
The Nutcracker
- Photography
None.

Another Garcia Marquez fan!

A very similar thread here: Your Personal Art Hall of Fame

Though many of my choices have changed since