what art changed your life?

[Auseklis]

Jesus "Yeshua" Christ, has inspired visual art, literacy, theatrical works, motion pictures, political agendas, empathic sorrow, euphoric happiness, spiritual truth, deception, charity, greed and wonderment.

[renaissancemedici]

Holbein in person. I couldn't believe it, I still can't.

Rembrandt's velvet table cloth in a painting in the Louvre, which turned out to be what seemed crazy brush strokes with very thin paint. Simple and perfect.

An big exibition of the Russian futurists in the national gallery in Athens, years ago. I was a teenager and I got how young and fun art can be. Although I like "realism", I never forgot those lessons!

[lilyfields]

Gustav Klimt and John W Waterhouse were huge influences to me that actually made me want to pick up art in the first place.

[FurDaDan]

My discovery of Jean Michel Basquiat, Daft Punk and Deadmau5 (last two being music) changed my thinking about art and how I felt about my own.

[JuneBugJen]

Hi, thanks for this thread! I feel so new to all this, despite my having a lifelong love for the arts, but I have recently learned about and love the art of Marc Chagall. I never knew of Fechin much before this thread either, but plan on learning much more about him in the near future! His works fascinate me after having just done a quick google search...

The works of Renoir always have had a big impact on me when younger. I love Matisse's works as well.

For books, Jane Eyre was HUGELY influential in my life... I first read it in high school for a Humanities class. That class was my first exposure to art history, really...

[Spudboy]

I'm going to add my voice here and say... this is a really good thread!

As for myself, I'll start with more recent things. Goya. They're doing a showing downtown right now, and I snuck down to look. It was honestly the first time I had ever truly seen an old masters painting and actually, well, SEE it. Just amazing stuff, especially since he didn't just start and stop with commissions.

In terms of ancient history, Mondrian has long been a favorite, namely because he left a very visible trail of his development from traditional painting and drawing to his non-representational work. The mystic in him also drew me to his work.

For the rest in between: comics. The comic format has so much potential even now. What I saw 10-15 years ago convinced me of that (although, I do admit, I am not reading too many comics as of late... save a few comic essays now and again).

[Roger12]

Canvas Paintings has changes my life. I am passionate about oil paintings. Canvas art is an inspiration to me to work more harder in life and get the best from my abilities.

[Viking55803]

I fell in love with a Mark Rothko painting at the L.A. County Art Museum when I was about 16 (almost 50 years ago!) and have never been the same. I didn't know why I liked it, who Rothko was, whether anyone else even had an opinion about it. It made me feel something like serenity in my teenage soul. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that this said something about me, something in me that needed expression, until very late in life.

[Clive Green]

I don't always revisit a thread after a few months but I was just looking at Ms Oyl's second post (which I had missed). I don't think I'd change my first reaction - but I will perhaps put it into a context. Time and place. I was a student at university (and then a factory worker) in a very political city, I had access to the national art collection and historical documents, Cuba street and Vivian Street were a pocket of sleaze and graffitti in the middle of the city, the italians, chinese and greeks were changing the way people ate, and there was still the harbour, the hills, the bush. And I could walk from the gallery of the House of Representatives to the alternative bookshops in five minutes along a street that still had wooden colonial buildings cheek by jowl with ornate victorian facades, early modernist simplicity rubbing shoulders glass and concrete brutalism, and the amazing concoctions of the pacific influenced Mr Walker.

I think that the air of change and promise and struggle has influenced how I view art, and my consequent reaction. I have personal favourites amongst past and contemporary artists bit Ms Oyl has summarised it nicely. It was the zeitgeist.

[olive oyl]

Awww...I love where you were back then, Clive. And now, too...

[Razzar]

This thread alone inspires me alot, most of the diversity of the art you have all posted.

To emphasize one particular artist my pick would be Simon Bisley. To me he is the Picasso of comic book art. Check him out, you will not regret it. Atleast not if you are open minded :P

[Midnight Magus]

M. C. Escher, H. R. Giger, Roger Dean... Escher ffom a Sunday newspaper feature I saw in grade school. Giger for "Alien", even though the "Brain Salad Surgery" album actually came first... And Dean, for making music and art an integrated experience, most especially the album "Yessongs" where a series of pictures showed the "seeding" of planetary life.

Mostly Giger, though... It was his post-Alien fame that made me see how far art can go while still being rendered in a very realistic manner. He was why I bought an airbrush; really he was why I started drawing and painting at all. Oddly, my style is nothing at all like his after all that...

[LGHumphrey]

Mine.