Saturday, December 10, 2011

The Infinite Art Tournament, Round 1: Balthus v. Fra Bartolommeo

Balthus
1912 - 2001
Polish-French



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Fra Bartolommeo
c.1474 - c.1517
Italian (Florentine)



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Vote for the artist of your choice!  Votes go in the comments.  Commentary and links to additional work are welcome.  Polls open for one month past posting.

14 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Those Balthus(es?) are effing CREEPY! But I still can't work up much enthusiasm for the Bartolommeos. So creepy Balthus gets the vote.

Morgan said...

I like Balthus. Bartolommeos doesn't really have anything interesting going for him.

Nichim said...

Ick. I vote Bathus for at least having some kind of effect, even if it's not an effect I like and will probably give me nightmares.

dhkendall said...

I don't know why, but Balthus reminds me a bit of Rockwell. Vote for the French Pole.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater said...

I know the titles to all these:

1. "Basic Instinct as Performed by 9-Year-Olds."

2. "Seconds Before the Car Chase Came Through That Block."

3. "Getting Shredded Abs Like Baby Jesus With Only a Scepter and a Little Will Power."

4. "Mary and Baby Jesus Fly Into Town With Her Angel Gang to Deal With Some Bitch Throwing Up a Rival Gang Sign."

Christine M. said...

I like Balthus even though he is creepy indeed.

Jenners said...

Well, Balthus seems like it is bordering on child pornography but he gets my vote … even though I feel kind of icky about it.

Candida said...

I'm partially voting against Humbert Humbert (and what is up with proportion there?), but I do like the airiness of Bartolemmeo's second work, too. Bartolemmeo gets my vote.

mrs.5000 said...

One more for Creepy Balthus.

lamanyana said...

Yep, Balthus here, too.

Voron X said...

I agree that Balthus is creepy and that Bartolommeo is forgettable. One more for Balthus as he knocks this one out of the park.

Michael5000 said...

I like Fra Bartolommeo, who is good with figures and composition and has a pretty smashing use of color in the second.

I personally see no merit in Balthus whatsoever. I doubt he would be a Name at all except for an overreaction in defense of his [daring/distasteful] subject matter, and expect he will be flushed out of Art History soon enough.

Anonymous said...

Most fine art is creepy in one way or another, if people want sweetness and normality they should stick to Renoir and Monet. The function of art is to wake us up, not rock us to sleep.

Art Lover

Michael5000 said...

Hello, Art Lover, and welcome to the show. I can not help but wonder if you were a fan of The Kinks; if so, I congratulate you on your complicated sense of irony.

I will repay your suggestion with one of my own: if you want to express your enthusiasm for artists like Balthus, you might get more mileage from explaining his merits as you see them than from making absurdly simplistic statements about the "function of art."

If forced by circumstance, one could do worse than sticking to Renoir and Monet, painters justly famous in their day more for waking-upping than for rocking to sleep. But we've got a long, long list, here, and no desire at all to limit our horizons.

C'mon back and join the active voting! 's fun!