Art History at Sea, Queen Mary 2

Botticelli to Warhol, The 20 Most Influential Artists of the Past 500 Years.

Aboard the Queen Mary 2, I attended this art history lecture in which the lecturers discussed their choices of the 20 most influential artists of the past 500 years.

1. Sandro Botticelli – 1445–1550. Mystical painter. The Birth of Venus.

2. El Greco – 1541–1614.

3. Pieter Bruegel – 1525–1569. Painted landscapes and influenced Rembrandt, Vermeer, and others.

4. Jacques Louis David – 1748–1825. First great French painter, which led to many other French painters.

5. JMW Turner – 1775–1851. British landscapes. Surreal, led to Impressionism. HMS Temeraire.

6. Edouard Manet – 1832–1883. Impressionism. Luncheon on the Grass.

7. Van Gogh – 1853–1890. Post Impressionism. Starry Night.

8. Gustav Klimt – 1862–1918. Austrian. The Kiss.

9. Paul Cezanne – 1839–1906.

10. Pablo Picasso – 1881–1973. Cubism. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907. Expressed everything as a combination of cone, sphere, and cylinder.

11. Henri Matisse – 1869–1954. Fauvism.

12. Marcel Duchamp – 1887–1968. Avante Garde. First to show motion in paintings. Nude Descending a Staircase. (I have a copy of this painting, which I have always thought is the greatest painting I have ever seen. To me, this painting should be titled, "Madonna Descending a Staircase".)

13. Giorgio de Chirico – 1888–1978. Futurism.

14. Constantin Brancusi – 1876–1957. Sculpture.

15. Piet Mondrian – 1872–1944.

16. Edward Hopper – 1882–1967. Precisionist. Nighthawks.

17. Jackson Pollock – 1912–1956. Note that after World War II, New York became the center of the art world.

18. Mark Rothko – 1903–1970.

19. ??

20. Andy Warhol – 1928–1987.