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 Top 10: Romantic Art Pieces |
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| But that doesn’t preclude the rest of us from experiencing those emotions; we just can’t say them as well -- a potentially disastrous liability when it comes down to charming the important women in our lives.
Thanks to high-quality printers and reproduction technology, it’s no longer quite the same liability. What follows is a top 10 list romantic art pieces and advice on how you put these great artists of the past into your employ -- as de facto romance advisors.
Note: For each entry we’ve offered a potential occasion that permits you to present a reproduction of the painting on a card or a framed print. Results may vary.
Number 10Romeo and Juliet
Frank Dicksee (1853-1928)
Artist: Frank Dicksee’s historical scenes and notable skill at portraiture offered him considerable success working as a painter in semi-puritan 19th-century England.
Artwork: Dicksee’s Romeo and Juliet (one of two paintings we’re featuring based on the lovers) is a sign of his Victorian times, a somewhat subdued representation of the star-crossed lovers that emphasizes the sanctity of their “true love.”
Occasion: If your girl is church-going and chaste, or if the asinine couplets on a Hallmark card make her lower lip quiver, use this for her birthday. As a sweet gesture, it may leverage you some access past her virtual chastity belt.
Number 9La Boudeuse
Antoine Watteau (1684-1721)
Artist: French painter Antoine Watteau was not a big deal in his lifetime, but he would profoundly influence generations of artists to follow. His Rococo paintings often depict well-dressed young people doing a whole lot of nothing in pastoral, if slightly melancholy settings.
Artwork: La Boudeuse (The Capricious Girl) features one of the artist’s favorite themes: the woman who plays hard-to-get versus the man who won’t give up.
Occasion: Use this in the wake of some failure during your courtship to establish yourself firmly in the roll of the man who refuses to stop chasing her. But be careful you don’t overlook the fine line between “How sweet -- he just won’t give up!” and “Officer, that psycho is stalking me.”
Number 8The Promenade
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
Artist: Of the primary French Impressionists such as Monet, Degas and Cezanne, Renoir is perhaps the most beloved today, in large part because of his endearing depictions of female sensuality.
Artwork: The Promenade is characteristic Renoir -- fresh, fun, some sunlight on the foliage, a lovely girl galavanting about. It’s the kind of painting a Southeby’s auctioneer might call “a delightful work” before selling it for millions of dollars.
Occasion: Lacking overt sexuality, tension or any other battle line, this is your general purpose print. It could stand in for anything from a silly two month anniversary gift to a Valentine’s Day presentation.
Number 7The Lovers
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Artist: Picasso was the 20th century’s towering creative genius. He was a virtuoso painter and sculptor whose productivity, sexual appetite and colossal ego equaled those of a hundred artists. His restless, shifting perspective kept him continually ahead of his time.
Artwork: The Lovers (Los Enamorados) from 1923 reflects Picasso’s tender side, portraying an affectionate couple with subtle, but erotic, implications.
The occasion: Because this painting appears to be something of a softball, offer it up while you’re in that cutesy phase of marking absurd milestones (“Happy anniversary! Can you believe it’s already been a week since our avatars made sweet love in an online Amsterdam brothel?”).
Number 6Summer Evening
Edward Hopper (1882-1967)
Artist: Edward Hopper’s profoundly forlorn paintings are intimate to the point of intrusive. They rarely highlight an extraordinary instant in time; instead, they seem to depict stagnant, inhospitable moments his subjects would rather forget.
Artwork: Summer Evening is characteristically desolate, even lonely, which you can see in the couple’s body language; they are together, but somehow detached from each other during a possible communication breakdown. Their shared isolation, however, is reason for hope.
Occasion: Employ this work in the wake of a fight or a falling out -- not so much to apologize, but to suggest that although you’re not getting along, at least you’re doing it together.
Number 5Romeo & Juliet
Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893)
Artist: Brown was an English painter in the mid-Victorian era whose works often have a pulsating intensity and disquieting attention to detail.
Artwork: Brown’s more intense take on the star-crossed lovers is explicit: Code Red, these two are on fire! Contrary to Dicksee’s depiction, Brown emphasizes some of the more dangerous details of the story: not just their “I’ll do anything for you” delirium, but also the intoxicating thrill of forbidden love.
Occasion: Love and hate are twin offspring of a wider passion. Present this around any especially passionate event, such as a shouting match, make-up sex or a near-death experience.
Number 4Venus At Her Mirror
Diego Velazquez (1599-1660)
Artist: Velazquez represents the golden age of Spanish painting. Under the patronage of King Philip IV, Velazquez perfected the art of portraiture while serving as the official court painter, and many of his works are considered masterpieces.
Artwork: In Venus At Her Mirror, Cupid looks on as the nude goddess of love gives her own face the once-over. Her relaxed, graceful and exquisite body is among art history’s most beautiful nude depictions.
Occasion: Venus exudes a sense of feeling sexy -- a feeling women adore. Use it for no ostensible reason at all ( “I’m just crazy about you, baby”) and accompany it with a gift certificate for pampering at a local day spa. You’ll thank us later that night.
Number 3Dance Me To The End Of Love
Jack Vettriano (1951-)
Artist: The paintings of contemporary Scottish artist Jack Vettriano often show a tremendous debt to the ambivalent, dreamlike and low-key noir style.
Artwork: Dance Me To The End Of Love depicts formal couples dancing gracefully away from the viewer’s perspective and into a distant, ambiguous light.
Occasion: This painting whispers, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” so if you absolutely insist on using it, you better know what you’re getting yourself in to.
Number 2Adam and Eve
Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980)
Artist: One of the most fascinating figures in Art Deco, the bisexual Lempicka’s paintings convey a muscular, geometric sensuality that mark her work as instantly recognizable.
Artwork: Adam and Eve modernizes the infamous biblical metaphor of temptation, but it does nothing to alter the outcome: Eve’s gaze on that apple suggests she’s past contemplation -- the chick’s practically seducing it.
Occasion: Use this work when trying to convince your girl to do something she has been resisting -- a three-way, for example. The well-known consequences of Eve’s decision provide rational people with a reason not to indulge in taboo, but you’re safe here: women aren’t rational (example: Eve).
Number 1The Kiss
Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)
Artist: The brilliant Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt’s voracious sexuall appetite and hyper-veneration of the naked female body often clashed with the era’s prude mores. His answer was to first paint his women nude, then throw some clothes on them.
Artwork: Of the ten paintings we’ve presented, The Kiss is the most passionate, exuberant and eroticized. The timelessness is portrayed in a super-charged kiss -- he’s draped in gold, the eternal emblem of power, while she’s in flowers, symbols of ultimate yet fleeting beauty and vulnerability.
Occasion: Love is conceited and arrogant. When we’re in love, we think our relationship is the greatest in recorded history. Before the ceiling comes crashing down on this fantasy, celebrate it with Klimt’s masterpiece testimony to that vainglorious ecstasy.
From : Askmen.com
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