Who are your favorite artists?
My title comes from an entry on an audition form a few years ago. A student, attempting to describe his proficiency at dance, listed his skill level as: “medium awesome.”
As for the prompt, my first response was so non-artistic. “Which medium?” I thought. And then realized that that’s the kind of question I hate. When someone says art, I like to think that word encompasses a great number of media, and rather than reduce or narrow the possibilities, we should expand them.
For the sake of my readers, I’ll limit my response to my favorite artists in literature, music, and painting.
My favorite writers have changed over the years. At one point, I was a major Kurt Vonngegut, Jr. fan. I still am, and have collected all his works and kept them in my library. But the favorite author designation later changed to Thomas Pynchon, and then to Neal Stephenson. While the latter works of both soured me a bit on each, I have an enduring appreciation for Philip K. Dick and all of his mind-bending work.
In music, I have a bit of an eclectic taste, though my tastebuds reside primarily in the progressive rock portion of the tongue. (The salty-sweet receptors for jazz, Motown, and classic rock are still there, yes.) The prog palate is wide—take a look at progarchives.com for a list of the various sub-genres—bu I don’t like something just because it’s labeled prog. As for my favorite, I have a few, and will put Within Temptation and Nightwish at the top of my list.
As for fine artists, such as painters, the category most people immediately think of when they hear “art” and “artists,” I favor impressionists and surrealists. Monet canvases can capture me for a longer time than other works; they transport me to another world with the color and use of light. The same is true for Salvador Dali, though for a different reason; my brain works to decipher what I’m seeing and simultaneously projects meaning into it.
Don’t know one or some of these? Check them out! Vonnegut’s an easy read (such as Breakfast of Champions, deceptive in its simplicity), Within Temptation has some great rocking tunes (listen to “Faster” and “Fire and Ice” on the album Unforgiving), and Monet’s Water Lilies and Dali’s “Crucifixion (Corpos Hypercubus)” are ideal windows on to their worlds.
And let me know what you think!
MUSOFYR 