Okay, I know it's for the birds, that it doesn't mean a tinker's cuss, but at the end I got drawn into it despite myself. Back on the 8th June The Times got to the end of its long-running poll to find out who, by popular consent, is or was the greatest artist of The Twentieth Century - and not as I originally typed, of all time. Even so, a bit like trying to establish which is the greatest fruit or vegetable. I treated it with all the disdain it deserved for the whole 16 weeks that it took to run its course. But then, when all the 1.4 million votes had been counted and the final results were known, I caved in. (What is it about our natures that succumbs to the competitive element despite our best endeavours, even where it is patently inappropriate?) Nothing should have surprised me about the competition (sorry, poll!)of course - with the possible exception of
Picasso not coming first - for with so many of all shades of outlook casting their votes there was bound to be a great mix and levelling. And there was - and Picasso did come first! And Paul Cézanne came second. Almost as much a foregone conclusion as the first place, I thought. No surprises so far. But then:-- Third place went to Gustav Klimt, master of the Art Nouveau and supposedly with major share holdings in manufacturers of gold leaf. How could the good burgers of Britain who voted in such numbers for Cezanne and Monet (fourth) have voted for Klimt. The answer is, of course, they didn't. It was another lot.
- Marcel Duchamp slipped into fifth place between Monet and Henri Matisse (sixth): same explanation as above? I don't think so, no. Duchamp has his place for good and cogent reasons. Even so I was surprised to see him achieveing it.
- Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning and Piet Mondrian, all squeezed in (7th to 10th) before Paul Gauguin , number eleven. Yup, didn't altogether disapprove of that, but still slightly surprised.
- Mark Rothko at 28 just pipped Edward Hopper.
- Lucien Freud at 30 (tagged "Britain's Greatest Living Artist"?) was 4 places ahead of David Hockney.
- Good to see a photographer (Cartier-Bresson) in at 35, though surely if he'd been a painter he would have been higher?
- Henry Moore at 49 demonstrated just how far he has slipped out of fashion.
- Ditto Tracey Emin at at 52 and Damien Hurst at 53.
- Marc Chagall at 71 was disappointing.
Full results with information about the top 200 artists can be found here
(The paintings are, in order, by: Monet, Hockney, de Kooning and Hopper.)
39 comments:
love of art is all in the eye of the beholder...
Being a yank, I don't get the times but I'm surprised not to see artists from the distant past like da Vinci, Durer, Rembrandt, etc.
Picasso eh? I wonder how that will hold up in another 200 or 300 years. Will the "greatest artist of all time" be someone from a more distant past or will it be someone who lived long & received lots of press as did Picasso?
Enjoyed the post.
Thanks, Dave. I'm surprised, too, by some not on your summary, but I'm off to read the full list. I wonder where the Old Masters rank?
Definitely more of a Hopper than a Rothko fan - there's something endlessly and thrillingly noirish about Hopper that I just can't over. I agree that had Cartier-Bresson been a painter, he would've placed far higher. I'm a big fan.
Being unable to resist, Dave, says something about education in our day I think!
I felt similarly about the poll - did think of doing a blog on it and then thought - no - Dave is bound to feature it, I'll leave it to him. Enjoyed the way you featured it all.
I hadn't heard about this. It's fascinating the way art is interpreted.
Where's Vermeer? the great Dutch and Flemish masters of light, where's de Gelder, heck even Thos Singer-Sargeant? O well it's art isn't it, who can say. But how in the world did Pollock and pals rate ahead of Gauguin is beyond reason.
Very interesting, Dave. :)
I can read your blog today. Is it me losing my mind or did you enlarge it a bit or perhaps change the color?
I wonder who are the pollsters...People who obviously know some but not enough about art and Chagall- polls are annoying at best. Fame and press have swayed this crowd of pollsters ,I believe.
It is interesting to speculate on the changing preferences and I guess one could make a sociological commentary on it related to current societal factors. Hmmm I agree with you, Marc Chagall at 71 is a bit disappointing. I thought van Gogh would have been in the top numbers, he seems to have become incredibly popular with his work commercialized excessively in prints etc. (Arh, I went to the site and it is artists since 1900 so that would explain the omission). Probably the artists on the list in the last 100 are more interesting...the lesser known more recent artist I assume.
Thank goodnes there are so many to choose from. I'd have a hard time oicking an absolute pick for number one, but have always been a big fan of Edward Hopper. Having said that aak me who the best painter ever is on five different days you are bound to get at least thee different answers.
Cheers,
Carl
Wow Carl... Check your spelling before you hit enter.
CS
These lists always make me remember how subjective anything creative is. And I agree with Carl, my opinion changes often. I love Hopper, but his painting bother me--I feel too much cultural angst when I look sometimes.
Me
You idiot! You knew very well it was of the Twentieth Century, not all time. What possessed you? Time to increase the tablets, obviously!
Myself I didn't even realise I'd put that until I started to read the comments. (Sorry all.)
Soulbrush
Love of.. yeah.
Stephen
Explained above!
Lizzie
Mea Culpa. Glad you enjoyed it anyway. And a thought-provoking question you raise. Don't know the answer, though.
Karen
Explanation as above, I think. Sorry.
Fiendish
I would have agred with you about the Hopper/Rothko thing before I stood in front of a Rothko canvas. There's definitely something about one of those, as well!
The Weaver of Grass
I was always a lad who couldn't say no! You should have - there's room for us both!
Maggie
Agreed.
Cathy
As before - the explanation is above. Apologies.
readingsully2
I have increased the font size slightly. I am still trying to sus out how to do it permanently. I'm doing it on a post-to-post basis at the moment.
Linda
I think that does happen, yes.
gleaner
Yup, you got there before me! The sociologicl commentary might be interesting. I don't think there's any doubt but that such factors influence artists, so presumably they influence their public likewise.
Carl
I do agree with you on your three different answers comment.
Conda
Hopper's work has bothered me on occasions, but I don't particularly mind that. You could say it's him doing his job.
I see Manet didn't even make the top 200. Maybe if the Beeb had shown that documentary a few weeks earlier that might have changed.
There are two aspects that immediately jump at me, the immigrant, straight away: most 'best of' lists are pointless (nobody agrees anyway) and they are usually made up of European or first world artists/writers/musicians (delete as appropriate). This is not to take anything away from Picasso, Klimt et al, but to me a Portocarrero or Pelaez will say a lot more than a Miro for instance.
Good piece. Many thanks.
Greetings from London.
aren't we a competitive bunch of people.... interesting definately, yet no one person will agree 100%. art's too personal.
Jim
You're right, and yes, I am sure he would have made it had the programme (which I haven't seen yet) been screened earlier. So much depends upon such details, I think. I had read a review a few weeks earlier, describing Henry Moore as a not very competent sculptor, and low and behold, there he was slipping down the scale.
A Cuban in London
Good point. If the poll had been world wide, who knows? For very similar reasons I was surprised to see that Frida Kahlo had got in at nineteenth. And yes, I do agree with you that such things are pointless, at least in terms of what they set out to do. They say more about us and society than the artists, I think.
Shadow
We are indeed competative, even where competition is not appropriate.
Dave - I too was surprised to see Chagall so far down the list.
C
Carl
Yes, the more I think about it, the more surprised I am!
Oops!! I guess I need to read a little more carefully...haha!!!
There is no such thing as best but yet we have to make nice orderly lists as humans. It is odd because we are all guilty of doing it at some point.
Well, what does a reader's poll show? I'm not sure it shows much. All these efforts at rating who;s the best, who's the greatest—I think it's all pretty much useless, whether it's art or books or whatever.
We can talk about who had the biggest impact on their fellow artists. we can talk about who made innovations that influenced everyone else, and started trends, or changed the face of art. We can talk about historical relevance and context.
But it's ridiculous to say that one artist was better than another—all this is is a popularity contest. It doesn't surprise me at all that Picasso and Cezanne "won" this poll—because they're the most famous, pure and simple.
And yeah, I do know that you know all this. I appreciate your reporting of it here.
Nonetheless, here's my distaff view:
I have to say, in my estimation Matisse was without doubt the most important artist of the 20th C., and the most influential. There's lots of evidence for that, so it's not just a fan's opinion.
For example, Matisse and Picasso had a complicated friendship/rivalry in which they egged each other on. I think the reason Picasso got the most votes was that he was the most famous, or infamous, and he had a real talent for innovation and self-marketing. But even with his large ego, Picasso more than once wrote or said that Matisse was his master and his goad. They pushed each other. When Matisse was dying, Picasso made one last visit, and there on the mantelpiece was something Matisse had just done that once again caused Picasso to stop and stare, and go home and try to learn from it. (There's a documentary available on their friendship and rivalry, that is very revealing.)
Stephen
You and me both!
David
Yes, I wonder what advantage that conferred upon us in our climb from the primal ooze.
Art
They do say that everyone is either a little Picasso or a little Matisse. (Gilbert and Sullivan could have written that in somewhere, I'm sure.) All true, but so far as Picasso was concerned he was inclined to match himself against other srtists anyway - old masters, for instance.
your comments are challenging as ever, i especially liked that about Cartier-Bresson having been higher if he'd been a painter (big surprise! :-).
could you please explain me what you meant by: "How could the good burgers of Britain who voted in such numbers for Cezanne and Monet (fourth) have voted for Klimt. The answer is, of course, they didn't. It was another lot."
I'd have gone for Edward Hopper myself. Saw many of his when I was in the US and liked him instantly.
Dear Dave, very interesting post!I really like Picasso! But I will check the site! Thanks for the sharing this post!
Have a very nice week,
Rosana
In which place were Arshile Gorky or Antoni Tàpies ? I was curious to know.
Roxana
Ah! How to explain that? I was suggesting that such a poll is meaningless, other than as a guide to overall popularity, because the various artists represent, if you like, different pools of popularity. You can ask about which fruit or which vegatables are generally preferred, but broaden it to any type of food and the results mean nothing (more people chose caviar then beetroot).
Madame DeFarge
I reacted in exactly the same way when I first saw his work.
The lady in Red
Thanks for the response.
Elaine
To the best of my recollection, I don't think they were.
Dave you know so much about so many things.
Have a good day.
Love Renee xoxo
No, No, No...Chagall at 71! Only serves to illustrate how inane it is to attempt a list such as this.
By the way, Henry Moore is alive and well and currently residing in my ver own city by way of an extensive exhibition at our Botanical Garden. Glorious works!
Regrettably, I don't know most of them. But would now check out their work thanks to your post.
Dear Dave, I am happy you enjoyed "June". Thank you for your comment.
oh, Dave, of course such a poll is meaningless, but my question was different: i didn't get what you implied in the Klimt comment, that it was another lot who voted for him, and not the "good burgers of Britain", so i wanted to know whom you were referring to, it seemed to me very interesting. but perhaps i am misunderstading?
Certainly stirred things up here, Dave! I couldn't possibly comment except in banalities!
So many interesting talents. I agree.. how can we compare them? So much awesome talent packed into so few bodies!
Some things, like cherished art cannot be compared and art was never created to be compared in this way. To say Picasso is best does not allow for his entire portfolio of work, some of it brilliant, some not so great. Picasso is very well known in some parts of the world. How many people in the world would actually know his name and would be able to tell you about a work of art he created or even know that he is famous for his art? Also, art that is popular in 2009 will likely not be that popular down the road, witnessed in the lack of popularity with Henry Moore. Art has a time and a place and you are correct, it doesn't mean a tinker's cuss.
Never heard of some of them. but very interesting. Looking them up right now!!
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