The Top 59 Living Painters Ranked According to Objective Criteria

[Artyczar]

I don't know if I agree or disagree…

My, isn't this guy such an eloquent speaker.

 

[JohnEmmett]

My, isn't this guy such an eloquent speaker.

I suppose he is!

 

[Maybenartist]

I'd say with the exception of Lipking, who is a truly fine artist. The rest are all much of the same going for the effect of deep moody (even muddy) works and in Nerdrums case, trying to get a message across which most people never quite get!

 

[JohnEmmett]

I'd say with the exception of Lipking, who is a truly fine artist. The rest are all much of the same going for the effect of deep moody (even muddy) works and in Nerdrums case, trying to get a message across which most people never quite get!

I prefer Odd's message… to Lipking's

 

[Maybenartist]

I wasn't aware Lipking ever tried to portray a message, John.

 

[JohnEmmett]

I wasn't aware Lipking ever tried to portray a message, John.

yes, every artist is communicating

 

[stlukesguild]

naked people in earth tones

Nothing wrong with that... in the right hands:

-Titian

-Rubens

-Rembrandt

-Goya

-Anders Zorn

 

[stlukesguild]

Honestly, I think that the shortcomings with Bork Nerdrum's article begin with the quality of his reproductions as well as his choices of paintings by individual artists. Titian's Flaying of Marsyas is absolutely stunning when seen in person. Flecks of scarlet show throughout the painting as a whole and in no way is it as brown as it looks in reproduction. Unfortunately, I have never seen a reproduction that comes near to matching what I saw when viewing the painting in person. The painting is housed in the Archbishop's Palace in Kroměříž, Czech Republic and has never been properly photographed. Yet this painting seen in an overly brown reproduction is what Nerdrum argues is the peak of painting that all art should aspire to. As much as this Titian painting stunned me, I would argue there are many other paintings I would argue are better.

A good many of the artist Nerdrum selected are actually damn good... if only he'd selected better paintings and better reproductions:

-Nick Alm is an artist I've posted here several times. He handles paint in a fresh and dynamic manner that in no way is overworked.

The paintings of Jeremy Lipking, like those of Nick Alm, are rooted in 19th century tonal painting. Nothing wrong with that... especially when he is so good at it. I find his strongest works are those that avoid a preponderance of "mud"... brown... as well as those that focus upon family and friends.

Adam Miller's works are rowdy over-the-top contemporary allegories painted in the tradition of Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck, and the Mannerists. His use of color is in no way as dead as in the reproduction in the article.

Steven Assael has been a leading painter and teacher within the so-called "New Realism" since at least the 1970s. While he employs a chiaroscuro rooted in Caravaggio, he usually employs a more theatrical use of color light

Boris Koller studied with Odd Nerdrum... but his best works are landscapes that owe far more to the Romantics such as Casper David Friedrich.

The Italian, Roberto Ferri certainly belongs on any list of leading contemporary realist painters.

 

[stlukesguild]

While I can't question Nerdrum's choices of the above painters... there are a good many better he might have selected over a good many of the painters on his list:

-David Ligare

-Bo Bartlett

-F. Scott Hess

-Serge Marshenikov

-Margaret Bowland

-Michael Bergt

-Nicola Verlato

-David M. Lenz

-Daniel Sprick

-Marco Grassi

 

[JohnEmmett]

While I can't question Nerdrum's choices of the above painters… there are a good many better he might have selected

being dead or abstract wasn't considered


perhaps because the dead or abstract are best


for whatever that's worth

 

[stlukesguild]

I think with artists of the past we have the benefit of years and years of the judgment of critics and historians and subsequent artists. With contemporary art we are far more likely to be seduced by something topical or fashionable... while ignoring work that might be truly innovative or beautiful. Abstraction... abstraction in Western painting... suffers from this. It is barely 100 years old and a good deal of the artists most admired earned their status largely based on the opinions of a few critics, collectors, and curators.

 

[JohnEmmett]

Abstraction... abstraction in Western painting... suffers from this. It is barely 100 years old and a good deal of the artists most admired earned their status largely based on the opinions of a few critics, collectors, and curators.

Rothko and Pollock's paintings are disintegrating…


“But a thing is not beautiful because it lasts…” -The Vision

 

[brianvds]

StLukes: thanks for posting those much better examples by artists on Nerdrum's list. I wonder of he realizes he actually harmed the reputation of his fav artists by that article.

But I have seen this attitude with some of the "ARC-ists" ( for lack of a better term). They seem to genuinely believe that the browner and muddier a painting, the better it is.

 

[E.J.H.]

I see this term popping up again and again in this topic, "muddy". I don't really like it, it's a kind of namecalling I think, and says nothing about the quality of the painting imo. Rembrand used "muddy" colors.
They are muted colors, earth tones, mixed browns etc, not "mud".
It would also be easy to find a derisive nickname for bright colors.....

 

[JohnEmmett]

They are muted colors, earth tones, mixed browns etc, not "mud"

 

[JohnEmmett]

Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

…

 

[stlukesguild]

Rothko and Pollock's paintings are disintegrating…

Morris Louis' and Frankenthaler's are disintegrating even faster. Frankenthaler thinned oil paint out with turpentine to the consistency of watercolor staining unprimed canvas. The turp will ultimately rot the canvas... and as the pain is not separated from the canvas with gesso when the canvas goes the painting goes. Louis' paintings won't go as rapidly as he employed acrylic rather than oil... but the unprimed canvases are already darkening due to pollutants in the air. The survival of these works will depend upon whether future generations value them enough to invest the money required.

 

[JohnEmmett]

The survival of these works will depend upon whether future generations value them enough to invest the money required.

make a print…

 

[stlukesguild]

I see this term popping up again and again in this topic, "muddy". I don't really like it, it's a kind of namecalling I think, and says nothing about the quality of the painting imo.

The term "muddy" has long been used as a description of certain paintings. It is as valid as the term "garish". The former denotes paintings that are overly brown, lacking any clarity of form, and heavy and overwrought. The latter refers to paintings in which saturated colors clash in a manner that is unattractive. Both terms are open to debate. I would never call Rembrandt a "muddy" painter.

Nor Velazquez...

Many of their paintings use dark backgrounds of brown and gray... but these areas are not clotted or "muddy" but rather rapidly and thinly painted as a ground to contrast the figure(s). The handling of the figures is quite sophisticated in paintings by either artist with areas of clear delineation in contrast to lost or blurred edges. There are areas thinly painted, areas that are rapidly scumbled with a brush as with a rapier, and at times there are passages of rich impasto. At times, Rembrandt especially may use areas of brilliant color... reds and yellows... not unlike the paintings of Caravaggio... in contrast to the dark backgrounds. At other times, the color remains subdued with only the value standing out against the shadows. I've long admired how the delicate pink ribbon stands out in Velazquez' Rokeby Venus:

Rembrandt and Velazquez married the tenebrism of Caravaggio with the masterful brushwork of Titian. If these paintings look "muddy" it is usually the result of poor photographs and/or layers of yellowing varnish. By the early 19th century Rembrandt had grown in stature to such an extent that there was a fashion for employing heavy yellow varnish with the mistaken aim of making paintings have that Rembrandt glow. You see the result in many of the dark and yes... "muddy" paintings by artists of the 19th century "Realist" movement. Paintings by Rembrandt and Velazquez and other tonal masters that have been cleaned reveal a freshness and spontaneity that many contemporary tonal realists fail to achieve.

 

[stlukesguild]

make a print…

A print never comes near to replacing the original painting.