The World’s 50 Best Works of Art

The original idea behind the Culture Roll was to explore various non-music related items without subtracting too much attention from the focus of the site…it’s “kinda like a blogroll, but more like a place to put links about cool stuff.” Ultimately however, it has become a place to dump funny videos…which isn’t a bad thing necessarily as I loves me some humor, but it’s just not what I set out to do. There’s a lot of culture out there that infects each of our lives, however it just so happens that in the past two months my life has been heavily affected primarily by music and humor. Today I was introduced to a list curated by critic Martin Gayford laying out The World’s 50 Best Works of Art (and how to see them)…or at least the world’s best works of art as far as he is concerned.

While I attended a liberal arts university I, myself, never took a proper art course of any type; as such my only education has come from personal research, extended stays around the Americas and a sweep of the local happenings here in the Twin Cities. When I come across these types of lists or postings the vast majority of such subjects are either new to me or are pieces that I only have superficial ideas about before delving a bit deeper into the subject matter. Though this particular list is limited to its author’s bias (I myself am biased towards a lot of early 20th Century Russian artists ala Kandinsky for…whatever reason) it’s a brilliant starting point for those such as myself, those who are just beginning their appreciation of art.

While I generally appreciate the difficulty to succeed in presentation through the medium I am typically not a big fan of sculpture as a whole. That being said, in his article Gayford introduced me to two abnormal pieces by the assumed definition of the term: the Nasca Earthworks and Spiral Jetty.

#6 Nasca Earthworks
(100 BC to 500 AD) Nasca Desert, Peru

Discovered in the 1920s by aerial reconnaissance, these ancient marks were made by moving the darker pebbles of this arid region to reveal the lighter soil beneath. Too large to be seen in their entirety by those who made them, these are testimony to a belief in the cosmic significance of human acts.

#49 Robert Smithson, ‘Spiral Jetty’
(1970) Salt Lake, Utah, USA

If this is a sculpture, it’s one of the largest in the world: it is a winding 15ft-wide path, 1,500 feet long, projecting a quarter of a mile into a remote part of the Great Salt Lake. Soon after it was created, it sank beneath the saline waters, and emerged decades later, gleaming white (water levels should be checked before visiting: www.spiraljetty.org). The simple form suggests innumerable analogies – viruses, shells, stellar nebulae. But most of all it is a metaphor for the slow, inexorable processes of geological time.

Additionally, I was reintroduced to a permanent installation of sorts that had initially crossed my path as a child in a sort of mythological sense…one I had never properly, critically approached as an adult: the Moai of Easter Island.

#19 Moai
(1250 to 1500) Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

The Moai are gigantic stone figures whose heads take up 60 per cent of their length. Nearly 900 have been found on this tiny island in the Pacific. They have elongated noses and lengthy oblong ears, which help to give them their extraordinary sense of watchful force. It is believed they represent deified ancestors, in which case the Moai are one of the most remarkable examples of art’s power to overcome time, and make the past present.

By far and away, the paintings that I was previously unfamiliar with which left the greatest impression of me were John Constable’s Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine and Thèodore Gèricault’s The Raft of the Medusa.

While the obvious beauty of da Vinci’s piece is alluring it is the underlying stories of Constable and Gèricault’s paintings that help build my appreciation of them; both accompanying each piece’s startling beauty by adding tones of humanity. To combine inspiration and ability, the output a meaningful expression of passion…those are the words that best describe art to me…as such each of these pieces are epitomical works of art. Each unique story is best described through their respective Wiki articles, but I wanted to emphasize the importance that I find in Gèricault’s ability to transform story of current affair into such a masterful piece, all at the ripe age of twenty five. (via Kottke & Random Knowledge)