As you will probably notice from the following four, my taste in paintings is very much weighted towards the intense, dramatic, and often dark subject matter and style of painting, which I recognise might not be to everyone’s taste. However, I hope that in looking through this list you may find some new pieces or artists for yourself!
‘The Great Day of His Wrath’ by John Martin
John Martin was a Romantic era artist famous for his vast and melodramatic paintings, often depicting religious scenes and imposing landscapes. What I love about John Martin’s intense, apocalyptic scenes is the awe that they create when viewed. His use of colours is so interesting as your eye gets drawn deep into the painting towards the glowing orange and then to the deep black space and then to the figures at the bottom, it is just so wonderfully intense and dramatic. I have had the privilege of being able to see some of Martin’s work in person and the scale of the paintings is absolutely epic so I highly recommend going to see them if you get the chance!
‘The Haymaker’s Rest’ by Jules Bastien-Lepage
Honestly, I’m not sure why I love this painting so much. I remember the first time I saw it, I just felt so inexplicably drawn to it. For me the painting creates a great sense of calm, I think it could be the sleepy expression on the girl’s face and apparent softness of the pale grass. Interestingly however, the atmosphere in the painting appears to have both a serenity, in the figure of the resting woman, and a sense of foreboding due to the ominous grey sky, this contrast between calm and foreboding is what I find so fascinating about it.
‘The Lady of Shalott’ by John William Waterhouse
No list of my favourite paintings could be complete without at least one from the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Their intense use of colours, striking compositions, and their harking back to an earlier period of painting all create a wonderful, almost dreamlike quality to their works. Despite the fact that Waterhouse was working a few decades after the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, he still painted very much in their style, which can be seen in this painting. There is nothing that I don’t absolutely love about this painting (just ask anyone who has seen my desktop background!), the colours, subject matter, composition, the exquisite facial expression of the Lady are all beautiful, I could look at it all day.
‘The Fighting Temeraire’ by J. M. Turner
Turner is well known for his dramatic seascapes, with cloudy, almost smoky, looking seas and skies which provide a dreamy quality to the pieces. What I find particularly interesting about this painting is the different ways that I can react to it at different times. Sometimes what I find most interesting is the contrast between old and new in the large sailed ship being towed by the coal-powered ship, as it highlights the advances in technology which were happening at the time and the potential tensions that this could cause. Other times I just think they sky is really pretty.