European painting throwdown

there can only be one

Flemish/Dutch y'all

take sides: Rubens' vs. Goya's Saturn

Italian because we're pitting whole schools against each other and Italian has more variety and a higher number of classics overall. If individual works were the focus Goya and Velazquez would make Spain much more attractive, but what about all those boring 18th century landscapes?

Same for Flemish and Dutch, one or two heart-stopping still lives and Bosch, on their own account, might get the whole of my vote but as it is there's a lot of boring still lives too.

When I say Italian I'm not even thinking about Da Vinci or Raphael or whatever, what about that delicious moment (Botticelli for example) when frescoes and ikons are slowly morphing into more 'living', 'humanistic' works - where it's one kind of wonderful turning into another before your eyes? Then you get Venice: Giorgione and weird, sad pictures of Mister Punch going upstairs in villas. Apres la deluge avant la lettre.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Cardamon's got this right- the only way the others compete at all is if you break the Italians out into groups.

my most popular poll yet!

I started it to stan for Spanish painting. 16th Spanish century is so dope, hardcore: look at all those Riberas of Saint Jerome bashing himself with a rock (was in El Escorial earlier this month and one of the Riberas said "in this painting Saint Jerome is not penitent", which after you've been seeing penitent J after penitent J will bring the lols): love the hardness of the protagonists, tough stoic motherfuckers. but it's not just that era, or just Goya; some time in the Reina Sofia reminds you that the 20th century was fab too. aside from the futurists I don't think Italy competes that long.

for me it would be Spanish > Dutch/Flemish > German (for the 20th century basically) > Italian > French

kinda wanted someone to stan for French painting here so that I can learn, I mean I know my impressionism but there's gotta be more to it to top España

Rembrandt above all.

You can't let one artist overrule all others. I say the Italian, just because they kept changing, throwing out new geniuses, new schools, new techniques, in ways the Flemish/Dutch schools cannot equal or surpass. The Italians taught the rest of Europe how to paint.

Just ask Giotto

oh

Italy, mainly for the reasons cardamon said

voted French for Yves Klein

wait if you're adding the 20th c those italians are going to drag their team down.

tough. Italian, prolly. most innovative.

Boils down to caravaggio vs rembrandt and im not picking

voted flemish/dutch.

was def thinking about the 20th century, my fav century for painting

interesting. dividing them by region like this made me think of like the 15th-17th centuries, when there was less contact between countries and regional styles were more pronounced. i chose the dutch because i prefer realism to idealism in figurative painting, generally, and the great dutch masters (especially rembrandt) tended to have a sober, sympathetic view toward their subjects

w/Treeship on this though I tend more to Vermeer and Hals than just to Rembrandt.

I was also hoping someone would whine about my leaving off the British but alas no fun there

heh. if you're main concern was the 20th century, you could easily make a case for britain.

I just picked one at random, it's all the same really, just some dudes hanging out in funny hats and clothes and lots of fruit and maybe some breasts if you're lucky

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3178/3071726325_72ecffb62e_z.jpg?zz=1

keep painting and chive on

If it was strictly 20th century (and still rating schools, not 'which school has best single painter in it') I might have gone for ... German, I think. Maybe French.

Can we do a strictly C20th one actually pls

I'd have voted German too just on 20th century; was just pointing out that I was thinking of more than just the early modern era, and that's why I rate Spanish painting so highly

*national schools xp

By the way, I forgot to think about the 20th century at all when I cast my vote and gave my spiel: but I'm sticking with Italy, why because Modigliani, De Chrico

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

hey good turnout!

eat it France

perfect distribution of acores

if it was strictly 20th Century then most (?) of the serious action is going on elsewhere than here anyway

go back to france, france

if it was strictly 20th Century then most (?) of the serious action is going on elsewhere than here anyway

Yes if talking late C20th, but still, Picasso, Francis Bacon, Magritte, Expressionists etc

don't forget i gave a 1/2 mark each to italy and the flemish, so results as printed are incorrect

Flemish were better at oil, which allowed them better lighting effects and detailing/realism compared to Italian frescoes. Italians formalized picture spaces with linear perspective so they could create highly complex compositions that allowed them to tell (Biblical) narratives with a very wide iconography. On the negative side, there are a bunch of Italian paintings with pretty bad anatomy like baby Jesus' with freakishly long limbs and interpretations for Flemish works are too convoluted to me and they're kind of life/emotionless (compare Botticelli's Lamentation over the Dead Christ with Weyden's Descent from the Cross just to cherry pick). But I just read a book on Botticelli though so my vote is tainted.

Also, disappointed by the lack of picspam itt.