A detail from Still Life, by Francisco
Zurbaran, as chosen by Amanda Levete Photograph: Norton Simon
Collection/Bridgeman Art Library/The Bridgeman Art Library
What makes a great artwork? We asked some of the great and the good in
the art world to pick something they considered to be truly special.
Here, our art critic introduces their responses by asking what a
masterpiece really is
What is a great work of art? The question asks itself when you leaf through The Art Museum, a colossal new book that gathers together an ideal collection of superlative sculptures, paintings, vases, embroideries and installations. Amanda Renshaw, who conceived this mammoth project, spent 10 years working with other editors to build the book for art publishers Phaidon.
What does it mean to call a work of art "great"? It's a lot stronger than saying you like or even love it, or naming your favourite. Those judgments are subjective. If I say my favourite work of art is the gold funeral mask of Tutankhamun in the Egyptian Museum on Cairo's Tahrir Square, that is just a personal enthusiasm. If I call it the greatest work of art in the world, I am making an objective statement. I am saying it does not matter if you or I like it that much; I am saying it is a work of profundity, power and originality.
As it happens, the mask of that boy king exhibits another quality: beauty. The proportions of his face, the perfection of the gold skin, the clarity of his eyes – all have the harmony and grace we call beautiful. So why not simply say this is one of the world's most beautiful works of art? Because to modern ears this does not sound as serious or impressive as a "great" work.
Five hundred years ago, the highest praise would have been to call something beautiful; that changed in the Romantic age, with the birth of the modern world. The idea that art existed to delight and entertain was shunned by the composer Beethoven, the poet Coleridge, and the artist Goya, to name just a few Romantic radicals. And, essentially, we still see art as they did: as an arduously serious and dangerous imaginative adventure, driven by emotional forces that lead the artist to the very limits of representation and beyond.
Philip Pullman, Author
For
a work to be great, I think it must signify influence as well as have a
self-contained perfection of form. I can only talk about western art
because, while I can see beauty in, say, a Benin bronze, I have no idea
whether it was influential in its own culture, or typical, or what.
So I've chosen a painting by Monet, who changed the way painters in the west saw and depicted light, and light is the subject of every representational painting: light falling on flesh, on stone, on cloth, on water. The Four Trees, one of a series of paintings of this stretch of the river Epte, is great because it conveys the sense of a bright morning with freshness and brilliance (the delicious golden light on the curve of trees in the distance); and because it's formally thrilling (I pity anyone who didn't feel a shock of delight at seeing that grid of dark lavenders over pale blue and gold); and because it's part of impressionism's great project of teaching the 20th century a new way of seeing.
Amanda Levete, Architect
The depth of understanding and observation in this work is extraordinary. The artist creates a kind of hyper-reality: when I see a bumpy, thick-skinned lemon at a stall, I feel I am looking at an image from this painting. Great art stops us in our tracks, gives us an insight into reality, makes us think, helps us understand the structure of things. That a painting can do this with the humble lemon, some oranges, a rose and a cup of water is testament to its power and greatness. How I would love to be able to look at such a work every day, to discover another nuance, to be reminded that there is sublime beauty in the ordinary.
David Hockney, Artist
There's not much art I don't like, although I am indifferent to some (indeed, quite a lot) today. I could say the Fra Angelicos in San Marco in Florence are my favourite works, or Rembrandt's great drawing, in the British Museum, of a family teaching a child to walk. But why not Picasso's treatment of that same subject, which is only dealt with by the greatest artists?
It is a totally universal subject that everybody has experienced and witnessed. Today, thousands of depictions will be made of this all over the world, most with a camera: uncle Charlie teaching little Edna to walk, photographed by mum. But most will not be able to show us what Picasso does: the child, both thrilled and frightened; the anxious mother, whose supple hands clasp the child's still awkward fingers. Cubism allows him to give us that detail. In great works of art, form and content are one. It is a wonderful, touching work. Great stuff. There are not many great paintings on this subject.
Tim Marlow, Art historian, director of exhibitions at White Cube
This
stark, life-sized image of Christ in the tomb is one of the great
depictions of death and decay in western art. It's as if you are peering
into a sarcophagus set into the wall. The vicious and visceral wounds
are surrounded by gangrenous flesh, and the body is beginning to
decompose towards the point of putrefaction.
It's a painting that seems to assault the nose as much as the eyes, a pathological vision that famously caused the great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky to remark that it "could rob a man of his faith". Aside from Christ's extended, goitrous jaw, the other astonishing feature is that Holbein was not yet 25 years old when he painted it.
Charles Saumarez Smith, Secretary and Chief Executive, Royal Academy
When
I received Phaidon's huge, new, tombstone venture which commemorates
all the greatest works of art from all round the world, I lugged it to
the table in order to examine its coverage of the Italian Renaissance.
There are whole page spreads devoted to Piero della Francesca, Botticelli and Mantegna,
including some of the greatest works of art in the world. What makes
them great? I haven't lost the ideas explored by 19th-century art
historian Jacob Burckhardt
in the – that great works have the capacity to encapsulate ideas about
the world. They will have a quality of ethereal and spiritual poetry
(as in the works of Botticelli); or a quality of intelligent,
mathematical authority (Piero); or a sense of the passing of time and of
the culture of the past (Mantegna). Great works must be transcendent:
that is, the artists are striving to communicate to their own age, but
in a language understandable visually to other ages that do not share
the same values.
Cornelia Parker, Sculptor
Great artists make you look at the world differently. Think of Monet with his haystacks, or Turner with his sunsets: once you've seen their paintings, you can never look at those things in the same way. That's exactly what Bernd and Hilla Becher
have done for industrial architecture. The German artists spent decades
travelling around, obsessively cataloguing those grim, ubiquitous
structures – gas cooling towers, pitheads, pylons – that most of us
think of as ugly. In the Bechers' work, they become like people, each
with their own character.
I can't look at any such structures in real life without thinking of their photographs. I have several pinned to the walls of my studio. As a sculptor, I'm fascinated by their patterns and rhythms, their shape and form. The best works of art allows space for the viewer to bring their own interpretation. I remember once being at the Venice Biennale, when the Bechers were representing Germany. I was struck by the simplicity and beautiful framing of their work. It made me laugh and it made me cry.
Isaac Julien, Artist
This
untitled photograph by Cindy Sherman is a disturbing, arresting work.
It looks like a crime scene or something from a film by David Lynch.
Is it a picture of a dead woman, or is it a film still? She is not
just simply there. And, by always using herself as a subject, Sherman
complicates things further. Photographed over the decades, in "pictures"
that are never titled and so never able to take on a fixed meaning, her
ever-changing self has become an artwork in itself. She's a celebrity,
yet her work is a critique on the construct of celebrity.
In fact, her pictures pose so many questions, they end up questioning the entire medium. It is astonishing to be able to do that, to be able to unfix meaning; to go beyond your moment. That's what marks out great art: it should transcend its time and genre.
Julia Peyton-Jones, Co-director, Serpentine gallery
My
question is: what makes a great artist? An artist's reputation rests
beyond a single work, and a great artist's reputation never rests on a
single work. In the current Gerhard Richter show at the Tate, you know you're in the presence of greatness in the first room.
I chose this painting, but I could have chosen almost any work in the show. The sheer range shows not only an astonishing level of enquiry, but also a relentless exploring: Richter is always pushing his own boundaries.
In his abstract paintings, he builds up the surface with a visceral sensuality, in the abstract expressionist tradition. The surfaces are ever varying and complex: a densely layered experience of colour, form, texture. You're drawn into the paintings and you can see for ever: there are islands there, your eye is brought in and out of focus. You feel this depth as much as you see it. In life, it's very rare to stand somewhere and accept absolutely, the mind not clouding with questions.
Time and time again, I've found myself looking at the show with a sense of wonder. It contains only works I already knew, yet I'm seeing them with a new emphasis, a new appreciation. I knew he was good, great even. But this is something of a different order.
Kristin Scott Thomas, Actor
The
brilliant thing about this picture is its composition. The sharp
division created by the lamppost makes it like a scene from a film. It
throws you into Haussmann's Paris with its wide boulevards and grand buildings.
On the right, a couple walk towards us at a clip. His coat flaps open as if he'd just enjoyed a good lunch. Her arm is linked through his as they watch something beyond the lamppost that surprises him and amuses her but that we cannot see. On the other side of the black post, life is slower, lonelier and wet.
The slippery shining cobbles give me cold toes, and I can smell the damp wool from all those coats. It's isn't a cold day, but a miserable, rainy late autumn afternoon. I feel a twinge of envy as I think about this comfortable, affectionate couple going home to tea and a warm fire. Don't we all feel like that sometimes?
Edmund de Waal, Ceramicist and author
This
beautiful and clever work was commissioned by a Welshman living in
Calais from an artist in Bruges: an example of the internationalism of
15th-century art. I love its formality. The figures [in the detail
shown] seem suspended in these almost abstracted spaces. There are
landscapes beyond, a winding river and a mill, a stray peacock, a
slightly mordant servant hidden behind a pillar. And the group of
Madonna and very cheerful Christ child, angels and saints, with Sir John Donne of Kidwelly, his wife and daughter, all held below a red canopy as rich as a Barnett Newman stripe.
Ed Vaizey, Culture minister
I've
been fascinated by this painting ever since I came across it as a child
in a book. The thing I love is the mirror. You're right there with the
couple having their portrait painted, and you can see the workings of
the scene reflected in it. The painting has a lifelike quality: the
pattern on the carpet, the brickwork, the way her dress is constructed,
the chandelier, the fruit, the window.
I often go to the National Gallery to see this work. To a contemporary eye, it is undramatic. The faces are almost alien, but this mystery allows you to bring your own interpretation to the work. Of course, art historians have gone into enormous detail about who the couple are. To me, they're just a man and a woman in a snapshot of their time.
Kirsty Wark, Broadcaster
Lots
of things make a work of art great but sometimes it's just sheer
genius. That's the case with this work by Velázquez. And he wasn't even
20 when he painted it. We don't know the full story, but I would assume
Velázquez knew the woman well because he has captured her so
beautifully. What is she thinking?
I love the way Velázquez plays with with light, having it pick out kitchen utensils: the shadow of the knife on the white dish, the way the shape of the egg in her hand echoes the shape of the wooden spoon. And you can almost feel that melon. Notice, too, the way the woman has put the eggs in one after the other: the egg on the left is more formed than the one on the right.
When I look at the painting, which hangs in the Scottish National Gallery, I see the joy of cooking and the joy of the kitchen. It gives you so many clues about the way people lived and how little has changed.
Interviews by Dale Berning, Andrew Gilchrist, Theresa Malone and Laura Barnett
What makes a great artwork? We asked some of the great and the good in
the art world to pick something they considered to be truly special.
Here, our art critic introduces their responses by asking what a
masterpiece really is
What is a great work of art? The question asks itself when you leaf through The Art Museum, a colossal new book that gathers together an ideal collection of superlative sculptures, paintings, vases, embroideries and installations. Amanda Renshaw, who conceived this mammoth project, spent 10 years working with other editors to build the book for art publishers Phaidon.
What does it mean to call a work of art "great"? It's a lot stronger than saying you like or even love it, or naming your favourite. Those judgments are subjective. If I say my favourite work of art is the gold funeral mask of Tutankhamun in the Egyptian Museum on Cairo's Tahrir Square, that is just a personal enthusiasm. If I call it the greatest work of art in the world, I am making an objective statement. I am saying it does not matter if you or I like it that much; I am saying it is a work of profundity, power and originality.
As it happens, the mask of that boy king exhibits another quality: beauty. The proportions of his face, the perfection of the gold skin, the clarity of his eyes – all have the harmony and grace we call beautiful. So why not simply say this is one of the world's most beautiful works of art? Because to modern ears this does not sound as serious or impressive as a "great" work.
Five hundred years ago, the highest praise would have been to call something beautiful; that changed in the Romantic age, with the birth of the modern world. The idea that art existed to delight and entertain was shunned by the composer Beethoven, the poet Coleridge, and the artist Goya, to name just a few Romantic radicals. And, essentially, we still see art as they did: as an arduously serious and dangerous imaginative adventure, driven by emotional forces that lead the artist to the very limits of representation and beyond.
Philip Pullman, Author
Claude Monet's The Four Trees (1891)
For
a work to be great, I think it must signify influence as well as have a
self-contained perfection of form. I can only talk about western art
because, while I can see beauty in, say, a Benin bronze, I have no idea
whether it was influential in its own culture, or typical, or what.So I've chosen a painting by Monet, who changed the way painters in the west saw and depicted light, and light is the subject of every representational painting: light falling on flesh, on stone, on cloth, on water. The Four Trees, one of a series of paintings of this stretch of the river Epte, is great because it conveys the sense of a bright morning with freshness and brilliance (the delicious golden light on the curve of trees in the distance); and because it's formally thrilling (I pity anyone who didn't feel a shock of delight at seeing that grid of dark lavenders over pale blue and gold); and because it's part of impressionism's great project of teaching the 20th century a new way of seeing.
Amanda Levete, Architect
Francisco de Zurbarán's Still Life
The depth of understanding and observation in this work is extraordinary. The artist creates a kind of hyper-reality: when I see a bumpy, thick-skinned lemon at a stall, I feel I am looking at an image from this painting. Great art stops us in our tracks, gives us an insight into reality, makes us think, helps us understand the structure of things. That a painting can do this with the humble lemon, some oranges, a rose and a cup of water is testament to its power and greatness. How I would love to be able to look at such a work every day, to discover another nuance, to be reminded that there is sublime beauty in the ordinary.
David Hockney, Artist
Picasso's Mother and Child (First Steps) (1943)
There's not much art I don't like, although I am indifferent to some (indeed, quite a lot) today. I could say the Fra Angelicos in San Marco in Florence are my favourite works, or Rembrandt's great drawing, in the British Museum, of a family teaching a child to walk. But why not Picasso's treatment of that same subject, which is only dealt with by the greatest artists?It is a totally universal subject that everybody has experienced and witnessed. Today, thousands of depictions will be made of this all over the world, most with a camera: uncle Charlie teaching little Edna to walk, photographed by mum. But most will not be able to show us what Picasso does: the child, both thrilled and frightened; the anxious mother, whose supple hands clasp the child's still awkward fingers. Cubism allows him to give us that detail. In great works of art, form and content are one. It is a wonderful, touching work. Great stuff. There are not many great paintings on this subject.
Tim Marlow, Art historian, director of exhibitions at White Cube
Hans Holbein's Dead Christ (1521)
This
stark, life-sized image of Christ in the tomb is one of the great
depictions of death and decay in western art. It's as if you are peering
into a sarcophagus set into the wall. The vicious and visceral wounds
are surrounded by gangrenous flesh, and the body is beginning to
decompose towards the point of putrefaction.It's a painting that seems to assault the nose as much as the eyes, a pathological vision that famously caused the great Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky to remark that it "could rob a man of his faith". Aside from Christ's extended, goitrous jaw, the other astonishing feature is that Holbein was not yet 25 years old when he painted it.
Charles Saumarez Smith, Secretary and Chief Executive, Royal Academy
Paintings of the Italian Renaissance
When
I received Phaidon's huge, new, tombstone venture which commemorates
all the greatest works of art from all round the world, I lugged it to
the table in order to examine its coverage of the Italian Renaissance.
There are whole page spreads devoted to Piero della Francesca, Botticelli and Mantegna,
including some of the greatest works of art in the world. What makes
them great? I haven't lost the ideas explored by 19th-century art
historian Jacob Burckhardt
in the – that great works have the capacity to encapsulate ideas about
the world. They will have a quality of ethereal and spiritual poetry
(as in the works of Botticelli); or a quality of intelligent,
mathematical authority (Piero); or a sense of the passing of time and of
the culture of the past (Mantegna). Great works must be transcendent:
that is, the artists are striving to communicate to their own age, but
in a language understandable visually to other ages that do not share
the same values.
Cornelia Parker, Sculptor
Bernd and Hilla Becher's Water Towers (1988)
Great artists make you look at the world differently. Think of Monet with his haystacks, or Turner with his sunsets: once you've seen their paintings, you can never look at those things in the same way. That's exactly what Bernd and Hilla Becher
have done for industrial architecture. The German artists spent decades
travelling around, obsessively cataloguing those grim, ubiquitous
structures – gas cooling towers, pitheads, pylons – that most of us
think of as ugly. In the Bechers' work, they become like people, each
with their own character.I can't look at any such structures in real life without thinking of their photographs. I have several pinned to the walls of my studio. As a sculptor, I'm fascinated by their patterns and rhythms, their shape and form. The best works of art allows space for the viewer to bring their own interpretation. I remember once being at the Venice Biennale, when the Bechers were representing Germany. I was struck by the simplicity and beautiful framing of their work. It made me laugh and it made me cry.
Isaac Julien, Artist
Cindy Sherman's Untitled 153 (1985)
This
untitled photograph by Cindy Sherman is a disturbing, arresting work.
It looks like a crime scene or something from a film by David Lynch.
Is it a picture of a dead woman, or is it a film still? She is not
just simply there. And, by always using herself as a subject, Sherman
complicates things further. Photographed over the decades, in "pictures"
that are never titled and so never able to take on a fixed meaning, her
ever-changing self has become an artwork in itself. She's a celebrity,
yet her work is a critique on the construct of celebrity.In fact, her pictures pose so many questions, they end up questioning the entire medium. It is astonishing to be able to do that, to be able to unfix meaning; to go beyond your moment. That's what marks out great art: it should transcend its time and genre.
Julia Peyton-Jones, Co-director, Serpentine gallery
Gerhard Richter's Abstract Painting (1995)
My
question is: what makes a great artist? An artist's reputation rests
beyond a single work, and a great artist's reputation never rests on a
single work. In the current Gerhard Richter show at the Tate, you know you're in the presence of greatness in the first room.I chose this painting, but I could have chosen almost any work in the show. The sheer range shows not only an astonishing level of enquiry, but also a relentless exploring: Richter is always pushing his own boundaries.
In his abstract paintings, he builds up the surface with a visceral sensuality, in the abstract expressionist tradition. The surfaces are ever varying and complex: a densely layered experience of colour, form, texture. You're drawn into the paintings and you can see for ever: there are islands there, your eye is brought in and out of focus. You feel this depth as much as you see it. In life, it's very rare to stand somewhere and accept absolutely, the mind not clouding with questions.
Time and time again, I've found myself looking at the show with a sense of wonder. It contains only works I already knew, yet I'm seeing them with a new emphasis, a new appreciation. I knew he was good, great even. But this is something of a different order.
Kristin Scott Thomas, Actor
Gustav Caillebotte's Paris Street: Rainy Day (1877)
The
brilliant thing about this picture is its composition. The sharp
division created by the lamppost makes it like a scene from a film. It
throws you into Haussmann's Paris with its wide boulevards and grand buildings.On the right, a couple walk towards us at a clip. His coat flaps open as if he'd just enjoyed a good lunch. Her arm is linked through his as they watch something beyond the lamppost that surprises him and amuses her but that we cannot see. On the other side of the black post, life is slower, lonelier and wet.
The slippery shining cobbles give me cold toes, and I can smell the damp wool from all those coats. It's isn't a cold day, but a miserable, rainy late autumn afternoon. I feel a twinge of envy as I think about this comfortable, affectionate couple going home to tea and a warm fire. Don't we all feel like that sometimes?
Edmund de Waal, Ceramicist and author
Hans Memling's The Donne Triptych (1478)
This
beautiful and clever work was commissioned by a Welshman living in
Calais from an artist in Bruges: an example of the internationalism of
15th-century art. I love its formality. The figures [in the detail
shown] seem suspended in these almost abstracted spaces. There are
landscapes beyond, a winding river and a mill, a stray peacock, a
slightly mordant servant hidden behind a pillar. And the group of
Madonna and very cheerful Christ child, angels and saints, with Sir John Donne of Kidwelly, his wife and daughter, all held below a red canopy as rich as a Barnett Newman stripe.
Ed Vaizey, Culture minister
Jan van Eyck's The Arnolfini Portrait (1434)
I've
been fascinated by this painting ever since I came across it as a child
in a book. The thing I love is the mirror. You're right there with the
couple having their portrait painted, and you can see the workings of
the scene reflected in it. The painting has a lifelike quality: the
pattern on the carpet, the brickwork, the way her dress is constructed,
the chandelier, the fruit, the window.I often go to the National Gallery to see this work. To a contemporary eye, it is undramatic. The faces are almost alien, but this mystery allows you to bring your own interpretation to the work. Of course, art historians have gone into enormous detail about who the couple are. To me, they're just a man and a woman in a snapshot of their time.
Kirsty Wark, Broadcaster
Diego Velázquez's An Old Woman Cooking Eggs (1618)
Lots
of things make a work of art great but sometimes it's just sheer
genius. That's the case with this work by Velázquez. And he wasn't even
20 when he painted it. We don't know the full story, but I would assume
Velázquez knew the woman well because he has captured her so
beautifully. What is she thinking?I love the way Velázquez plays with with light, having it pick out kitchen utensils: the shadow of the knife on the white dish, the way the shape of the egg in her hand echoes the shape of the wooden spoon. And you can almost feel that melon. Notice, too, the way the woman has put the eggs in one after the other: the egg on the left is more formed than the one on the right.
When I look at the painting, which hangs in the Scottish National Gallery, I see the joy of cooking and the joy of the kitchen. It gives you so many clues about the way people lived and how little has changed.
Interviews by Dale Berning, Andrew Gilchrist, Theresa Malone and Laura Barnett
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