Caravaggio - an absolute master of contrast and light. He manages to balance a painterly hand with realism in such a pleasing way. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing some of his works in person, and they’re all just so impossibly smooth and polished.

Ooh, a subject I love!

Number one all-time, Mark Rothko, no hesitation.
From a more classic tradition, JMW Turner and Caspar David Friedrich.
From the French impressionists, Paul Cézanne.
From the Renaissance, Giorgione of Venice.
From antiquity, the wooden tomb portraits of Fayum, Egypt.

Ok I know he called himself an illustrator but I don’t care. To me Rockwell is the supreme. The way he could just tell a story with a single image. The way he could just tell you that story the way his target audience wanted to see it.

I got a book of his top paintings once and was looking through it, my wife came home from work and I showed her, then I had to go run an errand. On the way back it clicked in my head: she was going to leaf through the book and stop at the picture of the before and after of the family beach trip. When I get home the book will be on that page. Sure enough it was.

I didn’t get the Picasso until I saw some of his paintings in person. What’s even crazier is that he mastered realism by like 10yrs old and thought it was too easy.

Rene Magritte

Hieronymus Bosch and Francis Bacon.

Goya, in his blue period, feels very relevant to us today

Willem de kooning. Early 20s, figure drawing instructor said my live sketches reminded him of de kooning. I’d never heard of him. Few years later, in San Francisco moma, stood in front of one of his Woman paintings, entranced. Thus my love of abstract expressionism began.

Hmmm. Hans Bellmer is probably my favorite overall, but he’s better known as a surrealist photographer and illustrator. (His illustrations are almost affordable; I don’t know if he’s just not that well known, or if his surrealist eroticism isn’t to everyone’s taste, or what. But his ‘puppet’ photos are really fantastic and disturbing.)

Second is Egon Schiele, who died far, far too young during the Spanish Influenza epidemic. He was a protege of Gustav Klimt, and, IMO, would have eclipsed him had he lived.

Third is Lucien Freud, who has such expressive brushwork, and was a master of color and composition.

I haven’t seen him mentioned yet, but Wassily Kandinsky really does something for me.

I like Robert Delaunay, and also his wife, Sonia Delaunay. Their work involves a lot of bright, vibrant colors. It also was rather abstract or impressionistic, which I enjoyed. I think I like Piet Mondrian for similar reasons. Jan Sluyters would be another.

I also like JMW Turner a lot. I’m a sucker for lighting and dynamic skies in paintings, and his work features that very prominently. Frederic Edwin Church is another painter along these lines that I really enjoy.

A more contemporary passive that I like is Nina Tokhtaman Valetova. Her work also involves a lot of bold colors.

I like Matisse a lot

Gustav Klimt, so much to look at! Also Edward Lear, beautiful birds and landscapes.

I really love Dali, and the whole surrealist movement. Just saw two of his paintings over the weekend.

John Constable. I like the way he does clouds. Gives me the same feeling as if I were really just sitting there staring at the sky for real.