This is such an obvious choice that two people had chosen it by the end of the initial item on the Today programme announcing the poll. But I would have picked it anyway. Probably.
It’s usually called The Battle of San Romano, but according to the NG website the full title is Niccol
Since the poll is not to find the best painting in a British collection, but the best-loved, I thought I’d mention the first favourite painting I remember having.
It’s the choice of a young boy – Whaam! by Roy Lichtenstein. It used to hang prominently in the old Tate (i.e. what’s now Tate Britain), before they split off the modern collection into a separate building. Somehow I don’t think my appreciation for it had anything to do with the semiotic interplay between pop culture and ‘Fine Art’. I just thought it was cool.
The text in the thought bubble is a bit hard to read at this scale, but I can still remember it by heart: “I pressed the fire control and ahead of me the rockets blazed through the sky”.
The Execution of Maximilian is an Impressionist painting that seems to form a link between Caravaggio and Picasso. The Impressionists weren’t always at their best painting people, but this is an exception. I also think the fact it’s in fragments adds to the appeal, though I’d be hard-pressed to explain why.
I’ve been finding this paintings-choosing business a bit frustrating, because in the spirit of the poll, I’m limiting myself to paintings in British collections, and many of the finest paintings I’ve ever seen in London were in temporary exhibitions. So you’ll just have to imagine all the El Grecos and Matisses and Whistlers I’m not including here.
Anyway, on to Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy by David Hockney. I think Hockney is a genuinely great artist. He’s done a lot of stylistic flitting over the years, and not all his work is equally successful, but the best of it is fabulous. The use of light, colour and composition remind me of Vermeer – they have very different palettes and rather subject matters, with Hockney generally favouring exterior scenes, but they both produce paintings of everyday scenes that have a poised, luminous quality. I went for Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, although if I wasn’t restricted to paintings in the UK I’d be tempted by various others including this one.
Another one from the National and another obvious choice. Self Portrait at the Age of 63 by Rembrandt. It’s so human. This isn’t the kind of thing people normally mean by ‘minimalist’ but I think it is a kind of minimalism. The best kind, perhaps.
The Greatest Painting in Britain Poll is being run by the National Gallery and the BBC to find the best-loved painting in a UK collection.
I’m using it as a reason to post some of my favourite paintings. No. 1: Portrait of a Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling by Hans Holbein the Younger, ca. 1527. It’s technically brilliant, it has cute animals in it, and it’s vaguely surreal. Why has this impassive-looking young woman been painted with a starling and squirrel? The colours don’t look quite right on either version I found. There’s a larger (but rather washed out) version where it’s easier to see what’s going on here.
