The Most Exquisite Works Of Art Ever Created
Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase “Beauty, like supreme dominion, is but supported by opinion.”* But Franklin was wrong.
According to my friend Science, beauty is a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses. Using a complex algorithm that has been thoroughly supported through experimental research, Science has definitively ranked the most exquisite works of art.
#11 Guernica
Creator: Pablo Picasso
What sets it apart: Picasso’s most famous painting, he applies his Cubist style to the bombing of the Basque village of Guernica. The painting graphically exhibits the atrocities of war. Since its creation, Guernica has become a symbol of peace, and is frequently touted as a monumental anti-war emblem. Every leader should have to sit in front of this painting for an hour before voting their country to war.
#10 Ryoan-Ji Temple
Creator: The Sound Of One Hand Clapping
What sets it apart: The pinnacle of Zen architecture, Ryoan-ji, located to the Northwest of Kyoto, houses the famous Karesansui Garden. Everything about the temple espouses its main theme, “What one has is all one needs.” The key ingredient in true art is artlessness.
#9 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Creator: T. S. Eliot
What sets it apart: If nothing else, the lines:
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
Eliot elegantly summarizes the paradox of human existence, that an entire lifetime can be contained inside a single moment, yet all our seemingly endless days are not enough to fulfill us. We look forward at our beginning, and look backward at our end, and never make full use of the moment at hand. Maybe we should spend more time in Ryoan-ji
#8 The Iliad
Creator: Homer
What sets it apart: In one, beautiful, elegaic, epic poem, Homer summarizes what war and love and pride mean to an entire culture. In Achilles, the tragic hero, we have literature’s greatest example of the defiant one, who refuses to bow before his king in the face of injustice. But his defiance costs him dearly, and he eventually throws his life away in the name of avenging his slain companion. In so doing, Achilles reveals the greatest secret of The Iliad, that we in fact have the ability to determine our own fate.
#7 Citizen Kane
Creator: Orson Welles
What sets it apart: Sure it revolutionized filmmaking, with its use of deep focus and special effects, but the real importance of Citizen Kane is the inspiration it provided for Charles Montgomery Burns.
#6 Snow Man, 1989
Creator: The Scott Family
What sets it apart: In the aftermath of the great blizzard of ’89, and clearly inspired by Calvin and Hobbes, Walter Scott, his wife Diane, and their children, Richie and Hannah, set about building the greatest snowman of all time. The fact that it melted 3 days later only adds weight to its poignancy.
#5 Hamlet
Creator: William Shakespeare
What sets it apart: Any truly great work of art, from The Epic Of Gilgamesh to Snowman, 1989, centers on one theme, and one theme alone, the futility of human existence. Hamlet, thanks to the perfidy of his Uncle, contemplates suicide. Instead, he decides to expend his life fighting for love and justice. But in the end, does it really matter?
#4 The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha
Creator: Miguel Cervantes
What sets it apart: Don Quixote: madman, idealist, the butt of jokes. But he didn’t care, because he truly understood the human condition, that we create our own reality.
#3 Dogs Playing Poker
Creator: Cassius Coolidge
What sets it apart: Subversive without being demeaning, Dogs Playing Poker points out the animal in all of us. More importantly, the painting symbolizes that working class art has a place in our culture, despite what certain pretentious art critics might say.
#2 Requiem Mass In D Minor
Creator: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
What sets it apart: The Requiem is scored for 2 basset-horns in F, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets in D, 3 trombones (alto, tenor & bass), timpani (2 drums), violins, viola and basso continuo (cello, double bass, and organ or harpsichord). The vocal forces include soprano, alto, tenor, and bass soloists and an SATB mixed choir.
#1 David
Creator: Michelangelo
What sets it apart: If all the works of art ever created suddenly sprung to life, and they subsequently fought in a gigantic cage match, David would totally win.
*Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Please note that this blog post was published posthumously
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dancewithsunflowers
I prefer not to think of all the misery but of all the beauty that still remains. -Anne Frank
With all due respect, Paradise Lost deserves to be in the top 2, if not the top 1. Think of Satan as we prefer to know him (the charismatic friend we all wish we had, the adventurer who stands up against authority, Al Pacino in Devil's Own), think of Satan's minions as we know them, think of Adam and Eve as human beings, created in God's image but flawed like all their children would be, and you cannot but think of John Milton, who, while blind, gave us these images in revolutionary blank verse.
*looks at list* yes, here it is, Paradise Lost is number 117, not bad. i agree. satan is a very compelling character. of course, it doesn't rank as high as Dante's Divine Comedy, which comes in at 27.
But before you start complaining, I suggest you head to Florence, and see David in person, and that while you are in Europe, you catch Mozart's Requiem performed by a live orchestra. Then you will be able to understand why them come in at numbers 1 and 2.
Also, you can't “coin” phrases no one knows.
That's a fairly compelling subjective argument, but note that this list is a result of a scientifically-tested algorithm. Plus, if anything is missing, it is Velvet Elvis.
Of course, if the scientifically-tested algorithm calculated that Fletch was a private detective instead of an investigative journalist, then it might have a few tweaks to work out.
yes, that fletch mathematician was fired, and we had a new one create the algorithm for this post. don't worry, my ex-intern has a cushy job waiting for him in his home town with the provincial government.
Great, now let's hope this new guy realizes that Oh Heavenly Dog, in which Chase plays a P.D. in Heaven, deserves placement, at least, as #1A on that list. But it's probably no higher than #10 on the list above.*
* Would likely rank higher if I actually watched it.