Christina’s world The story is this person has polio, cannot walk but is still dressed nice, out enjoying nature. I don’t know why, but I have always been drawn to this work.

Jesus, cradling a baby velociraptor.
It is the absurdist blasphemy that appeals to me.

Guess the Artist and the title:

#1
A nighttime scene of a lake in upstate New York by a 20th century artist, evocative of Van Gogh. I first saw it at a retrospective at the Whitney Museum.

#2
This American artist was known for paintings from day to day life, almost mundane, but with an eye to dramatic angles, and sometimes whimsy. My favorite is of a location in San Francisco.

Both of these paintings appealed to me because they were a fresh way of seeing the quotidian.

The remake of the Last Supper. With Elvis and the apostles as modern influencers.

I like it because it makes me think that anyone can be a part of the next great thing.

@zenvelo Was the first a painting by Georgia O’Keeffe? I have a vague memory of her doing some painting in New York State.

The second maybe Wayne Thiebaud?

This is a late 19th century painting in the style of 16th century Renaissance masters. It was painted by an American, born in Prussia but raised in San Francisco, and hung in the Oakland Museum for years. It’s use of chiaroscuro mesmerized me.
It depicts a dark ages inquisition. The little details of witnesses, prisoners, clerics, etc was amazing to me.

It is not well known, so I added the link.

https://www.edwardhopper.net/cape-cod-evening.jsp

Cape Cod Evening, 1939, Edward Hopper. I have it professionally framed and in my living room. It’s very peaceful, to me.

This one is hard to describe fully, so I provided a link.

This is my all time favorite painting. It’s funny and fantastic and impossible, yet to me it reminds me that nothing is impossible! Everyone who looks at it either loves it or hates it (but not that many hate it).

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/michael-parkes-ledas-daughter-1997-61-c-53842dd849

@janbb Right on both counts! Georgia O’Keeffe, Starlight Night, Lake George and Wayne Thiebaud, Sunset Streets.

^^ Coolio!

Here’s a hard one.

Men are refinishing a floor. The angle is very in your face.

Hint: The painting is in the Musee D’Orsay in Paris.

^^^^^ “The Floor Scrapers” by Caillebotte

I saw that on loan to the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

@zenvelo Yes, my son introduced me to it and to Caillebotte and I love it.

I saw the picture I am thinking of in the National Gallery in London. It shows a shadowy castle with a brooding woman in the foreground. The castle, or maybe it’s a palace, is very alluring but try as you might you can’t see any way over the rocks for the woman to reach it. The woman has reached the same conclusion and the painting is full of tension and frustrated longing.

@flutherother i don’t have a clue but it sounds like the cover of many novels I read in my teens!

@janbb Wow! I pondered posting that exact Caillebotte painting last night!!! What are the odds? I was introduced to that artist, and that particular painting about ten years ago by a friend who is an artist. I fell instantly in love with it.

Actually there are two different paintings by Caillebotte of the same subject that I have seen. You can see both of them at this link:
https://www.theartpostblog.com/en/gustave-caillebotte-the-floor-scrapers/

I then went down a Vilhelm Hammershøi rabbit hole and couldn’t choose one, before I fell asleep because they are all so beautiful. This is one of my favorites by the Danish artist:

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/interior-with-four-etchings-vilhelm-hammershoi.html

His interiors with women are exquisite, and make me feel like I am in a serene room in a Nordic home.

If you describe it without giving the artist or the title we can try to guess.

Oh, can I play? :)

A clown sitting on a chair. He looks depressed to the point that he can’t lift his head up. On the table next to him is a mysterious piece of paper. A storm seems to be going on outside. Behind the clown, at an obscure corner of the painting is a party going on with all the fancy dressed men and women rejoicing together.

I’m drawn to this work because of its unusual dark tone and irony. A clown who is supposed to be the dumb entertainer with no single thought is now sadder than some high intelligent nobles. There is the mystery behind it all. What could possibly make the clown so depressed? And what is written on the paper?

@Mimishu1995 I think your painting is this one of Stańczyk.

https://medium.com/@AshkanModabber/this-isnt-a-villain-origin-story-just-a-self-portrait-of-a-miserable-painter-21baf855a8b4

My picture is “Landscape with Psyche Outside the Palace of Cupid”, or “The Enchanted Castle”, by Claude Lorrain. link
@janbb I can just about imagine it on the cover of a Mills and Boon.

A maid pouring milk from a jug. The light comes in from a window.

^^^ @janbb was she down the hall from her sister with an earring?

@zenvelo Yes, she was and there was a lady reading a letter in a room nearby.