Saturday, March 23, 2013

The Infinite Art Tournament, Round One: Fautrier v. Feininger!

Jean Fautrier
1898 - 1964
French




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Lyonel Feininger
1871 - 1956
American; worked internationally



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Vote for the artist of your choice!  Votes go in the comments.  Commentary and links to additional work are welcome.  Polls open for at least one month past posting.

14 comments:

Chuckdaddy said...

Michael, if when you're done with this you decide to run a "Worst Artist Ever" tournament (which I would wholeheartedly endorse) Fautrier would be my on odds-on favorite to win. Am I alone in finding this painting ugly, boring, and talentless?

Feininger to the next round on a virtual bye.

Christine M. said...

Feininger

pfly said...

Hrm, not a fan of either, but less not of Feininger.

Elizabeth said...

Abandoning France and voting for Feininger.

MulchMaid said...

Feininger, FTW.

Michael5000 said...

An email vote for Feininger.

mrs.5000 said...

I am quite fond of Feininger's work. I spent awhile this winter looking at his path from pioneering cartoonist to paintings filled with cartoony people to the luminous village cubism that he's best known for. He shouldn't have any trouble with this match-up!

Nichim said...

Feininger also. But I didn't think Fautrier was that bad. I bet those paintings look nice in person.

Morgan said...

I like Feininger! I've always liked the sort of abstract overlapping polygons genre of paintings. There's probably a name for it.

Chuckdaddy said...

So I showed Mrs. Chuckdaddy the Fautrier with the intro "isn't this the ugliest picture you've ever seen?". Her response: "No, I kind of like it. It's earthy. Oh, but I would definitely vote for the second guy." So another vote for Feininger, but a much less anti-Fautrier one.

Michael5000 said...

First, delighted to see the MulchMaid among the voters. Second, very glad as well to have Mrs. ChuckDaddy lending her voice to our little critical community.

I don't really know what to make of Fautrier. I bet they lose a lot in photography; there's probably some dimensionality and texture going on there that we can't see very well, I bet.

Oh, but I would definitely vote for the second guy. The Tournament only just had its first-ever shutout, but Feininger is on track to score another one.... so far. Polls open for many weeks to come.

lamanyana said...

Yeah - I sort of like Fautrier, and in fact was about to vote for him when I first saw this post but then didn't have time. The sailboats painting has grown on me since then, though and I'm going with Feininger now.

Candida said...

I don't understand why everybody's so anti-Fautrier here. The shapes don't matter so much to me, although it's a lovely nod to Lavinia from Shakespeare's Titus in the first picture, but I really do like the rough paper/stone texture in the background.

Granted, paintings like Feininger's make me feel like the artist is yelling at me, which makes me hunch up uncomfortably. I take it this isn't a universal reaction, though?

Michael5000 said...

Candida saves Fantrier from the ignominy of a total rout, but not from the ignominy of a stern thrashing. Feininger will move to the Second Round on the strength of a powerful 12-1 win in this debut match.