Tuesday, January 1, 2019

The Elite Eight: van Gogh v. Varo




The "Elite Eight" are the last eight undefeated artists from the original field of 512.  Here, to help you ring in 2019 in style, is the second of the four Seventh-Round matches!  Obviously, at this point we're down to just the household names, right?


Vincent van Gogh
1853 - 1890
Dutch; worked in France
Over the course of his decade-long career (1880–90), he produced nearly 900 paintings and more than 1,100 works on paper. Ironically, in 1890, he modestly assessed his artistic legacy as of “very secondary” importance.... By the outbreak of World War I, with the discovery of his genius by the Fauves and German Expressionists, Vincent van Gogh had already come to be regarded as a vanguard figure in the history of modern art.
- The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
  • Beat up on Hugo van der Goes in Round 1.
  • Got past Natalia Gontcharova in Round 2.
  • Gave El Greco a real drubbing in Round 3.
  • Lambasted Giotto in a Round 4 13-1 blowout.
  • Beat Atkinson Grimshaw in Round 5.
  • Beat Thomas Eakins in a spirited Round 6 match.










Remedios Varo
1908 - 1963
Spanish; worked in Mexico
Her paintings are carefully drawn, making the astonishing stories or mystic legends especially convincing. Rejecting the male-dominated language of Surrealist doctrine, Varo often painted magnificent heroines busy with alchemical activities. A delicate figure may spin and weave tiny threads transforming them into musical instruments or fashion them into paintings of small birds. The settings are often medieval tower rooms equipped with occult laboratory devices. Figures wearing tattered garments may emerge from a forest of withered trees.... Varo borrowed from Romanesque Catalan frescoes and medieval architecture, mixed nature and technology, and combined reality and fantasy to create worlds that elude time and space.
- National Museum of Women in the Arts
  • Finished First in Phase 1, Flight 3 of the Play-In Tournament with a voting score of .917.
  • Finished First in Phase 2, Flight 1 of the Play-In Tournament with a voting score of .500.
  • Beat André Beauneveu in Round 1.
  • Defeated Katsushika Hokusai in Round 2.
  • Thumped Dutch Master Pieter De Hooch in Round 3.
  • Crushed Andō Hiroshige in a Round 4 11-1 blowout.
  • Beat Edward Hopper in Round 5 by a two-vote swing. YOUR VOTE COUNTS!!!
  • Beat Thomas Hart Benton in Round 6.







11 comments:

Christine M. said...

Varo. So sad that I couldn't go to Mexico City this fall (I went in July - womp womp) to see an exhibit of her work.

Morgan said...

van Gogh. "But it was a hard choice", he says, sure that he is also going to say that for most of the rest of the tournament.

boonec1974 said...

Van Gogh for GOAT.

Michael5000 said...

Mariah votes for van Gogh on FB.

Nichim said...

Remedios Varo!

UnwiseOwl said...

Van Gogh for me, but I was sorely tempted to jump the other way.

Michael5000 said...

Go go van Gogh, for me.

Michael5000 said...

Susan votes for van Gogh.

DrSchnell said...

van Gogh.

mrs.5000 said...

Oh! Why, van Gogh!

Candida said...

Whenever I've seen a van Gogh in real life, I think I always think, "Wow, that's amazing! I really like whoever did that!" and then see the label and realize I've "discovered" van Gogh yet again.

But I'm also smitten with Varo, whose work combines so many of the styles and themes I love in art, and who does so with a quirky yet elegant beauty.

Varo has my vote, but honestly it could go a different way on a different day.