Ever since I was very little, I’ve always enjoyed drawing and painting by myself. And also from a young age I came to appreciate good art and good artists.
In my opinion, a work of art is good if you can look at it for hours and always find an interesting new detail that you didn’t notice before. The master painters in doing this were HIERONYMUS BOSCH
and PIETER BRUEGHEL.
Therefore, these two are my most favorite artists of all time. Another painter, also from Flanders but from different era, was JAN VAN EYCK and his brother Hubert.
Because of the contrasting colors and the way that he drew people, EL GRECO, in my opinion, is also definitely one of the best painters in world art history. Also I really like the art of another Spanish painter, FRANCISCO GOYA.
Of course, I also like the works of the Italian masters, such as MICHELANGELO. Other brilliant artists of the renaissance period were RAPHAEL and BOTICELLI.
One of my most favorite German artists is the painter and engraver ALBRECHT DÜRER. I personally think that his engravings are some of the most splendid in the whole history of art.
Although not so very well-known, but nevertheless very interesting is artistic movement of the 19th century called the Pre-Raphaelites. They are called so, because they returned to the style of painting used before Raphael, whose style was considered like the ideal for all artists. My favorite of these artistic “rebels” are DANTE GABRIEL ROSETTI and EDWARD BURNE JONES.
From approximately the same era comes an excellent watercolor painter, ARTHUR RACKHAM, who is best known for illustrating books. Also, AUBREY BEARDSLEY was an outstanding graphic artist, who drew superb black-and-white drawings.
Moreover, I like the work of the very gothic Swiss painter ARNOLD BÖCKLIN.
There are a couple so-called “fantastique” artists that I think are very interesting, such as ZDISLAW BEKSINSKI, and H. R. GIGER. There is also an Official American Website about this Swiss artist.
Although I’m not normally into Japanese Manga art, there is one artist that I think is amazing — YOSHITAKA AMANO. His watercolor paintings, especially the “Vampire Hunter D” series, are done with such precision and detail, that they are absolutely exquisite.
The Russian painter, KONSTANTIN VASILEV, whose paintings (or details of them) you can see throughout my website (for example, the one at the top of this page), is probably one of the finest painters of heathen and Viking themes. Another great Russian artist, NIKOLAI ROERICH, painted scenes of India and Tibet.
Needless to say, I never ever liked the scribbles and nonsense of the degenerate “art” of so-called abstract “artists”.
Also, here are some of my favorite modern artists, who use both traditional art techniques as well as computer programs for photo manipulation:
Natalie Shau — an amazing Lithuanian gothic artist who makes stunning photo manipulations.
Kmye Chan — charming and colorful gothic pictures
Natalie Pireiro — very pretty pictures of fairies, vampires, angels...
Wycked — a Norwegian artist who makes great photo manipulations. I especially like her Vampire the Masquerade pictures
