For nearly all of human history, our species created art either to worship a higher power or to inspire each other. We created beauty to connect ourselves with heaven, to teach and uplift, and to celebrate ourselves. Then something went terribly wrong in the 20th century. The American Central Intelligence Agency intentionally uglified the world with dull, nihilistic, and anti-human “modern” art. “Modern” art did not become popular because the public chose it. It became popular because spymasters manipulated that outcome. Then the “learned” among us told others that it was good and people who neither agreed nor understood just accepted it as truth, anyway. Coincidentally (or perhaps not) it’s also a lot easier to use modern art as a front for money laundering.
Don’t believe me? See HERE, and HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.
Once you understand the scam, seeing it for what it is becomes unavoidable.
So what do we do about this? How do we move away from being a civilization that produces art that inspires comments like, “my five year old could make this” back to being one that leads us to ask deep questions or to feel our feelings? We must reject modernity and embrace tradition. Because if you’re going to launder money, you should at the very least be forced to create something so beautiful or profound that it stands the test of time in order to do so.
This world deserves a better class of criminal. Maybe if we got that, we’d find ourselves with fewer criminals.
Let’s study art history together.
Paintings
+ Madonna and Child with the Infant St John, also known as Our Lady of the Flying Saucer, oil on canvas, 15th century, by unknown artist
+ Portrait of a Man With a Blue Chaperon, c, 1430, oil on panel, by Jan van Eyck
+ Arnolfini Portrait, Oil on oak panel of 3 vertical boards, 1434, by Jan van Eyck
+ Presentation at the Temple, fresco, c. 1450-1452, by Fra Angelico
+ Saint George and the Dragon, 1470, tempera, by Paolo Uccello
+ Annunciation, Oil and tempera on poplar panel, 1472, by Leonardo da Vinci
+ Adoration of the Magi, Tempera on panel, c. 1475-1476, by Sandro Botticelli
+ Primavera, Tempera on panel, late 1470s or early 1480s, by Sandro Botticelli
+ Virgin of the Rocks, Oil on panel (transferred to canvas), 1483–1486, by Leonardo da Vinci
+ Lady With an Ermine, oil on walnut panel, 1489–1491, Leonardo da Vinci
+ The Nativity at Night, oil on oak panel, c. 1490, Geertgen tot Sint Jans
+ The Visitation, Tempera on panel, 1491, Domenico Ghirlandaio
+ Saint George, oil on wood, c. 1503-1505, by Raphael
+ The School of Athens, fresco, 1509-1511, by Raphael
+ Assumption of the Virgin, oil on panel, 1516-1518, by Titian
+ Our Lady of Guadalupe, unknown medium on tilma, 1531, discovered by Juan Diego, Juan Bernardino
+ The Ambassadors, oil on oak, 1533, by Hans Holbein the Younger
+ Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, oil on canvas, 1560, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
+ Healing of the Man Born Blind, oil on canvas, 1573, by El Greco
+The Disrobing of Christ, oil on canvas, 1577–1579, by El Greco
+ The Fortune Teller, oil on canvas, 1594, by Caravaggio
+ The Taking of Christ, oil on canvas, 1602, by Caravaggio
+ Judith Slaying Holofernes, oil on canvas, 1612-1613, by Artemisia Gentileschi
+ Christ Before the High Priest, oil on canvas, 1617, by Gerard van Honthorst
+ The Laughing Cavalier, oil on canvas, 1625, by Frans Hals
+ The Fortune Teller, oil on canvas, 1630, by Georges de La Tour
+ Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, oil on canvas, 1633, by Rembrandt van Rijn
+ The Judgment of Solomon, oil on canvas, 1640, by Matthias Stom
+ Night Watch, oil on canvas, 1642 by Rembrandt van Rijn
+ The Embarkment of the Queen of Sheba, 1648, by Claude Lorrain
+ Las Meninas, oil on canvas, 1656, by Diego Velázquez
+ Girl With a Pearl Earring, oil on canvas, 1665, by Johannes Vermeer
+ The Astronomer, oil on canvas, 1668, by Johannes Vermeer
+ Watson and the Shark, oil on canvas, 1778 by John Singleton Copley
+ Oath of the Horati, oil on canvas, 1784, by Jacques-Louis David
+ Napoleon Crossing the Alps, oil on canvas, 1805, by Jacques-Louis David
+ The Coronation of Napoleon, oil on canvas, 1805-1807 by Jacques-Louis David
+ Declaration of Independence, oil on canvas, 1818 by John Trumbull
+ Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, oil on canvas, 1818, by Caspar David Friedrich
+ The Raft of the Medusa, oil on canvas, 1818-1819, by Théodore Géricault
+ The Hay Wain, oil on canvas, 1821, by John Constable
+ Die Schachspieler (The Chess Players), oil on panel, 1822 by Friedrich August Moritz Retzsch
+ Liberty Leading the People, oil on canvas, 1830, by Eugène Delacroix
+ The Great Wave off Kanagawa, Ukiyo-e (woodblock print), 1831, by Katsushika Hokusai
+ The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, oil on canvas, 1833, by Paul Delaroche
+ Richard I the Lionheart, oil on canvas, 1841, by Merry-Joseph Blondel
+ The Fallen Angel, oil on canvas, 1847, by Alexandre Cabanel
+ The Ninth Wave, oil on canvas, 1850, by Ivan Aivazovsky
+ Ophelia, oil on canvas, 1851-1852, by John Everett Millais
+ Stańczyk, oil on canvas, 1862, by Jan Matejko
+ The Veteran in a New Field, oil on canvas, 1865, by Winslow Homer
+ In a Roman Osteria, oil on canvas, 1866, by Carl Bloch
+ Whistler’s Mother, oil on canvas, 1871 by James McNeill Whistler
+ The Lunatic of Étretat, oil on canvas, 1871, by Hugues Merle
+ Pollice Verso, oil on canvas, 1872, by Jean-Léon Gérôme
+ Hearts Are Trumps, oil on canvas, 1872, by John Everett Millais
+ Impression, Sunrise, oil on canvas, 1872 by Claude Monet
+ Gethsemane, c. 1873, oil on canvas, by Carl Bloch
+ Miranda, oil on canvas, 1875 & 1916, by John William Waterhouse
+ A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, oil on canvas, 1882, by Édouard Manet
+ Portrait of an Unknown Woman, oil on canvas, 1883, by Ivan Kramskoi
+ Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, oil on canvas, 1887, by Viktor Vasnetsov
+ The Lady of Shalott, oil on canvas, 1888, by John William Waterhouse
+ Café Terrace at Night, oil on canvas, 1888, by Vincent van Gogh
+ The Starry Night, oil on canvas, 1889 by Vincent Van Gogh
+ The Scream, Oil, tempera, pastel and crayon on cardboard, 1893, Edward Munch
+ Poker Game, oil on canvas, 1894 by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge
+ The Card Players, oil on canvas, 1894-1895 by Paul Cézanne
+ The Old Fisherman, oil on canvas, 1902, by Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka (Chontvary)
+ American Gothic, oil on beaverboard, 1930 by Grant Wood
+ The Persistence of Memory, oil on canvas, 1931 by Salvador Dali
+ Nighthawks, oil on canvass, 1942 by Edward Hopper
+ Freedom From Want, oil on canvas, 1943 by Norman Rockwell
+ Christina’s World, Egg tempera on gessoed panel, 1948 by Andrew Wyeth
+ Breaking Home Ties, oil on canvas, 1954, by Norman Rockwell
Fountains:
+ Fontaine Saint-Michel (Paris, France)
+ Latona Fountain (Versailles, France)
+ Trevi Fountain (Rome, Italy)
MURALS:
+ Word of Life, granite, 1964 by Millard Sheets [a/k/a “Touchdown Jesus”]
Statues, Sculptures, and Monuments:
+ Colossi of Memnon, 1350 BC, by unknown, west of Luxor, Egypt
+ Venus de Milo, 2nd century BC, by unknown, the Louvre, Paris, France
+ Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius, 175 AD, by unknown, Capitoline Museums, Rome, Italy
+ Bremen Roland, 1404, by unknown, Bremen, Germany
+ Pietà, 1498–1499, by Michelangelo Buonarroti, Vatican City
+ Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, 1647–1652, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome
+ The Plague Column, 1694, Paul Strudel, Graben, Vienna, Austria
+ Release From Deception, 1752-1759, by Francesco Queirolo, Naples, Italy
+ The Lion Monument, 1820-1821, Bertel Thorvaldsen, Lucerne, Switzerland
+ The Syrenka Mermaid Statue, 1855, Konstanty Hegel, Warsaw, Poland
+ The Veiled Virgin, before 1856, by Giovanni Strazza, Newfoundland, Canada
+ The Veiled Lady, 1869, by Giovanni Battista Lombardi, Mexico City, Mexico
+ The Hermann Memoria, 1875, by Ernst von Bandel, Teutoburger Wald, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
+ The Burghers of Calais, 1884-1889, by Auguste Rodin, Calais, France
+ The Statue of Liberty, dedicated on October 28, 1886, by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and metal framework by Gustave Eiffel, Ellis Island, New York
+ Maria Theresa Monument, 1888, by Kaspar von Zumbusch, Vienna, Austria
+ Statue of Saint Wenceslas, Wenceslas Square, 1887-1924, by Josef Václav Myslbek, Prague, Czech Republic
+ National Monument to the Forefathers, August 1, 1889, by Hammatt Billings, Joseph Billings, Alexander Doyle, Carl Conrads, and James Mahoney, Plymouth, Massachusetts
+ The Thinker, 1904, Auguste Rodin, Paris, France
+ The Little Mermaid, 1913, by Edvard Eriksen, Copenhagen, Denmark
+ The Statue of John Barry, dedicated in 1914, by John Boyle (sculptor)
Edward Pearce Casey (architect), Roman Bronze Works (founder), Franklin Park, Washington D.C.
+ Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial), 1920, by Daniel Chester French, Washington D.C.
+ Lafayette Monument, 1924, by Paul Wayland Bartlett, Baltimore, MD
+ Mount Rushmore, 1925, by Gutzon Borglum, Keystone, South Dakota
+ Atlas, 1937, by Lee Lawrie, New York City, New York
+ Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, 1937, by Cyril M. Dickinson and Jim Payton, Bemidji, Minnesota
+ The Golden Driller, 1953, Tulsa, OK
+ Marine Corps War Memorial, 1954, by Felix de Weldon, Washington D.C.
+ Boulton, Watt and Murdoch, 1956, by William Bloye, Birmingham, United Kingdom
+ The Spirit of Detroit,1958, by Marshall Fredericks, Detroit, Michigan
+ Christ of the Ozarks, 1966, by Emmet Sullivan, Eureka Springs, Arkansas
+ The Motherland Calls, 1967, by Yevgeny Vuchetich, Yakov Belopolsky, Nikolai Nikitin, Volgograd, Russia
+ The Keeper of the Plains, 1974, by Blackbear Bosin, Wichita, Kansas
+ Sverd i fjell (Swords in Rock), 1983, Fritz Røed, Hafrsfjord, Norway
+ Three Soldiers, 1984, by Frederick Hart, Washington D.C.
+ Chronicle of Georgia, 1985, by Zurab Tsereteli, Keeni Hill, Tbilisi, Georgia
+ Portlandia, 1985, by Raymond Kaskey, Portland, Oregon
+ Molly Malone, 1988, by Jeanne Rynhart, Dublin, Ireland
+ Gallos, 2015, by Rubin Eynon, Tintagel Castle, Cornwall, England
+ Centennial Land Run Monument, 2019, by Paul Moore, Oklahoma City, OK
Etching and Drypoint
+ The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds, 1634, by Rembrandt van Rijn, The Sam Josefowitz Collection
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