The Nobel Prize In Art Poem by Paul Hartal

There is no such thing.
However, the lack of Nobel Prize
in the arts is a serious oversight.
Great artists advance human culture
and deserve recognition and honor.
The group of artists who had deserved
a Nobel Prize in Art is a large one.
I reduced it to a small one.
So, here is my short list
of ten artists in history,
who in my humble opinion,
should have been awarded
the Nobel Prize in Art.


The Italian artist Leon Baptiste Alberti
(1404- 72) opens the list.
Alberti gave the first detailed
description of perspective in his
treatise, Della Pittura. In realistic
composition perspective is a crucial
element to achieve the illusion of depth
in the painting.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) ,
was a universal genius, painter,
sculptor, scientist, musician,
architect and writer, who influenced
many throughout history. He foreshadowed
the chiarescuro of Rembrandt.

Michelangelo (1475- 1464) .
The Florentine painter, sculptor, poet
and architect, decorated the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.
This work regarded by many as
one of the most magnificent accomplishments
of what man is capable of.

Lucientes Goya (1746-1828) was a Spanish master
who influenced numerous artists. His paintings,
among other things, chronicled the horrors
of the French invasion of Spain
in the Napoleonic era.

Paul Cezanne (1830-1906) ;
This French artist achieved
a synthesis of realism and abstraction
in his painting. He contributed
to the development of Fauvism
and Cubism. He proposed that
the forms if nature can be reduced
to the geometry of the cone,
the cylinder and the sphere.

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
This French painter was one
of the most influential artists
of the 19th century.
A true liberator of color, Matisse applied
bright, brilliant pigments to the canvas, .
He was one of the leaders of the Fauvists
who used exuberantly bold and glaring colors.
One critic even warned [regnant women
not to see Fauvist exhibitions because
they were so disorienting that could cause
miscarriage.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) ;
This Spanish painter, along with Georges Braque,
developed the revolutionary art trend of Cubism.
In 1907 Picasso displayed Des Moiselles d'Avignon,
a Cubist work with angular forms, and simultaneous
profiles in front and back views. Cubism derived its
influence from Cézanne, from African and Iberian
sculpture.

Giorgio De Chirico (1888- 1974) ; was an Italian artist
who, along with Carlo Carra, invented Metaphysical
Painting. The style was characterized by irrational
elements featured in realistic settings bathed in
mysterious light.

Wassily Kandinsky (1866- 1944) -
This Russian artist was a pioneer of abstract art,
The author of On the Spiritual in Art,
Kandinsky explored the relationship between
color and music.

My tenth artist is the Belgian Surrealist
Rene Magritte (1898- 1967) .
A visual philosopher, Magritte was influenced
by de Chirico, who showed him
'the ascendancy of poetry over painting'.
Magritte's paintings suggest the extraordinary
by means of the ordinary. Some of his works,
such as Time Transfixed, and The Glass House,
seem to explore and express scientific ideas,
for example, the concepts of time dilation
and the warping of space
in Einstein's theory of relativity when one travels
at the speed of light at 300,000 km/sec.


























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