Here Comes the Sun

For the July 2009 Art Poll By Bob, I got scientific and asked, “Which of these science-related works of art make you wish you had paid more attention in high school lab?” In a runaway, Joseph Wright of Derby's An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768) nearly lapped the field with 17 votes. Albrecht Durer's Melencolia I (1514) and Thomas Eakins' The Gross Clinic (1875) tied for second with 9 votes each. Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man (1487) came in fourth with 8 votes. William Blake's Newton (1795) won 5 votes to edge out Jacques-Louis David's Portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and His Wife (1788) and Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower (1920-1924) with 4 votes each. Charles Willson Peale's The Artist in His Museum (1822) with 2 votes and Thomas Eakins' Portrait of Professor Henry A. Rowland (1897) and Charles Willson Peale's Exhuming the First American Mastodon (1806) with 1 vote each rounded out the field. Thanks to everyone who participated in my art experiment.

For the August Art Poll By Bob, to celebrate our annual trek to the New Jersey shore for fun, sun, and surf, I’m asking the following, “Which of these classic paintings of sunlight lights up your life the most?”:

Caspar David Friedrich, Woman before the Rising Sun (aka, Woman before the Setting Sun) (1818-1820)

Edward Hopper, Morning Sun (1952)

Frida Kahlo, Sun and Life (1947)

Henri Matisse, Luxe, Calme et Volupté (1904)

Michelangelo, Creation of the Sun, Moon, and Planets from the Sistine Chapel Ceiling (1511)

Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise (1872)

Edvard Munch, The Sun From the Oslo University Aula Decoration (1911-1916)

J.M.W. Turner, The Angel, Standing in the Sun (1846)

J.M.W. Turner, Regulus (1828-1837)

Vincent Van Gogh, Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun (1889)

So, put on your shades, slather on some sunscreen, and vote!