I went to Italy 3 years ago after being obsessed with my art history and minoring in it in college. Everywhere I went (Florence, Venice, Sienna, Padua & Rome) I tried to find the guy that I could somehow like better than Michelangelo. In Florence I was smitten with Fra Angelico and Donatello but then I saw David and it just demolished everything else. I was on a Donatello kick and in the Duomo Museo in Florence and as I reach the top of a staircase, there is Michelangelo's last sculpture of Christ being taken down from the cross and a self-portrait as Nicadimus. I almost fell down the stairs.
The Pieta made me weep in awe that so much faith could be portrayed in a sculpture. The Sistine Chapel ceiling was also too much for my brain. The guy was unbelievable. And while I like della Fracesca, da Vinci, Botticelli, Mantegna, Massacio, Bernini and manny others (Titian), Michelangelo hit a high that only he could reach.
I will include my other list of artists I adore, but it's so damn hard and I start leaving people out and crap! Why'd you do this to me Scott?!!
Please excuse any speeling errors (I'm sure I'm leaving out many) I am listing 'fine artists' for now and not including fantasy art, comic art...)
These are my favorites (as a sculptor):
Joseph Cornell
Umberto Boccionni
Edward Keinholz
Alexander Calder
Giotto
Brunelleschi
Castagna
Raphael
El Greco
Albrecht Durer
Michelangelo Carravagio
Jan Vermeer
Rembrandt Van Rijn
Diego Velasquez
Francisco de Goya
Claude Monet
Edvard Manet
Paul Cezanne
Vincent Van Gogh
Di Chirico
Pablo Picasso
Georges Braque
Henri Matisse
Wasily Kandinsky
Marcel Duchamp
Joan Miro
Salvador Dali
Rene Magritte
Kurt Schwitters
Brancussi
Jackson Pollack
Willem de Kooning
Georgia O'Keefe
Nevelson
Frieda Kahlo
Sally Mann
Max Ernst
David Hockney
Francis Bacon
Andy Warhol
Frank Stella
Roy Lichtenstien
Charles Ray
Damian Hirst
Philip Guston
Rauschenburg
Jasper Johns
George Segal
Paul Klee
Walter Anderson
Illustration/Pulp Art/Fantasy:
Maurice Sendak
Bill Peete
Dr. Suess
Hildebrandt brothers
Frank Frazetta
Dennis Beauvias
Comic/Cartoon art:
Jack Cole
Will Eisner
Berni Wrightson
Barry Windsor Smith
Jack Kirby
Steve Ditko
Steranko
Carl Barks
Charles Burns
Daniel Clowse
Art Speigelman
Alex Ross
Frank Miller
Steve Rude
Don Martin
Al Jaffe
Gary Larson
Richard Corben
R. Crumb & his brothers
Wally Wood
All for now...