Overexposed art works don't make the cut

The Mona Lisa is just one of the world's greatest paintings that fails to make it into the top 100, writes DAVID LISTER*.

They might be two of the most famous images on the planet but neither Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa nor Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers is considered worthy of inclusion in a new selection of the world's finest art.

The compilers of the Folio Society's lavish and expensive Book of the 100 Greatest Paintings believe that some works are so overexposed and have been reproduced so often that they can no longer be viewed with a fresh eye.

And so, Leonardo, Van Gogh, Canaletto and Turner are in the top 100 - but not for the paintings or even themes one might expect. And no postwar work is included, because the authors believe that to judge contemporary art against Old Masters is simply impossible.

Any list - subjective and prescribed as it must be - will provoke debate. But, bound by the same time constrictions, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki director Chris Saines and Herald art critic T.J. McNamara bravely agreed to join the debate and nominate their top paintings.

But that was where agreement ended. Saines was happy to limit himself to a top 10 list but McNamara found it impossible to go below 20 paintings. Neither saw the Folio Society's choices before making his own selection and, perhaps surprisingly, there is little in common between the lists. Picasso's Guernica was the only painting to appear on all three.

McNamara shares David's Death of Marat, Grunewald's The Crucifixion (Isenheim Altarpiece), Giorgione's La Tempesta and Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights with the Folio list, while Saines and the Folio Society both include Francisco de Goya's The Third of May 1808.

The book is edited by the critic and author Martin Bailey, of the Art Newspaper, who worked alongside Folio Society experts. Their top 100 stretches from Duccio di Buoninsegna in 1285 to Picasso in 1937. Only one female artist is included in the list, the 19th-century French impressionist Berthe Morisot, a reflection of how difficult it was for women to succeed as artists until well into the 20th century.

Sometimes the paintings chosen are the images popularly associated with an artist, such as Holbein's The Ambassadors or Klimt's The Kiss. However, more unexpectedly, for example, Leonardo is represented by Portrait of a Lady with an Ermine - not the Mona Lisa. And Rembrandt is represented by a self-portrait rather than the ever popular The Night Watch.

Martin Bailey says: "The Night Watch is certainly his most popular picture. But it has become really a rather cliched scene, and one sees the intensity of Rembrandt in a self-portrait rather than a group portrait.

"We didn't go for Van Gogh's Sunflowers, but for a landscape. Sunflowers is a marvellous, striking and dramatic image, but it has been seen and reproduced so many times that it is difficult to see freshly. It has lost its impact. Also, with Canaletto, we didn't go for one of the Venetian canal scenes but for The Stonemason's Yard."

The Turner, too, is an unconventional choice: a more traditional landscape, not one of the ethereal works for which the artist is now best known.

The latest painting in the book is Picasso's Guernica from 1937, an anguished cry against war. Bailey says the lack of anything more recent was not intended as a denigration of contemporary art. But he and his fellow authors believed there needed to be at least 50 years' distance to be able to judge art in a historical perspective. Also, contemporary art leaned heavily on installation pieces and videos, which made historical comparisons impossible. "The medium of paint has become decreasingly important within the visual arts."

However, the Tate Gallery says: "There are undoubtedly great modern painters, many of them in fact British, who will take their place in any greatest hits list in time. David Hockney, Bridget Riley and Francis Bacon are among these."

McNamara says realistically there's no New Zealander likely to achieve the giddy heights of anyone's top 100; perhaps the closest would be Colin McCahon and his Urewera Triptych.

There are only 99 names in the top 100 as one anonymous master is included - the painter of The Wilton Diptych, whose exquisite pair of gold-ground panels was probably created for Richard II in the 1390s. Even the painter's nationality remains a mystery.

Bailey says: "In the early days of painting, few artists signed their work, and museums are full of pictures which would receive much greater acclaim had they been painted by named individuals."

The book, which is published this month, does not rank the paintings, presenting them only in chronological order. But Bailey says that his personal favourite is Vermeer's The Art of Painting. "It is a virtuoso performance by the artist," he said. "The tapestry curtain is pulled back, to reveal the painter depicted from behind; it is presumably Vermeer himself. As in all his finest pictures, he has captured a moment in time, creating a marvellous feeling of stillness.

"I love Vermeer's interiors. They have a wonderful sense of stillness and balance and they always repay repeated viewing. It's a complex picture with many layers of meaning. It's about art and fame; the relationship between an artist and a model; and between a woman and a man."

Of the 100 artists in the book, 25 are from Italy, 22 are from France, 19 are from the Low Countries and seven from Britain.

Each painting is accompanied by a text written by a leading specialist in the field. The 44 contributors are all distinguished art historians or museum curators at centres such as the Courtauld Institute, the Tate Gallery and the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Although most of the paintings are well known, the commentators have nevertheless made some revealing observations in the book.

Bailey says: "There are observations which illuminate the works. What is the meaning of the pet monkey in Seurat's afternoon scene by the river? Why has Stanley Spencer painted St Francis in such an awkward pose, and Picasso depicted a burning victim of the bombing of Guernica with similarly outstretched arms?"

- INDEPENDENT

* Additional reporting by Tim Watkin

Top Ten

Auckland Art Gallery director Chris Saines' choice of top 10 paintings

The Expulsion of Adam and Eve 1425-28
Branacci Chapel, Sta Maria del Carmine, Florence
Tommaso Giovanni di Mone, known as Masaccio

The Annunciation circa 1430s
S. Marco, Florence
Fra Angelico

Resurrection 1463-65
Museo Civico, Sansepolcro, Italy
Piero della Francesca

Man with a Glove circa 1520-22
The Louvre, Paris
Tiziano Vecellio, known as Titian

Deposition circa 1528
Capponi Chapel, Sta Felicita, Florence
Jacopo Carucci, known as Pontormo

Still life with lemons, oranges and a rose 1633
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California
Francisco de Zurbaran

The Third of May 1808 in Madrid 1814
Francisco Jose Goya Y Lucientes
Museo del Prado, Madrid

The Balcony 1869
Musee d'Orsay, Paris
Edouard Manet

The Dance 1933
The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia
Henri Matisse

Guernica 1937
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid
Pablo Ruiz Picasso