How to Identify Famous Artists by Their Paintings

You are in front of a painting ..

So bright colours! Perfectly shaped silhouettes! And the faces…. so successfully painted !! The artist immediately springs to mind .. Rubens ? ….. or maybe Degas?

The answer came from a user of Reddit, DontTacoBoutIt (unfortunatelly a dead account) who published a series of famous paintings and simultaneously gave brief but hilariously accurate explanations on how to recognize their authors.

According to the list, Caravaggio will be easier to identify for some by the prevalence of “cow-eyed curly-haired” men rather than his novel use of light and shadow. While the entries certainly over-simplify many of these artists’ work and methods, they are a humorous and novel approach to art history and appreciation.

1.  If everybody has some sort of body malfunction, then it’s Picasso.

2. If everyone in the paintings has enormous asses, then it’s Rubens.

3. If it’s something you saw on your acid trip last night, it’s Dali.

4. If everyone – including the women – looks like Putin, then it’s van Eyck.

5. If all the men look like cow-eyed curly-haired women, it’s Caravaggio.

6. If the images have a dark background and everyone has tortured expressions on their faces, it’s Titian.

7. If the paintings have tons of little people in them but otherwise seem normal, it’s Bruegel.

8. If the paintings have lots of little people in them but also have a ton of crazy bullshit, it’s Bosch.

9. If everyone looks like hobos illuminated only by a dim streetlamp, it’s Rembrandt.

10. If the painting could easily have a few chubby Cupids or sheep added (or already has them), it’s Boucher.

11. If everyone is beautiful, naked, and stacked, it’s Michelangelo.

12. If you see a ballerina, it’s Degas.

13. If everything is highly-contrasted and sharp, sort of bluish, and everyone has gaunt bearded faces, it’s El Greco.

15. If every painting is the face of a uni-browed woman, it’s Frida.

16. Dappled light but no figures, it’s Monet.

17. Dappled light and happy party-time people, it’s Renoir.

18. Dappled light and unhappy party-time people, then it’s Manet.

19. Lord of the Rings landscapes with weird blue mist and the same wavy-haired aristocratic-nose Madonna, it’s Da Vinci.

20. Excel sheet with coloured squares, it’s Mondrian.

via: thessalonikiartsandculture