A Dozen Works of Visual Art That Appeal to My Sensibility
(This list comes by request. I had been considering such a list for awhile, but resisted because I don’t have the same lifelong history of wide-ranging exploration when it comes to painting, illustration, and photography that I do when it comes to literature, film, and music. I worry, in other words, that I’m simply not sophisticated enough—not educated enough—to broadcast my tastes. Nevertheless, here are ten works of visual art that delight me, all of which I possess in my home and therefore see almost every day. I’ve arranged them in the order in which you would encounter them if you walked through my front door and took a tour of my house.)
[in my living room, west wall] Shmoo Fig. 12 by Michael Paulus (along with the Linus and Marvin the Martian from the same series)
[in my living room, north wall] The Baron in the Trees by Su Blackwell
[coffee table] Trout Island by George Dombek
[downstairs front library] The Invisible Man by Liu Bolin
[downstairs front library] Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini
[downstairs back library] The Ancestor by Leonora Carrington
[in my office, south wall] The Librarian by Giuseppe Arcimboldo
[in my office, northwest nook] Where Birds Come From by Amy Edgington
[on my staircase, lower portion] My Pen Pal and Me by Jennifer O’Brien
[on my staircase, landing] Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel Duchamp
(upstairs bedroom library) Light on Water by Ralph Eugene Meatyard
[upstairs guestroom library) New Wave Valentines by Matthew Lineham
— November 6, 2021