This Artwork Changed My Life
We hear from museum visitors on paintings, sculpture, and artworks they were most touched by
Emily Taylor, Inspired by Van Gogh’s Irises to make her own work
Body Content
We reached out to Getty fans on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to ask, “what artist or artwork sparked your interest in art?”
In the hundreds of responses we received, we heard about the impact that Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Paul Cézanne, and other perennial favorites have had on artists and art lovers all over the world. But we were also pleasantly surprised to hear stories about other artworks, historical sites, former presidents, and even genetics that led you all to love art.
Holy Family with Saints Anne, Catherine of Alexandria, and Mary Magdalene, 1560s, Nosadella. Oil on panel, 39 7/8 × 30 3/8 in. Getty Museum, 85.PB.310
Born This Way
Some of you didn’t have to wait to get to an art gallery to find inspiration. karina let us know that, when it comes to her passion for art, she “came from the womb like that.”
Waiting, about 1882, Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas. Pastel on paper, 19 x 24 in. Getty Museum, 83.GG.219. Owned jointly with the Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena
Degas’s Dancers
If, like Harriet Atsegbua, Edgar Degas’s “ballerinas and his impressionist paintings began my love for art,” you can find Waiting (L’attente) and more of Degas’s available for free.
The Raft of the Medusa, Théodore Géricault, 1819. Oil on canvas, 193.2 x 280.8 in. Louvre Museum, INV 4884
A Wild Story
nora234l’s interest in art struck in high school, when a teacher introduced the class to The Raft of the Medusa and the story behind it.
It depicts a real event during the Napoleonic Wars when a shipwreck left 15 survivors to suffer horribly at sea. Young artist Théodore Géricault painted that viral incident on a giant (16 x 23 feet) canvas, hoping the buzz would make him famous.
It worked. After it appeared in the 1819 Paris Salon, it established his international reputation and became a seminal work in the early history of the romantic movement in French painting.
The Roaring Lion, 1941, Yousuf Karsh. Gelatin silver print, 12.1 x 9.4 in. Library and Archives Canada, e010751643
Winston Churchill
“As a teenager,” shared rodddonald, “I read his little book Painting as a Pastime. That was it! 60 years later, I am still an art lover. And an artist.”
Recent photograph of the interior of the House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii, showing protective roofing and netting in place to slow further deterioration. © Alec and/or Marlene Hartill
Ancient Art
Did you know that the Getty Conservation Institute has worked to help restore the artwork of Ancient Rome? That art also had a hand in inspiring Elissa Hosseinzadeh.
“My grandparents had some tourist books from Pompeii when I was a child in the early 1950s. I was fascinated by photos of the murals that were uncovered in the homes. From there my interest widened to all forms of painting and sculpture.”
The Power of Purple
When inspiration first strikes the young, it can be overwhelming. When she was seven years old, Caryle Goldberg went on a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago: “I was SO ENTHRALLED by the vision of Lavender Mist by Jackson Pollock (now in the National Gallery of Art), that I went right up to it and put my hands on it!
“I wanted to ‘Fall’ into the ethereal beauty of it...Needless to say a kindly guard said, ‘No touching please.‘ And thus it began.”
Bas-relief. Déesse Isis (Égypte), about 1870s, Félix Bonfils. Albumen silver print, 11 11/16 × 8 7/16 in. Getty Museum, 84.XO.1471.131
Ancient Egyptian Doodling
A love of art doesn’t always come without consequences. When Mary Torregrossa was in elementary school, her aunt introduced her to art inspiration via a subscription to National Geographic Magazine.
“I read it religiously and was fascinated by the sideways Egyptian paintings that often accompanied the hieroglyphics. At that time I went to the local parochial Catholic school and we had to keep a notebook for religion class…
“So when learning about biblical Egyptians I would draw ancient Egyptian sideways figures as I remembered them from National Geographic. My classmates always asked me to draw Egyptians in their notebooks too.
One day, the nuns pulled her into the office to tell her not to draw them anymore.
“‘But why???’ I said. ‘Because the Egyptians aren't wearing clothes and that's not proper in religion notebooks.’ Hahahahahaha! So ended my career as a religion notebook illustrator.”
But that shouldn’t stop an affinity for ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Check out this video of Getty’s work to conserve Tutankhamen’s tomb and the beautiful artwork inside.”
