we like lists: list # 11: awesome art

I notice whenever I do a "we like lists" post that I'm never satisfied with my own list. On our hanging out in history list, I forgot Clarence Darrow. In our all-time celebrity crushes, I forgot Bruce Springsteen. In our list of the influential authors, I forgot Michael Pollan. And in my favourite list post, simple pleasures, everyone's list was so much more interesting than mine.

(Looking for those links, I noticed that the most successful list post so far, based on number and variety of entries, and how many new people participated, was page 56, sentence 5.)

In the simple pleasures list, Joe mentioned that sad but wonderful feeling when you finish a book or movie or other experience that is so meaningful to you that it "leaves a void," you're sad to see it end. Which made Jen suggest a list of art that does just that.

And here it is. A list of art we love: art that drives you crazy with your love for it, breaks your heart with its beauty, fills you with awe and wonder, makes you wish you could capture it and retain the experience forever. We're going to take the broadest possible definition of art: anything human-created. So while the majesty of the giant redwoods and the perfection of wolves fill me with joy and awe, they are not art; they are nature. Other than that, art can be books, movies, music, paintings, buildings... anything humans make.

Since this is list number 11, and because I like the number 11, let's do 11 each.

One more thing about this list: it's not a best-of. Not the top 11 works of art that you love. There is just no way I could choose, and I'd end up kicking myself for all the ones I forgot. So just 11 instances of human creativity that you totally and madly love, in no particular order. Here's mine.

1. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, 1939

2. Annie Hall, Woody Allen, 1977

3. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Picasso, 1907

4. David, Michelangelo, 1501-1504

5. Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres, the people of Chartres, France, approximately 1190-1250

6. Exile on Main Street, The Rolling Stones, 1972

7. Show Me Love, Lukas Moodysson, 1998

8. Machu Picchu, Incan people, Peru, 15th Century

9. The Band (The Brown Album), The Band, 1969

10. Othello, performed by Christopher Plummer and James Earl Jones at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Stratford, Connecticut, 1981

11. The game of baseball