I tend to love the Neo-Classic stuff; always have since a teenager. I also love the ceramic Jesus, which was not a real great piece in itself, but photographed beautifully, even with a crappy cell phone. An image which may be painted in the future.
I could not get over how realistic the tiger fur was; you could almost reach out and touch it. I don't think it was an Alma-Tadema like the one at the bottom but within that genre. The Alma-Tadema was mindblowing.

I have more images, but for some reason, Blogger will not let me post them...:(
The image at the top must have been painted with a single hair brush in the final details. Beautiful clarity in painting execution; every detail in sharp focus. The middle painting was of course a Sargent, but not a great Sargent example. I thought the most interesting part was the hand. Then there was a sumptious cat which was very buttery; the portrait of the woman itself was not as fresh nor inspired.

I went to the Getty Center yesterday with a friend. I apologize about the quality of the photos; I took them with my phone camera. I am looking for a few things: Real paintings with real paint strokes. Particularly interested in how painters dealt with several figures in a picture to tell a story and having the story still read clearly. I have been painting several figures in a background (digitally) for a client and am learning how to simplify the story in terms of light, or warm and cool colors. I am also looking at the paintings as abstract colors.