Academy of Painters

 I've made a list of my favorite paintings.  Included are the works of some of the most famous painters in history: the ubiquitous Gustav Klimt, the surrealist Salvador Dali, and the impressionist Renoir, all fortified around the distinct colors of Vincent Van Gogh and the abstract art of Pablo Picasso.  Some of my modern favorites include Gilbert Williams, painter of some of the most fascinating fantasy art I've come across.  His work isn't mundane fantasy based on the Middle Ages, but a very creative, exotic, mythological, and colorful blend of mystical beauty.  Christian Lassen's another modern favorite- he does colorful seashores often involving marine animals, an exploding sunset, and a beach paradise.  Michael Weland has done some artwork from my favorite fantasy series- The Dark Tower & Otherland.  Rob Gonsalves makes illusionist paintings- you've probably seen one of his before.  Octavio Ocampo and Vladimir Kush make abstract associative paintings, which are pretty creative and interesting.  Of course, I can't make a paintings list without at least one from each of the following paintbrush-slingers: with Caravaggio's dark mystique lay beauties from the famous Florentine Botticelli, the Rococo master Fragonard, principal American landscape artists like Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Cole, other modernists like Edvard Munch and Max Ernst, political painters like George Grosz and Diego Riveira, the classy bar-room art of Michael Godard, the intrinsic universality of Alex Grey, and the wonderful use of color by Leonard Afremov.