The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson


Containing His Articles, Observations, Thoughts, Meanderings,
and some would say Wisdom (and some would say not).

The Great Fiction Authors and Artists of All Time

Great literature, great art, and great music is the soul of humankind. I have discussed great music in my Classical Music Appreciation webpage, while this webpage is dedicated to great literature and great art. Not being thoroughly knowledgeable about these topics, I have limited my discussion to lists of the greatest fiction writers and greatest painters of all time. I am grateful to my wife, Janice, who is very knowledgeable on the topics for the compilation of these lists. These lists are:

The Best Fiction Authors of All Time

Great literature has the ability to take you into a different world and enrich your life. It will also provide you with a different perspective about the human experience. Reading these works in your youth, adulthood, and maturity can reveal different context and meaning to these works as your life experience changes your perspective. It is not possible to read all the great works of literature in your life, except if you dedicate yourself to this task. We should all, however, be knowledgeable about these great works of literature and their author’s life.

To become more knowledgeable about the author’s life a good place to start is the entries about the author in Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia and the Wikipedia article on the author. To become more knowledgeable about the great works of literature the best reference books for great literature are:

    • “Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia: Fifth Edition”—Long recognized as the supreme reference on world literature, Benét's Reader's Encyclopedia is the single-most complete one-volume encyclopedia available for those with a serious interest in the subject. More than 10,000 entries explore all aspects of literature from around the world: biographies of poets and playwrights, novelists and belletrists; plot synopses and character sketches from important works; historical data on literary schools, movements, terms, and awards; myths and legends; and more.
    • “Masterpieces of World Literature”—Philosophy and fantasy, plays and poems, essays and epics--270 literary classics that range from The Divine Comedy and Death Comes for the Archbishop to The Aeneid and The Grapes of Wrath are summarized and analyzed in this essential reference.

The following is a short list of some of the best writers of all time. Clicking on the author’s name will take you to the Wikipedia article about the author, while clicking on the best works of the author will take you to the Amazon webpage of the author’s works.

The Greatest Painters of All Time

Great art can awe, inspire, and humble all who gaze upon it. It can change your perspective of the world when you contemplate what the artist is expressing in their artwork. Much of what I have learned about art is from the book, “A Short History of Art, 7th Edition” by Janson and Janson, which was formerly published as The History of Art for Young People. This book can also be downloaded here. The formerly published book was the one I purchased for my young daughter to learn art, and I was so impressed by the book that I read it for myself.

What I have also learned is that there is no substitute for actually seeing the artwork in person. This was brought home to me when my wife and I visited the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the early 1980s, which had cleared out its entire galleries for an exhibit of the works of Pablo Picasso. This exhibition was a self-guided tour that traced the art of Picasso from his early works to his later works. The final stop was his painting, Guernica, which is regarded by many art critics as one of the most moving and powerful anti-war paintings in history. Standing 11 ft. 5 in. tall and 25 ft. 6 in. wide, the large mural shows the suffering of people wrenched by the violence and chaos of war. I had seen this painting in art books, by the actual viewing of this painting was awestriking. The importance of actually seeing the artwork was also evident when my wife, daughter, and I visited The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., for an exhibition of the works of Vermeer. This importance has also been reinforced by visiting the Philadelphia Art Museum and the Barnes Foundation collection of modern art. I would encourage all to visit art museums to experience the awe and inspiration of great works of art.

My knowledge of art is centered around European, American, and Middle Eastern art. While there is much great art from other parts of the world, but my having little knowledge of this art, I have restricted this webpage to the art that I am knowledgeable about. There are various eras of art that share similar styles. These eras and styles are quite distinct, and I have found myself attracted to or disinterested in various eras and styles (which I shall not comment upon so as to not prejudice others’ opinions). In the book, A Short History of Art, 7th Edition by Anthony F. Janson, he defines the eras of art as:

THE ANCIENT WORLD

    • Prehistoric Art
    • Ancient Near Eastern Art
    • Egyptian Art
    • Aegean Art
    • Greek Art
    • Etruscan Art
    • Roman Art

THE MIDDLE AGES

    • Early Jewish, Early Christian, and Byzantine Art
    • Islamic Art
    • Early Medieval Art
    • Romanesque Art
    • Gothic Art

THE RENAISSANCE THROUGH ROCOCO

    • Art in Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century Italy
    • Artistic Innovations in Fifteenth-Century Northern Europe
    • The Early Renaissance in Fifteenth-Century Italy
    • The High Renaissance in Italy
    • The Late Renaissance and Mannerism in Sixteenth-Century Italy
    • Renaissance and Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Northern Europe
    • The Baroque in Italy and Spain
    • The Baroque in the Netherlands
    • The Baroque in France and England
    • The Rococo

THE MODERN WORLD

    • Art in the Age of the Enlightenment, 1750-1789
    • Art in the Age of Romanticism, 1789-1848
    • The Age of Positivism: Realism, Impressionism, and the Pre-Raphaelites, 1848-1885
    • Progress and Its Discontents: Post-Impressionism, Symbolism, and Art Nouveau, 1880-1905
    • Toward Abstraction: The Modernist Revolution, 1904-1914
    • Art Between the Wars, 1914-1940
    • Postwar to Postmodern, 1945 1980
    • The Postmodern Era: Art Since 1980

The following is my list of the greatest painters of all time. Clicking on the artist’s name will take you to the Wikiart webpage, where you can review the information on the artist and view some of their most famous works of art.