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Introduce us to your favorite painters & paintings.

There's a PBS (i think) show on French painters right now.

Other, older, forms of art, & the people who made them, can be inspirational & useful for filmmakers I think.

I've learned a lot from indie rock (some aesthetic stuff, lots of bidness stuff), maybe I can learn stuff from painting too.

So in July & August I am going to blog about painters & I would like you to comment & tell us about your favorite painters & other interesting stuff about painting.

Painting is thousands of years old. Filmmaking is a little over 100 years old. US Indie filmmaking as we know it is perhaps a little over 50 years old (w/ the beginning somewhere around the time when the Cassavetes generation got its inspiration/started work). Us new indie filmmakers - the digital/web/DIY generation, can probably learn a lot by taking a look at/getting to know, painting & other older art forms.

I'll start w/ Edward Hopper. Here's page w/ a lot of info on him. His most famous painting is probably nighthawk at the Diner. There's the 50's icons version of that painting, w/ Monroe & Dean, that a lot of people have seen. Wim Wenders has used imagery inspired by Nighthawks in I think in The End of Violence. Jarmusch's Down By Law has some moments that look like they came out of a Hopper painting. I think Hopper is a favorite of a lot of cinematographers.

Your turn, tell us about your favorite painters & paintings.

- Sujewa

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