OPPAI ORACLE

Post ones you like.


Two Eagles (1702) - Bada Shanren


Snowscape (12th century) - Ma Yuan


Hotei Pointing at the Moon (c. 1800-1837) - Sengai Gibon


The Land of Cockaigne (1567) - Pieter Bruegel the Elder


Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth (1842) - J.M.W. Turner


Winter Landscape With Ice Skaters (1608) - Hendrick Avercamp


Imaginary Numbers (1954) - Yves Tanguy


Nocturne (1875-1878) - James Abbott McNeill Whistler


Prometheus Bound (1847) - Thomas Cole


Pyramid of Skulls (1901) - Paul Cézanne


Boys Blowing Bubbles (1640s) - Michaelina Wautier


Untitled (Blue Divided by Blue) (1966) - Mark Rothko


The Ox-Cart (1884) - Vincent van Gogh

Here are some that I keep coming back to.



Forward Retreat (1986) Mark Tansey



Sammon puolustus (1896) Akseli Gallen-Kallela



Arbeidere på hjemvei (1913) Edvard Munch



Sommerdag ved Roskilde Fjord (1900) L.A. Ring



The Annunciation (1898) Henry Ossawa Tanner



Støvkornenes dans i solstrålerne (1900) Vilhelm Hammershøi



Borgøya (1867) Lars Hertervig



Jupiter et Sémélé (1894–95) Gustave Moreau



Enkelt (1981) Knut Rose



Feldhase (1502) Albrecht Dürer



Le Cyclope (c. 1914 ) Odilon Redon



Porträtt Av Hilma Westerholm (c. 1890s) Elin Danielson-Gambogi

They're all so beautiful. Meanwhile I like this one because... of the girl I guess



and this one painting of the biggest cow in England:

Some great picks already! I'll admit I'm not the biggest art scholar so some of my picks you might have already seen ad nauseam

Amlux wrote: Mon Jun 01, 2026 7:20 am

Nocturne (1875-1878) - James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Untitled (Blue Divided by Blue) (1966) - Mark Rothko

The Whistler is fantastic, I've loved that painting for a while. I've still yet to see a Rothko in person, and I know that's very much the intended and required setting, so I suppose I'm waiting to get the full effect of those.

drummyfish wrote: Mon Jun 01, 2026 1:33 pm

I like this one because... of the girl I guess

I like the girl too!

Alrune wrote: Mon Jun 01, 2026 11:46 am

Støvkornenes dans i solstrålerne (1900) Vilhelm Hammershøi

Love the Hammershøi. His scenes are perfectly serene to me. One of my favorites:



Stue med kvinde ved klaver (1901) - Vilhelm Hammershøi

And another Moreau, the classic touched upon in À rebours.



Salomé dansant devant Hérode (1876) - Gustave Moreau



Portrait of the actress Marthe de Florian (1898) - Giovanni Boldini



Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks (1891) - Ilya Repin



Le Pont-Neuf (1871) - Claude Monet



Intérieur. Madame Vuillard et Grand-Mère Roussel à L'Étang-la-Ville (c. 1902) - Édouard Vuillard



Le Talisman, l'Aven au Bois d'Amour (1888) - Paul Sérusier



The Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1500) - Hieronymus Bosch

Apollo and Daphne - Bernini (1625)
(I hope sculptures count)


Almond Blossoms - Van Gogh (1890)


Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion - Francis Bacon (1944)


In the Rain - Franz Marc (1912)


Ascending and Desending - M.C. Escher (1960)


The Chasseur in the Forest - Caspar David Friedrich (1814)


The Triumph of St. Ignatius - Andrea Pozzo (1685)


The Holy Trinity - Masaccio (1427)

Amlux wrote: Mon Jun 01, 2026 7:20 am

Hotei Pointing at the Moon (c. 1800-1837) - Sengai Gibon

I sometimes open this thread to look at the paintings and the expressive posture of these little guys always makes me smile

Deoster wrote: Mon Jun 01, 2026 2:32 pm

Love the Hammershøi. His scenes are perfectly serene to me.

Hammershøi is like a geometer who, having demonstrated his mastery of the pure categories of thought, refrains from putting them on display and instead subordinates them to a love for the ordinary and the unremarkable as the deepest embodiment of earthly beauty.

Alrune wrote: Sun Jun 07, 2026 4:00 pm

Amlux wrote: Mon Jun 01, 2026 7:20 am

Hotei Pointing at the Moon (c. 1800-1837) - Sengai Gibon

I sometimes open this thread to look at the paintings and the expressive posture of these little guys always makes me smile

Deoster wrote: Mon Jun 01, 2026 2:32 pm

Love the Hammershøi. His scenes are perfectly serene to me.

Hammershøi is like a geometer who, having demonstrated his mastery of the pure categories of thought, refrains from putting them on display and instead subordinates them to a love for the ordinary and the unremarkable as the deepest embodiment of earthly beauty.

I had actually never heard of Hammershoi before this thread but he's quickly becoming a new favorite. His work is so hauntingly beautiful and sad. It's incredible that such mundane and subtle domestic interiors are able to illicit a reaction in me. One of my biggest pet peeves in art is what i call emotional manipulation, where it seems like the artist is trying really hard to make you feel something but their work does not have the depth to back it up. An example what i would consider emotionally manipulative art would be the work of Ludovico Einaudi (sorry if any of you are fans). His work always seemed to me to be incredibly vapid, and although it may make me feel something in the moment i always feel a little bit scammed afterwards. His work is like fast food that's easy to take in, digest, get a hit out of, and then forget about. I think Hammershoi is the exact opposite of this. He was harder to get down but I don't think I'll ever be able to let go of him after I've fully taken his work in. Maybe you all can put this into better words than i can and i hope you'll forgive my little bit of elitism, art is ultimalty very personal and you all might have different experiences than I do.

Honestly my knowledge of painting is very shallow compared to other forms of arts like music.
But since I still have some favourites, I would try to share.

The Anastasis fresco in the parecclesion of the Chora Church, Istanbul (c. 1315)



Anubis Attending Sennedjem's Mummy, Deir el-Medina (c. 1290-1213 BC)



"Memnon pieta", Capua (c. 490-480 BC)



Womb Realm Mandara in To-ji Temple, Kyoto (9C)



Still-Life With a Late Ming Ginger jar by Willem Kalf (1669)



Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity's Gate) by Vincent Van Gogh (1890)



Circle Limit IV by M.C. Escher (1960)



Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 by Marcel Duchamp (1912)

One of the most interesting pieces of Zen art:



Maru sankaku shikaku (c. 1819-1828) - Sengai Gibon

It's common for monks to leave a "death poem" as a sort of last message and epitaph for yourself. Sengai Gibon, Rinzai monk, left this as a "death painting" of sorts. He never explained anything about it. What's most unusual about it is if you look at the brushwork: The Japanese style would have you draw from right to left. You can tell that the ink on the brush is getting thinner and lighter as it moves from right to left. However, you can see that the square is "under" the triangle which is "under" the circle when you see how they overlap, implying it was drawn the opposite way... but somehow also getting darker with ink. A strange, provocative little detail, like a visual kouan of its own. It's an amazing example of mystery through simplicity. D.T. Suzuki later called this painting "The Universe" and explained it as a comprehensive representation of all things.

The Empress Theodora at the Coliseum by Jean Joseph Benjamin Constant - 1889

It stands out to me for some reason I can't pinpoint. I like her expression a lot.
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If I can be so bold as to call this a "painting", this is a bunch of hands stenciled in Cueva de las Manos in Argentina by prehistoric people. It really shook me when I first looked at it. It's probably the strongest reaction I've ever had to a painting. Actually, a lot of the time when I look at it, I don't think much of it, but other times I think it's one of the most haunting things I've ever seen.
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This was done by Ingo Swann, but I can't find the title, or even when it was painted. I'm assuming it was 70's or 80's. I love roads, highways, gas stations, things like that, but traditional paintings naturally don't tend to feature such things.