Las Meninas de Velázquez conocen a las hijas de Boit de John Singer Sargent.

[ejdf870]

I'm going to say something sacrilegious: the Sargent painting is superior to the Velazquez.

There, I said it.

[algargos]

@ejdf870

Both are great artists and both are superb paintings. Why you should establish a ranking? I think one looks in the other and both are the product of his time.

[ejdf870]

@algargos I "establish a ranking" in the same way that any other field (medicine, sports, music, academia, etc) establishes a ranking. Only in painting relativity is expected.

Without a ranking we wouldn't have any standards by which to judge anything.

As a serious realist painter for over 20 years, I think I am thoroughly qualified to judge.

[algargos]

@ejdf870

Art is a subjective language. The galleries put a price on a painting, but its real value depends on who is willing to pay for it. Van Gogh did not sell a single painting in his life and a few years after any collector would kill for one of his paintings.

I prefer to enjoy looking at them without wondering which is better. The two pictures move me. It was a privilege to have been to Las Meninas and the Boit daughters together. It was another experience that has no price.

[ejdf870]

@algargos I also went to the Prado in Madrid this past summer and saw these works hung not too far from one another.

[ChrisTube3333]

@ejdf870 You cannot establish a ranking in the art, art is to personal, to real for that.

You can judge a painting from its level of execution vs subject matter and so on, but what makes a good painting? That up to the person in front of it.