7 films about painters that you should not miss if you like art

Summer is here and we can finally enjoy our time properly. That's why we've delved into the video library to rescue seven films about artists consecrated in history (and one directed by a famous author). From Johannes Vermeer or Van Gogh to Frida Kahlo or Jackson Pollock.

Anyone who is passionate about the world of painting is also likely to have a predilection for other visual arts such as sculpture, photography... or cinema. And between the world of brushes and the world of canvases there has always been a special connection, as if being able to see the biographies of painters who amaze us in reality also had something poetic within it.

In this report we recommend seven of the many films that review the life and work, sometimes in surprising ways, of those authors who have shaped our love for painting, sometimes revealing that it was precisely their daily lives that inspired them to create their masterpieces. In addition, we add a (fake?) documentary that any Banksy lover should see.

Pollock: The Life of a Creator (Ed Harris, 2000)

Four-time Oscar nominee Ed Harris made his directorial debut with one of his most eagerly awaited projects: recreating the tragic but dazzling 1940s when the marriage of a tormented Jackson Pollock and a self-sacrificing Lee Krasner (who would later redeem herself by becoming one of the great modern painters) saw the painter become one of the most important names in the world. However, fame would lead to problems with alcohol, violent episodes and philosophical doubts that would be captured on the artist's great canvases. The film would take home one of the two Academy Awards for which it was nominated: precisely for Marcia Gay Harden, who plays Krasner.

Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh, 2014)

Intimate like few others, director Mike Leigh focused on how a reclusive JMW Turner, one of the most internationally recognised British artists, sought peace in a small town by the sea after a family tragedy. The film also plays with enormous sarcasm on the way in which Turner, despite leading a life where he spends his days with aristocrats and nights in brothels, is the victim of gossip and mockery from both worlds. It was nominated for four Oscars (including Best Photography) and Timothy Spall, who plays the master, won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Frida (Julie Taymor, 2002)

Actress Salma Hayek had been wanting to make this biopic about the famous Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) for so long that years later she publicly admitted that it pisses her off to think of everything she had to give up as a producer so that the other producer, the well-known Harvey Weinstein, would be happy. However , the film reflects not only the colorful atmosphere of her paintings , but also her life ( as can be seen in the virtual visit to her Casa Azul ), multichromatic emotionally speaking, given that she had a push-pull relationship with her husband, Diego Rivera; an affair with the communist politician Leon Trotsky; and several women in her bed. It won 2 of its six Oscar nominations.

Girl with a Pearl Earring (Peter Webber, 2003)

Loving Vincent (Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman, 2017)

Above all, this Polish film (although a small portion of its budget came from the United Kingdom) is a milestone: it is the first feature-length film composed of animated paintings. That is to say, its hour and a half duration, in which it tells how a year after the death (or was it murder, as some have asked of his last painting?) of Vincent van Gogh, a postman asks his son to deliver the last letter that the Dutch painter wrote to his brother Theo, his great support ( but not the one who bought his only painting, as they say ), is made up of around 56,800 frames painted by hand one by one, each and every one of them inspired by the particular style of the master artist .

Carrington (Christopher Hampton, 1995)

Set during the dawn of the First World War, the film tells of a moment in the life of the English writer Lytton Strachey, who is known to be homosexual: when he falls in love with the adolescent figure of the painter Dora Carrington. A good friendship will develop between the two, since They would end up forming part of the Bloomsbury Club, a group of intellectuals (among which, for example, Virginia Woolf was also found). Carrington is played by a young Emma Thompson and Strachey by the veteran Jonathan Pryce, who would take home the award for Best Actor in the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.

Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010)

And we end with this documentary, in which it is never easy to guess whether what we are watching is fiction or reality, which tells how Thierry Guetta, a Frenchman living in California with an obsession for recording everything, ends up becoming one of the most important names in urban art. Certain similarities with Banksy , who appears in the feature film, which he himself directed, without revealing his identity, and which many have catalogued as another example of his art. When you finish watching it, you can only wonder if all work is a farce, if it is true that the world is so full of envy or if genius is born or made, but, especially, is someone really good or is the public incredibly stupid?