Painter biographies movies about actors list

Painters have long made excellent subjects for films, as they themselves were proto-filmmakers in a way, using the pictorial space without the aid of motion, but still participating in a version of storytelling. Throughout the many eras of Modern Art, filmmakers have sought to capture the lives of icons who used paint brushes as their tool for war.

Great movies about painters

Whether made as actual biopics or simply films that inhabit the fertile environs of painters, movies have long benefited from examinations of these disrupters, who often have life stories that bred their sharpened creative talent. Some painters, like Julian Schnabel, have even matriculated into film careers, with Schnabel directing some amazing films about painters, himself.

When a well-cast actor settles into one of these historical roles and the writing and direction are up to snuff, we are treated to some of the great historical dramas. Salma Hayek examined the life of painter Frida Kahlo in Frida , an illuminating portrait of an artist known more for self-portraits than biography. The film shows the many facets of Kahlo's life, from communist rebellion in Mexico to her turbulent marriage to Diego Rivera, another Mexican painting luminary.

Hayek captured Kahlo's visceral exposure of her emotions in her work, and the ways a traumatizing bus accident led her to change her art completely and join the Mexican Communist Party. The tension created when Kahlo threatens Rivera's supremacy in Mexican lore is the film's most enduring legacy, touching on a point in history when art found its greatest heights from a feminist perspective.

Surviving Picasso diagrammed the creative genius and prolific output of Pablo Picasso, while exposing the less flattering elements of his personal life and marriages that made the artist a polarizing figure. The film deals more in understanding Picasso's tremendous ego than his paintings, but does show the importance of his painting Guernica in , a rare political statement from an artist more interested in love and sex.

The film chronicles Warhol's discovery of Sedgewick, molding her into a star of his films, paintings and prints, as the young heiress ascends Downtown Manhattan's social scene. Warhol's taste-making ability comes at a cost, as when Sedgewick loses his attention, he quickly turns elsewhere, as the insecure Sedgewick mother of actress Kyra Sedgewick slowly drifts out of the spotlight.

Sienna Miller gives stirring monologues as Sedgewick, recalling her youth and relationship to Pop Art's greatest icon with bittersweet sentimentality.

Artist characters in movies

The Girl with a Pearl Earring sought to unravel the story of Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer's greatest subject, from his painting of the same name. Vermeer is one of the most revered Old Masters for incredible approach to painting light, aided by his technological breakthrough by using lenses and camera obscura. Elements of the story were certainly embellished, but there's little one could do to get a more historically accurate portrait of 17th Century Holland.