Personally I am not that crazy about representational realism. After all we have had cameras for nearly 200 years.
So much representational art is just too sentimental, that I don’t like and I don’t feel is real art.
I don’t know… one can argue about taste, and I don’t think one can rationalise taste with arguments, so I’ll just give my view
I love representational art, and even more so if it’s photorealistic. I admire the skill and dedication of the artist to create something that really looks as though it’s real, but when I see some strange expressionism… :banghead:
Impressionism isn’t my preference, but can be quite nice. It really depends on the image.
As for architecture, I adore (not in the Catholic sense

) Gothic architecture, as in Chartres Cathedral and many others of the French churches. Same is valid for Baroque and certain Renaissance structures. Versailles, though, is too much Baroque and just decadent. Neo-Classicism is cool too.
The church of the Gesù in Rome, the Jesuit mother church, on the other hand, is stunning and gorgeous. Baroque at it’s finest!
I’m a big fan of holy cards like the following. I love to get lost in art and pretend as if everything were just alright… sort of romantic. Call me foolish!
catholictradition.org/Galleries/hc8.jpg
catholictradition.org/Galleries/hc15.jpg
catholictradition.org/Galleries/hc37b.jpg
One painting I like, though I’m unsure of its genre, is The Siege of La Rochelle (1881) by Henri Motte (1846-1922). It depicts Cardinal Richelieu at the Siege of La Rochelle during the Thirty Years’ War against the Protestants. Think of Cardinal Richelieu what you like, but I just love the way he’s depicted here:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Siege_of_La_Rochelle_1881_Henri_Motte_1846_1922.jpg