Best Romantic Artworks for Valentine's Day - artnet News (2024)

As everybody knows, love can take hold of a personin the weirdest and wildest of ways.

It does not always come bearing redrosesor perfectsmooches.

At times, like in that crazy scene in Punch Drunk Love, lovecomes all too un-gallantly.

Sometimes itis hidden from view (see 7 Legendary Mistresses in Art History);sometimes it leads straightto erotica (seeHow Erotic Can Fine Art Get Before it Becomes p*rnographic?); and sometimes it makes you want to reach out and meet someone (seeMiranda July Releases a Messaging App With a Message).

In this lead-up toValentine’s Day,whether yours is a drive-by kind of love or the starting score in a game of tennis orone for the history books, we at artnet News just want to say: we salute lovers everywhere. May you all find a gallery corner of your own to do as you like.

Until then, remember John Lennon, who, once upon a time, during the installation of an exhibit at the Indica Gallery in London in the winter of 1966 climbed to the top of a white stepladder andshowed the world that enteringlove’s pearly gates, improbably enough, was as easy as reading somewriting on awall—although, in this instance, the wall was a piece of suspended canvas, and the writingwas really just a single word, and the block lettersso small, they had to be read with a magnifying glass.(More popularly it’s known asYoko Ono’sCeiling Painting [Yes Painting] [1966/1998]; JapanSociety presented it this century.)

The main thing to keep in mind is that when it comes to deciding upon a piece of artor grabbing hold of somebody’s hand for the first time, the word that’salmost never helpful islove, since loveis alarming and, well, subject to misinterpretation. The only word you need in matters of preference and selection(with apologies to John Lennon and Yoko Ono) is yes.

Tothese 15 of the best romantic artworks, we say yes.

Love and bonbons,
artnet News

P.S. For moreabout the art of kissing, seeTino Sehgal and Rafaël Rozendaal Pucker Up in Time for Valentine’s Day.

P.P.S. For more yeses from Yoko Ono, refer to an excerpt such as this from herLet’s Piece I (Spring 1960):“Let everybody in the city think of the word ‘yes’ at the same time for 30 seconds. Do it often.”

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