It was the Infinite Art Tournament!

And, the winner of the Infinite Art Tournament is:

Pieter Bruegel.

He beat Vincent van Gogh fair and square in the rematch for a tenth uninterrupted victory overall.

Time to get started on the commemorative marker:

Second place went to Vincent van Gogh, third to John Singer Sargent, and fourth to Gustave Caillebotte.  Vermeer and Leonardo da Vinci shared next-highest honors, followed by Edgar Degas and Andrew Wyeth.  Rounding out the winners circle: Remedios Varo, Winslow Homer, Paul Klee, and Claude Monet.

Here's a bracket showing the fortunes of the 32 final survivors of the original 512:

The top rankings by vote ratio go to Leonardo da Vinci, Durer, and Wyeth.  Bruegel was 5th in this measure, behind Sargent; Antonello da Messina, a strong performer in the early tournament, ranks a surprising 7th.

Homer had the most victories, with 11.  Wyeth, Caillebotte, Bruegel, and van Gogh had 10 apiece.  Appearing the most times, 13 times apiece, were Homer (11-2-0) and Caillebotte (10-2-1).

Caillebotte had the great number of individual favorable votes, with 115.  Wyeth had 114, van Gogh 11, and Homer 108, followed by Bruegel with 98.

The artist with the lowest number of unfavorable votes was Frans Syders, with only 10, but since he only drummed up 8 positive votes in a pair of quorum-scrapers, it didn't do him much good.

Bellows, Avercamp, and Jacques David, oddly enough, all had three tied matches, but none of them are quite as moderate as Frederic Lord Leighton, who finished with two wins, two losses, and a whopping four ties.

The Infinite Art Tournament Championship Match

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Here it is!  Back in April, Bruegel and Van Gogh met in Round 8.  The older artist won the match, then beat John Singer Sargent in the provisional championship. To keep his hopes alive, Van Gogh had to beat Vermeer, then Caillebotte, and then Sargent, to make it back for one last shot at glory.

To defend the provisional championship, Bruegel needs a win or a tie.  To complete his comeback, van Gogh has to win outright -- a tie would count as a Tournament-sealing victory for Bruegel under the Grudge Match rule.

Thanks to everyone who has voted regularly or sporadically over the last eight years.  It isn't the kind of project that you would expect to see through to conclusion.

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Vincent van Gogh
1853 - 1890
Dutch; worked in France

Over the course of his decade-long career (1880–90), he produced nearly 900 paintings and more than 1,100 works on paper. Ironically, in 1890, he modestly assessed his artistic legacy as of “very secondary” importance.... By the outbreak of World War I, with the discovery of his genius by the Fauves and German Expressionists, Vincent van Gogh had already come to be regarded as a vanguard figure in the history of modern art.

- The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

• Beat up on Hugo van der Goes in Round 1.
• Got past Natalia Gontcharova in Round 2.
• Gave El Greco a real drubbing in Round 3.
• Lambasted Giotto in a Round 4 13-1 blowout.
• Beat Atkinson Grimshaw in Round 5.
• Beat Thomas Eakins in a spirited Round 6 match.
• Beat Remedios Varo by a wide margain, but with a lot of torn voters, in his Round 7 match.
• Lost to Bruegel in Round 8. 
• Beat Vermeer easily in Left Bracket Round 8. 
• Beat Caillebotte in Round 8 Elimination. 
• Beat Sargent in the Left Bracket Final. 

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Pieter Bruegel (the Elder)
c.1525 - 1569
Dutch

A number of Bruegel’s paintings focus on the lives of Flemish commoners.... But while these works demonstrate the artist’s attentive eye for detail and attest to his direct observation of village settings, they are far from simple re-creations of everyday life. The powerful compositions, brilliantly organized and controlled, reflect a sophisticated artistic design.... Bruegel’s use of landscape also defies easy interpretation, and demonstrates perhaps the artist’s greatest innovation.... These panoramic compositions suggest an insightful and universal vision of the world — a vision that distinguishes all the work of their remarkable creator.

- The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

• Trounced his own son, Jan Bruegel the Elder, in Round 1.
• Won easily against living artist Daniel Buren in Round 2.
• Scorched respectable Victorian Ford Maddox Brown in Round 3.
• Made it past Botticelli in Round 4.
• Beat Gianlorenzo Bernini in Round 5 by a single vote. YOUR VOTE COUNTS!!!
• Beat Albrecht Altdorfer easily in Round 6.
• Pulled away from Degas eventually in Round 7.
• Surprised Vincent van Gogh in Round 8. 
• Beat John Singer Sargent in the Provisional Final Match.

Infinite Art Tournament Penultimate Match: van Gogh v. Sargent

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Vincent van Gogh and John Singer Sargent were both painters, were roughly the same age, and have two more things in common: they are both resented by Jan Vermeer, whose two losses came at their hands, and they both resent provisional champion Pete Brughel the Elder, who handed each of them their single defeats.

This is the 1089th match of the Infinite Art Tournament, and also the second-to-last.  The winner clinches the silver and earns a rematch against Provisional Pieter for one last shot at the GOAT!!!

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Vincent van Gogh
1853 - 1890
Dutch; worked in France

Over the course of his decade-long career (1880–90), he produced nearly 900 paintings and more than 1,100 works on paper. Ironically, in 1890, he modestly assessed his artistic legacy as of “very secondary” importance.... By the outbreak of World War I, with the discovery of his genius by the Fauves and German Expressionists, Vincent van Gogh had already come to be regarded as a vanguard figure in the history of modern art.

- The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

• Beat up on Hugo van der Goes in Round 1.
• Got past Natalia Gontcharova in Round 2.
• Gave El Greco a real drubbing in Round 3.
• Lambasted Giotto in a Round 4 13-1 blowout.
• Beat Atkinson Grimshaw in Round 5.
• Beat Thomas Eakins in a spirited Round 6 match.
• Beat Remedios Varo by a wide margin, but with a lot of torn voters, in their Round 7 match.
• Lost to Brughel in Round 8. 
• Beat Vermeer easily in Left Bracket Round 8. 
• Beat Caillebotte in Round 8 Elimination. 

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John Singer Sargent

1856 - 1925
American

Although Sargent painted, showed, and won praise for both portraits and subject pictures at the Salons between 1877 and 1882, commissions for portraits increasingly demanded his attention and defined his reputation. Sargent’s best-known portrait, Madame X, which he undertook without a commission, enlisted a palette and brushwork derived from Velázquez; a profile view that recalls Titian; and an unmodulated treatment of the face and figure inspired by the style of Édouard Manet and Japanese prints. The picture’s novelty and quality notwithstanding, it was a succès de scandale in the 1884 Salon, provoking criticism for Sargent’s indifference to conventions of pose, modeling, and treatment of space, even twenty years after Manet’s pioneering efforts.

- The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

• Beat Juan Sánchez Cotán easily despite crowd support in Round 1.
• Skunked Roelandt Savery in Round 2.
• Skunked Dutch still-life master Rachel Ruysch in Round 3.
• Crushed Henri Rousseau in Round 4 by a two-vote swing.
• Encountered some resistance, but prevailed, against Rembrandt in Round 5.
• Scorched Charles Sheeler in Round 6.
• Beat Vermeer in Round 7. 
• Beat Leonardo da Vinci in Round 8. 
• Lost to Brughel in Round 9.

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Left Bracket Eighth Round Elimination: Caillebotte v. van Gogh

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Well, it's official: Vermeer and Leonardo da Vinci are really good artists.  But the four best artists in the world are Gustave Caillebotte, Vincent van Gogh, John Singer Sargent, and Pieter Bruegel.

But in what order?  We'll need two or three more matches to figure that out, as the IAT trundles on towards its exciting conclusion!

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Gustave Caillebotte
1848 - 1894
French

Impressionists such as... Gustave Caillebotte enthusiastically painted the renovated city, employing their new style to depict its wide boulevards, public gardens, and grand buildings.... Caillebotte’s 1877 Paris Street, Rainy Day exemplifies how these artists abandoned sentimental depictions and explicit narratives, adopting instead a detached, objective view that merely suggests what is going on. - The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

• Defeated mobile pioneer Alexander Calder in Round 1.
• Held out against Edward Burra in Round 2.
• Fought to a draw with Caravaggio in Round 3.
• Crushed Corot in the Round 3 tiebreaker.
• Blasted Mary Cassatt in a Round 4 15-0 blowout.
• Beat Frederick Church easily in Round 5. 
• Lost to Edgar Degas in Round 6.
• Upset Hieronymus Bosch in the Left Bracket Sixth Round. 
• Upset Albrecht Dürer in Sixth Round Elimination by a single vote.  YOUR VOTE COUNTS!!! 
• Nudged Remedios Varo out in the Left Bracket Seventh Round by a single vote.  YOUR VOTE COUNTS!!!  
• Beat Degas in a stunning Grudge Match reversal in Seventh Round Elimination. 
• Beat Leonardo da Vinci in the Left Bracket Eight Round.

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Vincent van Gogh
1853 - 1890
Dutch; worked in France

Over the course of his decade-long career (1880–90), he produced nearly 900 paintings and more than 1,100 works on paper. Ironically, in 1890, he modestly assessed his artistic legacy as of “very secondary” importance.... By the outbreak of World War I, with the discovery of his genius by the Fauves and German Expressionists, Vincent van Gogh had already come to be regarded as a vanguard figure in the history of modern art.

- The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

• Beat up on Hugo van der Goes in Round 1.
• Got past Natalia Gontcharova in Round 2.
• Gave El Greco a real drubbing in Round 3.
• Lambasted Giotto in a Round 4 13-1 blowout.
• Beat Atkinson Grimshaw in Round 5.
• Beat Thomas Eakins in a spirited Round 6 match.
• Beat Remedios Varo by a wide margin, but with a lot of torn voters, in Round 7 match.
• Lost to Brughel in Round 8. 
• Beat Vermeer easily in Left Bracket Round 8. 

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