My favourite artist will forever be Max Ernst because he has shown me my dreams. It is on his strength that I deny traditional 'put detail where you want the eye to be drawn' bullshit and it is in pieces like Europe After The Rain II where I realise that every subject is a landscape, and every landscape is a portrait. Intentionality and texture, frottage and blotting. Truly revolutionary, the most important surrealist and an artist every one of you owes it to themselves to look into.
But yes, his Chuck Close dude is very interesting and it's wonderful that I become aware of him at this point in my life. I will investigate.