But his subsequent monsters were strikingly original, combining menace with painterly beauty.
Because of the artificial lighting, the careful placement of the camera and a focus that singles out foreground figures, the final pictures have a staged, cinematic appearance and a rich, painterly beauty.
His lectures asked: "What have we gained in return for giving up the painterly beauty and sophistication of the art that Minimalism killed off?"
A long narrative that achieves painterly beauty and grand spectacle, "Pan Tadeusz" regrettably remains incapable of rousing passion for either its characters or the cause of Polish freedom.
Just as the Tavianis discover a raw, earthy humor in the family rivalry thus engendered, so do they also give a rich, painterly beauty to a scene of the many brothers at dinner.
Because of artificial lighting and exacting composition, his images have a staged cinematic appearance and a rich painterly beauty.
Because of how the beading activates every surface with a buzzing, reflective texture, this domestic altar takes on a painterly and almost hallucinatory beauty.
Inspired by Chinese films of the 1930's and 40's, he creates an atmosphere of painterly beauty, saturated with romance and regret, that is visually absorbing and entirely his own.
Even the graffiti on the walls that Pierre photographs in his quest for rot have a genteel, painterly beauty.
Anthony Dod Mantle's digital cinematography has an exquisite, painterly beauty that makes the picture not just scary, which it surely is, but also genuinely haunting.