Interesting about contemporary art. Unknown facts about famous artists. Interesting Facts: Sculpture and Architecture

In 1961, Matisse's "Boat" collage hung upside down for 2 months at the Museum of Modern Art in New York - none of the 116,000 visitors noticed.

In 1912, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci was stolen from the Louvre, over the next three years, scammers sold 6 copies as the original.

The first word in Picasso's life was "pencil", he asked for it at an age when he still could not walk.

The Statue of Liberty is the largest copper statue in the world.

The Charging Bull statue on Wall Street was created by sculptor Arturo Di Modica, who spent $350,000 out of his own pocket to create it. The 3,200 kg statue was placed in Lower Manhattan in 1987 without city permission, but was eventually moved to the financial district, a few steps from Wall Street.

"Charging Bull" and "Fearless Girl" (Wall Street)

The "Fearless Girl" statue standing in front of the "Charging Bull" statue near Wall Street was created by Kristen Wiesbal and installed in 2017.

Shanghai also has a statue of a bull - the financial "Shanghai Bull", which is also sculpted by Arturo Di Modica. It weighs 2,300 kg and is the same height and length as the New York brother. It was unveiled in Shanghai on May 15, 2010.

The largest equestrian statue in the world, the Žižka Monument in Prague, is 9 meters high.

The largest statue in the world - Mount Rushmore National Memorial, which features the heads of four US presidents - George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln - are carved in the Black Hills near the city of Keyston. The height of the heads is about 18 m.

Moai heads from Easter Island actually have bodies that are buried underground.

When Auguste Rodin exhibited his first important work, The Bronze Age, in 1878, people thought that he had sacrificed and walled up a living model in metal, the work looked so realistic.

Rodin died of pneumonia in 1917 when the French government denied him financial assistance with housing, but kept statues of him in museums.

Vincent van Gogh committed suicide after completing Wheatfield with Crows.

In his youth, Pablo Picasso lived in poverty and used to keep warm by burning his own paintings.

Despite being nominated for an Oscar in 2011, named Man of the Year in 2014, and receiving many other awards, no one knows the real name of the world's most famous graffiti artist, Banksy.

Mona Lisa doesn't have eyebrows. Such was the fashion during the Renaissance.

Using reflected light technology, it has been proven that under the Mona Lisa portrait there are three completely different portraits, all painted by Leonardo da Vinci.

During a trip to the islands of the South Sea french artist Paul Gauguin witnessed the construction of the Panama Canal.

The famous humanoid Halloween pumpkins were created by Ray Villafane, who is referred to as Picasso in pumpkin carving.

Tango originated as a dance between two men, mostly sailors (to practice partnership).

Professional ballerinas use about twelve pairs of pointe shoes a week.

New Jersey has a spoon museum with over 5,400 exhibits from every state and almost every country.

Andy Warhol created the Rolling Stone emblem depicting a large tongue. He first appeared on the cover of the Sticky Fingers album.

Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.

Salvador Dali believed that he was the reincarnation of his dead brother.

In each of Dali's works there is either a portrait of him or a silhouette.

The idea for soft watches came to Dali when he watched Camembert cheese melt in the sun.

Edgar Degas was so fascinated by ballet dancers that he created more than 1500 works with them.

The theme of all the works of the artist Marcel Duchamp was everyday life. His most famous work, called "Fountain", is nothing more than the spewing urine of the artist himself.

The work of Henri Matisse, "The Boat", for 46 days hung upside down , at an exhibition in New York before anyone noticed. The picture was appreciated by 1600 visitors.

William Morris had a happy childhood, everyone spoiled him. As a result, he could throw dinner out the window, just because he did not like the way it was served.

Jackson Pollock often painted his paintings with cigarettes.

The work of the artist Auguste Rodin, "The Bronze Age", was so realistic that it seemed to people as if there was a living person inside the sculpture.

Rubens was knighted and Philip IV , King of Spain, and Charles I , King of England.

Vermeer used the camera obscura in his work.

In his entire life, Vincent van Gogh sold only one work - « Red vineyards in Arles”, and then to his brother, the owner of an art gallery.

In 1912, the Gioconda, the work of Leonardo da Vinci, was stolen. For 3 years, while they were looking for it, 6 copies were sold, which were considered the original, and each of them cost a lot of money.

In 1962, the Gioconda was valued at $100 million, and in 2009 at $700 million.

Most artists and artists are left-handed.

It is believed that Pablo Picasso is the most famous artist in the world.

Raphael, best known for a large number pictures of Madonnas. But at the same time, according to the historian Giorgio Vasari , the artist was an atheist. It is also known that the same woman is depicted in all these paintings.

Andy Warhol was not only an artist. His first film, The Dream, about how his friend sleeps, lasted 6 hours. The premiere was attended by 9 people, 7 of them stayed to watch the film, 2 of them did not sit even an hour. Warhol created about 60 films, such as: "Kiss", "Food", "Shoulder", "Couch", "Kitchen", "Face", "Horse", "Suicide", "Sunset", " Bitch ', 'Blowdown' …

Andy Warhol wore a gray wig and eventually dyed his hair gray. After being told he had blurred vision, he began to wear opaque glasses with a tiny hole to see.

In his youth, Renoir was a tailor and also sewed shoes.

"Pieta" -The only job Michelangelo, which he signed. He was also a poet, more than 300 of his poems are still available.

Michelangelo became the first Western artist to have his biography published during his lifetime.

Leonardo da Vinci could draw with one hand while writing with the other.

Paul Gauguin was a laborer on the Panama Canal.

The first solo exhibition of Paul Cezanne took place when he was 56 years old.

Claude Monet won 100 thousand francs in the lottery, which allowed him to quit his job as a messenger and take up painting.

Vermeer never painted children, although he had 11 of them.

Renoir was so in love with painting that he did not stop working even in old age, suffering from various forms of arthritis, and painted with a brush tied to his sleeve.

Salvador Dali created the Chupa Chups logo.

Most of the time, Claude Monet drew caricatures, mostly of his teachers.

Salvador Dali's nickname was " Avida Dollars ", which in translation means "passionately loving dollars."

Vincent van Gogh had a brother who died at birth. His name was also Vincent van Gogh.

The full name of Picasso consists of 23 words: Pablo Diego-Jose-Francisco de Paula-Juan Nepomuseno-Maria de los Remedios-Cypriano de la Santisima-Trinidad-Martir-Patricio-Clito-Ruiz-and-Picasso.

Picasso's first word was "pencil".

Picasso wore long clothes and also had long hair which was unheard of at the time.

Perhaps some of this you did not know. Take a look at the topic, I hope it will be interesting and not tiring to read.
1. Tsarevich Ivan Repin wrote from Vsevolod Garshin, who from childhood was nervous and impressionable. During the war with the Turks, he went to serve in the army as a volunteer and, after being wounded, took up literary activity. We all remember his fairy tale "The Traveler Frog" (and the cartoon!). Repin believed that he could not find a better candidate for the role of the murdered Ivan: “In the face of Garshin, I was struck by doom: he had the face of a man doomed to die». Soon, after finishing work on the canvas, Garshin committed suicide - he jumped from the fifth floor into a flight of stairs ...

2. The painting by Kiprensky “Girl in a Poppy Wreath” (“Mariuccia”) depicts ten-year-old Anna-Maria Falcucci, the daughter of the model. The artist became very attached to her. The girl was in poor health, she grew up in extreme poverty. The artist undertook to patronize the girl, arranged for a school at the monastery. This was in 1819. After many years, he returned to Italy, converted to Catholicism and secretly married Mariuccia. They lived together for a short time. Four months after the wedding, Orest Kiprensky died, and a few months later Mariuccia gave birth to a daughter, Clotilde Kiprenskaya, whose trace, unfortunately, was hopelessly lost ...


3. For his painting “Ophelia”, John Milles persuaded Elizabeth Siddal, the beloved of another artist, Rosetti, to pose while lying in the bath. It was cold in the workshop, so the water in the bathtub was heated with the help of candles standing under its bottom. Elizabeth lay in the water for hours. The water quickly cooled down and by the end of the session was ice cold. The girl fell ill with pneumonia, later she developed tuberculosis. Rosseti she gave birth to a dead child. She began to experience severe pain, from which she escaped with opium, she died from an overdose of it at the age of 32.


4. Amadeo Modigliani was poor, very ill and suffered from alcoholism and opium addiction. At 33 he met Jeanne Hebuterne, his biggest and last love, she was 17. Happiness was short-lived. Modigliani died 2 years later. And a day later, unable to bear the loss, Jeanne, who was 9 months pregnant, committed suicide. The artist was buried in a modest grave without a monument in the Jewish section of the Père Lachaise cemetery.


Glory to Modigliani came only after death. The merchant Louis Libaud, feeling the imminent death of a genius, bought up his paintings. And later he boasted to his friends: “Am I not lucky? After all, yesterday I bought them for next to nothing! The artist did not have time to bury, and his paintings have already grown in price.

5. The riddle of the Gioconda smile was invented by the French poet Theophile Gauthier (1811-1872), who exclaimed enthusiastically: “Gioconda! This word immediately brings to mind the Sphinx of Beauty, who smiles so mysteriously from the picture of Leonardo ... It is dangerous to fall under the spell of this ghost ... Her smile promises unknown pleasures, she is so divinely ironic ... ”etc and tp. Before Gauthier, the audience did not see anything mysterious in Mona Lisa's smile.
Added to the popularity of the picture and its theft from the Louvre in 1912. The scandal in the press was grandiose! For 3 years, while they were looking for it, 6 copies were sold, which were considered the original, and each of them cost a lot of money.

6. "Black Square" was first shown at a futuristic exhibition in Petrograd in 1915. The canvas hung in the "red corner" - under the ceiling, where icons were hung in Russian houses. There was the First World War and many saw in the "Square" an ominous symbol of a future catastrophe. At first, Malevich himself did not know how to relate to his “work”. When he was told about the meaning of the square in Buddhism (the symbol of infinity), he only opened his eyes wide. And then the intense pumping of the square with symbolic overtones began ...

And then even the artist's funeral was turned into a farce - the artist's body with outstretched arms was transported on a truck platform in a coffin in the form of a cross, the "Black Square" was fixed on the hood as a mourning sign.


And this is a painting that has the title "The Battle of the Negroes in a Deep Cave on a Dark Night" (1893). It was created twenty years before the birth of Malevich's masterpiece (or "masterpiece"?) (1915). The author is a Frenchman from the shores of la Manche, a very eccentric person, writer-humorist and artist Alphonse Allais (Alphonse Allais).

7. Van Gogh did not cut off his whole ear, but only a piece of his earlobe, this happened during a quarrel with Gauguin. However, the legend is still widespread that the artist amputated his entire ear. This legend was even reflected in the characteristics of the behavior of a patient who operates on himself, or insists on a certain operation - he was called Van Gogh's syndrome.


8. A terrible disease - addiction to alcohol killed the greatest artist Alexei Savrasov. His wife left him, he was fired from the art school, where Korovin and Levitan were among his students. IN last years he spent the night where he could, drank around the clock and painted taverns with a copy of his masterpiece "The Rooks Have Arrived" - for vodka and lunch. Out of pity, acquaintances gave him a few coins, otherwise he would have drunk even his clothes. In the end, at the age of 67, the artist died of delirium tremens in a hospital for the poor.

9. This may be a legend, but when Leonardo da Vinci wrote The Last Supper, he attached particular importance to two figures: Christ and Judas. For a very long time he could not find sitters from whom these figures could be painted. Finally, he managed to find a model for the image of Christ among the young singers. Leonardo failed to find a sitter for Judas for three years. Until one day he came across a drunkard lying in the gutter on the street. He was a young man who had been aged by heavy drinking. Leonardo invited him to a tavern, where he immediately began to write Judas from him. When the drunkard came to his senses, he told the artist that he had already posed for him once. It was a few years ago, when he sang in the church choir, Leonardo wrote Christ from him.


10. In the program “What? Where? When?" connoisseurs were presented with two paintings by Polenov - "Grandmother's Garden" and "Moscow Yard" with the question: "What do they have in common?" The experts didn't guess. The answer is simple - the paintings show the same old noble mansion, but with different angles. The address of this unique house has also reached our time - the Baumgarten house, the corner of Trubnikovsky and Durnovsky lanes on the Arbat.


11. A talented artist is not necessarily talented in everything. Levitan, for example, turned out magnificent landscapes, but with the image of people it was not easy. Here the artist Nikolai Chekhov helped his friend - he painted a lady in black on his "Autumn Day".


And the bears in the famous painting by Shishkin do not belong to the brush of Ivan Ivanovich, but to the artist Savitsky, a friend of the artist, later a former one. Tretyakov purchased this painting from Shishkin for 4,000 rubles. Having learned about such an impressive amount, Konstantin Apollonovich, who had seven shops, came to Ivan Ivanovich for his share.
Ivan Ivanovich offered him a thousand rubles. Savitsky was seriously offended. The artist's pride was hurt - how so, his work was estimated at a quarter of the cost of the picture! Konstantin Apollonovich even declared in his hearts that the main thing in the picture is the bears, which he invented and embodied on canvas, and Shishkin only painted the background.
Now Ivan Ivanovich was already offended, considering the picture even without the bears to be a completely independent work. And besides, Shishkin drew the sketches of the bear family himself. It is not known for certain how the matter ended, but the friends did not write more joint paintings.


12. Ivanov worked on the painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People” for 20 years from 1837 to 1857 in Italy. He did great amount sketches, studied history, Assyrian antiquities and especially the Bible. In order to find the right landscape, he spent months sitting in the marshes and desert places of Italy. But it was much more difficult to depict on people's faces the moment of turning to God. To do this, the artist studied Jewish faces, peered intently into the faces of all the people he met, sat for hours in the church and watched the prayers. All this delayed the work, he was reproached for being lazy. The money that was allocated to him for work ran out. He led a miserable existence. Painstaking work on the picture led to the fact that the artist ruined his eyes and had to be treated for a long time. Upon arrival in Russia, the fate of the painting was not clear. After it was exhibited, it appeared in print critical article, which greatly upset Ivanov. He fell ill and died soon after. On the day of his death, an official announcement came that the emperor was purchasing the painting for 15,000 silver rubles (huge money at that time).


13. While on a retirement trip to Italy, Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky painted the painting “Chaos. The Creation of the World" based on a story from the Bible, which became a real sensation in Rome. Pope Gregory XVI bought it, awarding the artist a gold medal. N.V. Gogol wrote to Aivazovsky: “Vanya! You came small man, from the banks of the Neva to Rome and immediately raised "Chaos" in the Vatican.

14. Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov was not only a brilliant poet, but the most talented artist. There are 13 oil paintings on canvas, cardboard and wood, more than 40 watercolors, more than 300 drawings and sketches. But his temper was, to put it mildly, not very good. Due to the complex character, the writer had a chance to attend 3 duels in his short life. The contemporaries of the writer did not really complain about him, the premature death of Mikhail Yuryevich in a duel did not upset anyone, and Tsar Nicholas I said in general: "To a dog - a dog's death."


15. Picasso created his first masterpiece at the age of 15 - a painting depicting his relatives at the altar.

In 2006, American tycoon Steve Wynn agreed to sell Pablo Picasso's The Dream for $139 million, one of the highest prices in history for a work of art. However, during the demonstration of the painting, Wynn waved his arms too much and tore the canvas with his elbow. The owner regarded this as a sign from above and decided not to sell the painting after restoration.

16. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was an invalid with sore legs (he broke them several times in childhood and their growth stopped, most likely due to a hereditary disease, Henri's grandmothers were sisters to each other).

In love, he was unlucky, short stature (152 cm) and the appearance of a dwarf caused ridicule, all his serious novels ended unsuccessfully. Toulouse-Lautrec was a famous connoisseur of alcohol, he popularized cocktails. Lautrec is credited with inventing the Earthquake cocktail, in which cognac is mixed in half with absinthe. He died of alcoholism and syphilis in the family castle in the arms of his mother, before reaching the age of 37.


17. Salvador Dali created the Chupa Chups logo.
And his nickname was "Avida Dollars", which means "passionately loving dollars."


18. Vermeer never painted children, although he had 11 of them.


Watch the movie "Girl with a Pearl Earring" with Scarlett Johansson in leading role, You'll like it.


19. "Pieta" is the only work of Michelangelo, which he signed. He was also a poet, more than 300 of his poems are still available.


20. "Venus in front of a mirror" is the only surviving nude Venus by Diego Rodríguez de Silva Velázquez (1599-1660). Perhaps the artist also painted other nude models, but at that time in Spain such paintings were considered obscene. Therefore, the painting occupies a unique place in his legacy. In addition, it is completely different from anything that came out from under the hand of the artist. In 1914, this painting, exhibited in National Gallery in London, cut by a suffragist.


According to legend, Velazquez was buried, so to speak, in the burial catacombs of the Capuchins in Palermo (“Museum of the Dead”). Look on the internet, it's very scary.

Interesting facts about painting
Some famous paintings have a very interesting, and sometimes even funny history of creation. The facts will tell you what you may not have known about famous artists and their masterpieces.

1 Leonardo da Vinci for a long time could not find a sitter for the image of Judas in The Last Supper.

For many historians and art critics " The Last Supper» Leonardo da Vinci is the greatest work world art. In The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown focuses readers on some of the symbolic elements of the painting when Sophie Neveu, while at Lee Teabing's house, learns that Leonardo may have encoded some great secret in his masterpiece.
The Last Supper is a fresco on the wall of the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan. Even in the era of Leonardo himself, she was considered his best and most famous work. The fresco was created between 1495 and 1497, but already during the first twenty years of its existence, as is clear from the written evidence of those years, it began to deteriorate. Its dimensions are approximately 15 by 29 feet. The fresco was painted with a thick layer of egg tempera on dry plaster. Beneath the main layer of paint is a rough compositional sketch, a study, inscribed in red in a manner that anticipates the usual use of cardboard. It's kind of a preparatory tool.
It is known that the customer of the painting was the Duke of Milan Lodovico Sforza, at whose court Leonardo gained fame as a great painter, and not at all the monks of the monastery of Santa Maria della Grazie.
The theme of the picture is the moment when Jesus Christ announces to his disciples that one of them will betray him. Pacioli writes about this in the third chapter of his book Divine Proportion. It was this moment - when Christ announces the betrayal - that Leonardo da Vinci captured. To achieve accuracy and lifelikeness, he studied the postures and facial expressions of many of his contemporaries, whom he later depicted in the picture. The identity of the apostles has repeatedly been the subject of controversy, however, judging by the inscriptions on the copy of the painting stored in Lugano, these are (from left to right): Bartholomew, James the Younger, Andrew, Judas, Peter, John, Thomas, James the Elder, Philip, Matthew, Thaddeus and Simon the Zealot.
Many art historians believe that this composition should be taken as an iconographic interpretation of the Eucharist - communion, since Jesus Christ points with both hands to the table with wine and bread.
Almost all scholars of Leonardo's work agree that the ideal place to look at the painting is from a height of about 13-15 feet above the floor and at a distance of 26-33 feet from it. There is an opinion - now disputed - that the composition and the system of its perspective are based on the musical canon of proportion.
The unique character of The Last Supper is given by the fact that, unlike other paintings of this kind, it shows an amazing variety and richness of emotions of the characters caused by the words of Jesus that one of the disciples will betray him. No other painting based on the Last Supper can even come close to the unique composition and attention to detail in Leonardo's masterpiece.
So what secrets could he encrypt in his creation great artist? In The Discovery of the Templars, Clive Prince and Lynn Picknett argue that several elements of the structure of The Last Supper are indicative of the symbols encoded within it.
First, they believe that the figure right hand from Jesus (for the viewer, she is on the left) - not John, but a certain woman. She is wearing a robe whose color contrasts with the clothes of Christ, she is tilted in opposite side from Jesus sitting in the center. The space between this female figure and Jesus is V-shaped, and the figures themselves form the letter M.
Secondly, in the picture, in their opinion, a certain hand is visible next to Peter, squeezing a knife. Prince and Picknett argue that this hand does not belong to any of the characters in the picture.
Thirdly, sitting directly to the left of Jesus (on the right - for the audience), Thomas, turning to Christ, raised his finger. According to the authors, this is a typical gesture of John the Baptist.
And finally, there is a hypothesis that the Apostle Thaddeus, sitting with his back to Christ, is actually a self-portrait of Leonardo himself.

The Golden Ratio by Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo's most famous work, the famous "Last Supper" in the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, was executed between 1495 and 1497.
The brush of Leonardo captured the last joint meal (dinner) of Jesus Christ and the twelve apostles on the eve of the day (Good Friday) of the death of Christ on the cross.

Leonardo prepared carefully and for a long time for the Milanese painting. He made many sketches in which he studied the postures and gestures of individual figures. The Last Supper attracted him not with its dogmatic content, but with the opportunity to unfold a great human drama in front of the viewer, show various characters, reveal the spiritual world of a person and accurately and clearly describe his experiences. He took The Last Supper as a scene of betrayal and set himself the goal of introducing into this traditional image that dramatic beginning, thanks to which it would acquire a completely new emotional sound.

Thinking over the concept of The Last Supper, Leonardo not only made sketches, but also wrote down his thoughts about the actions of individual participants in this scene: looks at his companion, the other shows the palms of his hands, raises his shoulders to his ears and expresses surprise with his mouth ... "The record does not indicate the names of the apostles, but Leonardo, apparently, clearly imagined the actions of each of them and the place that each was called take in the overall composition. Specifying poses and gestures in the drawings, he was looking for such forms of expression that would involve all the figures in a single whirlpool of passions. He wanted to capture living people in the images of the apostles, each of whom responds to the event in his own way.

The Last Supper is Leonardo's most mature and complete work.
There are several legends that tell about the great Master and his painting.

So according to one of them, when creating the fresco "The Last Supper", Leonardo da Vinci faced a huge difficulty: he had to depict Good, embodied in the image of Jesus, and Evil - in the image of Judas, who decided to betray him at this meal. Leonardo interrupted work in the middle and resumed it only after he found the ideal models.

Once, when the artist was present at the performance of the choir, he saw in one of the young singers the perfect image of Christ and, inviting him to his studio, made several sketches and sketches from him.
Three years have passed. The Last Supper was nearly completed, but Leonardo had yet to find a suitable sitter for Judas. The cardinal, who was in charge of painting the cathedral, hurried him, demanding that the fresco be completed as soon as possible.
And after many days of searching, the artist saw a man lying in the gutter - young, but prematurely decrepit, dirty, drunk and ragged. There was no time left for studies, and Leonardo ordered his assistants to deliver him directly to the cathedral, which they did.
With great difficulty they dragged him there and put him on his feet. He did not really understand what was happening, and Leonardo captured on the canvas the sinfulness, selfishness, wickedness that his face breathed.
When he had finished the work, the beggar, who by this time had already sobered up a little, opened his eyes, saw the canvas in front of him and cried out in fright and anguish:
- I've seen this picture before!
- When? asked Leonardo in bewilderment.
“Three years ago, before I lost everything. At that time, when I sang in the choir and my life was full of dreams, some artist painted Christ from me.

According to another legend, dissatisfied with the slowness of Leonardo, the prior of the monastery insistently demanded that he finish his work as soon as possible. “It seemed strange to him to see that Leonardo was immersed in thought for the whole half of the day. He wanted the artist not to let go of the brushes, like they do not stop working in the garden. Not limited to this, he complained to the duke and began to pester him so much that he was forced to send for Leonardo and in a delicate form ask him to take up the work, while making it clear in every possible way that he was doing all this at the insistence of the prior. Having started a conversation with the duke on general artistic themes, Leonardo then pointed out to him that he was close to finishing the painting and that he had only two heads left to paint - Christ and the traitor Judas. “He would like to look for this last head, but in the end, if he does not find anything better, he is ready to use the head of this very prior, so intrusive and indiscreet. This remark greatly amused the duke, who told him that he was a thousand times right. In this way, the poor embarrassed prior continued to push the work in the garden and left Leonardo alone, who finished the head of Judas, which turned out to be the true embodiment of betrayal and inhumanity.

2 It turns out that the term "miniature" has nothing to do with small sizes. This word comes from the Latin "minium" - the name of the red lead paint, which had the color of red cinnabar. The initial letters of texts were written with such paint and small illustrations were drawn in ancient and medieval books.

3 Marcelino Sanz de Sautola, whose daughter was the first to find the cave paintings in the cave of Altamira, was accused of having forged the images. Allegedly primitive people could not create a masterpiece with such a complex composition.

4 Researchers, after examining dozens of paintings by great artists painted between 1000 and 1800, concluded that the amount of food depicted increased by 69% during that period.

This conclusion was made by scientists who analyzed the dynamics of changes in portions of food depicted on the canvases of...

Modern man eats twice as much as his ancestor who lived a thousand years ago. This conclusion was made by American scientists who analyzed the dynamics of changes in portions of food depicted on the canvases of masters of different eras.

Experts studied 52 paintings from the Last Supper series, which were painted from 1000 to 2000. The researchers compared the sizes of the plates depicted on the canvases and the volumes of servings of food. For a constant indicator, on the basis of which the comparison was made, the sizes of the heads of the disciples of Christ were taken.

It turned out that from century to century, the volume of food depicted in the paintings increased. In particular, over the past thousand years, the portion of the main dish has increased by 69%, the piece of bread has become 25% larger, and the size of the plates has increased by 66%.

Modern man gets fat not only because he eats more. Most modern products are high in calories and low in calories. nutritional value. Besides that modern people receive less useful substances, kidney and liver cells can cope with preservatives, dyes and baking powder, which are rich in today's products. Therefore, the load on these organs increases and the metabolism is disturbed.

IN Lately The so-called cave diet is gaining popularity. Its adherents believe that if you refuse modern food, you can lose from 7 to 18 kg in 3-4 months. excess weight and at the same time cleanse the body of harmful substances.

The amount of food in the paintings that depict the last supper of Christ and the apostles has increased significantly over the past 1000 years. As a study of 52 masterpieces of world art has shown, this trend is in line with the development of a consumer society that tends to eat more and more.

Two professor brothers, food psychologist and theologian Brian and Craig Wansinky, together analyzed the amount of food depicted on 52 of the most famous paintings on the biblical story of the Last Supper. It was then that Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me." In addition, it was the last meal of Christ that became the prototype of the rite of communion, where the bread personifies the body of the Lord, and the wine is his blood.

Scientists have studied paintings created in the last thousand years. She measured the size of the food depicted and correlated it with the average size of the apostle's head in each painting to arrive at a specific size independent of the size of the canvas. A curious thing turned out: the size of portions, the size of plates and the size of pieces of bread from the time of the 11th century to the present day has constantly increased. Thus, the size of the main dish increased by 69%, the size of the plates by 66%, and the size of the loaves by 23%.

Analysis of the paintings revealed a number of interesting moments. In the Middle Ages, the apostles were portrayed as ascetics. However, the meal that appears in paintings before 1498 (this is the year when the world's most famous Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci was painted) was quite plentiful. The most “generous” food was the artist of the 16th century, the Mannerist Jacopo Tintoretto: in his picture, the plates are the fullest.

Scientists believe that the gradual increase in portion sizes in the paintings reflects the overall increase in consumption in the world. According to the authors scientific work, the paintings are only a reflection of the "impressive socio-historical growth in the production, availability, safety, abundance and cheapness of food."

5 "Black Square" was not the first painting in this style. Long before Malevich, Alle Alphonse exhibited his masterpiece “Battle of the Negroes in a Cave in the Dead of Night” at the Vivienne Gallery - a completely black rectangular canvas.

Black Square" was first written not by Malevich, but by the French poet Bilo, calling the painting "Battle of the Negroes in the Tunnel"

In 1882 (33 years before Malevich's Black Square) at the Exposition des Arts Incohérents exhibition in Paris, the poet Paul Bilot presented the painting Combat de nères dans un tunnel (The Battle of the Negroes in the Tunnel). True, it was not a square, but a rectangle.

French journalist, writer and eccentric humorist Alphonse Allais liked the idea so much that he developed it in 1893, calling his black rectangle "Combat de nègres dans une cave, pendant la nuit" ("Battle of the Negroes in a cave in the dead of night"). Not stopping at the success achieved, then Alle put up a virgin white sheet of Bristol paper called "The first communion of girls suffering from chlorosis in the snowy season"

. Six months later, the next picture of Alphonse Allais was perceived as a kind of “coloristic explosion”. The rectangular landscape "Harvesting tomatoes on the shores of the Red Sea by apoplectic cardinals" was a bright red one-color painting without the slightest sign of an image (1894). In the end, in 1897, Allais published a book of 7 paintings "Album primo-avrilesque" (April Fools' Album).

Thus, twenty years before the Suprematist revelations of Kazimir Malevich, the venerable artist Alphonse Alle became " by unknown author» the first abstract paintings. Alphonse Allais also became famous for the fact that in almost seventy years he unexpectedly anticipated the famous minimalist musical piece “4′33″” by John Cage, which is four and a half “minutes of silence”. Perhaps the only difference between Alphonse Allais and his followers was that, in exhibiting his stunningly innovative work, he did not at all try to look like a meaningful philosopher or a serious discoverer.

6 An abstract painting by Henri Matisse, The Boat, hung upside down in the Museum of Modern Art for forty-seven days. During this time, 116 thousand people managed to see it.

A boat sailing and its reflection in the water surface is depicted)) And you need to look at it by turning it 90 degrees
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Wash, a wonderful illustration of the true "value" of such art.

7 The idea to depict a soft watch came to Salvador Dali when he watched Camembert cheese melt in the sun.

8 Vincent van Gogh only sold one painting in his entire life.

The tragic life of Vincent van Gogh is popular today as some kind of sacred legend that people seem to need more than the radiance of his stars and sunflowers. A hungry, almost beggarly existence, full of loneliness and contempt for others, has already turned into a worldwide hype and interest in the 20th century. During his life, Van Gogh sold only one painting ("Red Vineyards in Arles"), and exactly one hundred years later, at Christie's auction in New York, his "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" was bought for $ 82.5 million (a record among paintings) . Against the background of this unhealthy worship, the image of the artist himself is lost, powerful and vulnerable at the same time, who ended his dramatic journey on earth in despair and suicide. Van Gogh lived only 37 years, of which only the last seven and a half were devoted to painting. However, his creative heritage amazing. These are about a thousand drawings and almost the same number of paintings created as a result of volcanic creative eruptions, when Van Gogh painted one or two paintings daily for long weeks. Van Gogh became the last truly great artist in history, an unattainable example for others, whose selfless and heroic art, like a torch, like a rainbow, now shines over humanity. His paintings are amazing full of love and suffering dialogue - with oneself, with God, with the world...

9 Edgar Degas painted about 1,500 paintings of ballet dancers. .

10 Painting by Ivan Aivazovsky “Chaos. The Creation of the World”, which was written based on the Bible, was bought by Pope Gregory XVI, who awarded the artist with a gold medal.

"Italian" paintings by Aivazovsky, presented at exhibitions in Naples and Rome, brought recognition and success to the painter. Critics wrote that no one had ever portrayed light, air and water so vividly and authentically. The English artist Joseph Mallord William Turner, who visited one of the exhibitions where the works of the Russian painter were exhibited, was so shocked by what he saw that he dedicated a poem to him:

Forgive me, great artist, if I'm wrong,
Taking your picture for reality.
But your work fascinated me,
And rapture took possession of me.
Your art is high and monumental,
Because genius inspires you.

World creation. Chaos. 1841

The most large-scale work created by the master in Italy is “The Creation of the World. Chaos” (1841, Museum of the Armenian Mkhitarist Congregation, Venice).

Focusing on the skill of Karl Petrovich Bryullov, Aivazovsky created a canvas, grandiose in its expressiveness, depicting the confrontation and at the same time the relationship of two primordial elements - sky and water, which the divine light illuminates, piercing and uniting them. This work, which is based on the words from the book of Genesis: “The earth was formless and empty, and darkness filled the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters” was highly appreciated by Pope Gregory XVI.

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TIKHAMIR VON MARGITAI. FATE WITH UP AND FALL

Did you know that the very first paint used by people of all continents since the advent of painting was ocher - iron oxide. Painting first originated in Australia, where artists painted with ocher more than 40,000 years ago.

From ancient times up to our time, the natives revered their ocher mines, around which customs and legends developed. . For example, the Aborigines who lived in the Lake Eyre region made an annual pilgrimage, setting off on a two-month journey over 1000 miles to collect "red gold" (about 20 kg of ocher in the form of round tiles, folded into a kangaroo skin shoulder bag). Aborigines used ocher for ritual coloring, and red (burned) ocher was applied to the chest of boys at their initiation into men.

On the protected Arnhemland peninsula there are thousands of ocher rock paintings illustrating the life of the ancient inhabitants, telling about rainbow snakes, hunting spirits and hunters. Ancient drawings in the “spray technique” also remained on the rocks and in the caves, when the artist, having collected a mouthful of wet ocher, sprayed it over the palm of his hand, applied to the surface of the wall.

About the shoemaker and Apelles

This story goes back more than 2300 years. Apelles was a friend and court painter of Alexander the Great. In an effort to achieve accuracy in creating images, Apelles exhibited paintings to the judgment of passers-by, and he himself overheard their opinion, hiding nearby. Once, a shoemaker noticed that the painted sandals did not fit the foot along the contour. Apelles corrected this defect by the next day. When the shoemaker reappeared and continued his criticism, this time turning his attention to

the painted foot, the angry artist came out of his hiding place, shouting to the shoemaker to shut up and not express an opinion that had nothing to do with sandals.

Thus was born the ancient Roman proverb: "Ne sutor ultra crepidam" "Let no shoemaker judge higher than shoes."

Two Alexanders worthy of admiration

When they talked about Alexander the Great - invincible and great, they meant the son of Philip II. When they talked about the inimitable - then about the same Alexander, only created by the artist Apelles. For this picture, the artist received a royal fee of 20 talents in gold, this fee was measured by the weight of the picture. By modern standards, the weight of gold and frescoes is about 500 kg.

The genius of Leonardo da Vinci

For almost five centuries, the legacy of Leonardo da Vinci has been of constant interest among scientists. He was talented researcher and inventor, thinker, engineer and scientist. The man, whose genius was recognized during his lifetime, was in many ways ahead of his time. Today he is known primarily as an artist whose masterpiece paintings adorn the most famous museums in the world.

Astrology and painting

One of the most famous paintings Flemish painter Paul Rubens' "Feast of the Gods on Olympus" for a long time remained unknown the date of creation. Finally, astrologers took a closer look at her, and it turned out that the characters were located exactly as they were located in the sky of the planet in 1602. But is Rubens really a prominent diplomat, famous artist, decided to simply illustrate the star atlas in his picture? And is it possible to understand the meaning of his painting without going into astrological symbolism?

At that time, as now, there were many negative prophecies about the coming century. Rubens, with his canvas, offered a different interpretation of the horoscope of the coming century, clearly arguing that worries have no basis and the century will be imbued with peace, harmony and harmony.

A mediocre artist became the Great Forger of the 20th century

First exhibition Dutch artist van Meegeren failed miserably. In the press, he was rated by critics and experts as a mediocre artist. Subsequently, Meegeren began to earn his living by selling antiques, and after World War II he was accused of selling old master paintings to the Nazis and sentenced to death for selling state property. Fearing a verdict, Meegeren was forced to admit that the paintings sold were fakes.