What do the paintings of artists say. Archive for the "history of one painting" category

Bill Stoneham "Hands Resist Him"

1972

This work, of course, cannot be ranked among the masterpieces of world art, but the fact that it is strange is a fact.
Around the picture with a boy, a doll and palms pressed against the glass, there are legends. From "because of this picture they die" to "the children in it are alive." The picture looks really creepy, which gives rise to a lot of fears and conjectures in people with a weak psyche.
The artist assured that the picture depicts himself at the age of five, that the door is a representation of the dividing line between the real world and the world of dreams, and the doll is a guide that can lead the boy through this world. The hands represent alternative lives or possibilities.
The painting gained notoriety in February 2000 when it was listed for sale on eBay with a backstory that said the painting was "haunted". "Hands Resist Him" ​​was bought for $1,025 by Kim Smith, who was then inundated with letters with creepy stories and demands to burn the painting.

On December 3, 1961, a landmark event took place at the New York Museum of Modern Art - Matisse's painting "The Boat", which hung upside down for 46 days, was properly hung. It is worth saying that this is not a single amusing case associated with the paintings of great artists.

Pablo Picasso painted one of his famous portraits in less than 5 minutes

Once, one of Pablo Picasso's acquaintances, looking at his new works, sincerely said to the artist: “I'm sorry, but I can't understand this. Those things just don't exist." To which Picasso retorted: “You don’t understand Chinese either. But it still exists." However, Picasso was not understood by many. Once he invited the Russian writer Ehrenburg, his good friend, to paint his portrait. He happily agreed, but did not have time to sit in an armchair to pose, as the artist announced that everything was ready.

Ehrenburg expressed surprise at the speed of execution of the work, after all, less than 5 minutes had passed, to which Picasso replied: “I have known you for 40 years. And all these 40 years I learned to paint portraits in 5 minutes.

Ilya Repin helped sell a painting he didn't paint

One lady purchased on the market for only 10 rubles a completely mediocre painting, on which the signature “I. Repin” proudly flaunted. When a connoisseur of painting showed this work to Ilya Efimovich, he laughed and added “This is not Repin” and put his autograph. After some time, an enterprising lady sold a painting by an unknown artist with an autograph of the great master for 100 rubles.

The bears in the famous painting by Shishkin were painted by another artist

Among artists there is an unspoken law - professional mutual assistance. After all, each of them has not only favorite stories and strengths, but also weaknesses, so why not help each other. So, it is known for certain that for the painting “Pushkin on the Seashore” by Aivazovsky, the figure of the great poet was painted by Repin, and for the painting by Levitan “Autumn Day. Sokolniki, a lady in black was painted by Nikolai Chekhov. The landscape painter Shishkin, who could draw every blade of grass and needles in his paintings, did not succeed in creating bears when creating the painting “Morning in a Pine Forest”. Therefore, Savitsky painted bears for the famous Shishkin canvas.

A piece of fiberboard, over which paint was simply poured, became one of the most expensive paintings

The most expensive painting in the world in 2006 was Jackson Polock's Number 5, 1948. At one of the auctions, the painting went for $140 million. It may seem funny, but the artist did not particularly “bother” with the creation of this picture: he simply poured paint over a piece of fiberboard, spread out on the floor.

The date of creation of his painting Rubens encrypted by the stars

Art critics and scientists for a long time could not establish the date of creation of one of the most famous paintings by Rubens - the painting "The Feast of the Gods on Olympus." The riddle was resolved only after astronomers took a closer look at the picture. It turned out that the characters in the picture were located in exactly the same order as the planets were located in the sky in 1602.

The Chupa-Chups logo was drawn by the world-famous surrealist

In 1961, Enrique Bernata, the owner of the Chupa Chups company, asked the artist Salvador Dali to come up with an image for a candy wrapper. Gave the request fulfilled. Today, this image, albeit in a slightly modified form, is recognizable on the company's lollipops.

It is worth noting that in 1967 in Italy, with the blessing of the Pope, a unique version of the Bible with illustrations by Salvador Dali was released.

The most expensive painting Flour brings misfortune

Munch's painting "The Scream" was sold at auction for $120 million and is today the most expensive painting by this artist. They say that Munch, whose life path is a series of tragedies, put so much grief into it that the picture absorbed negative energy and takes revenge on the offenders.

One of the employees of the Munch Museum somehow accidentally dropped the painting, after which he began to suffer from terrible headaches that led this man to suicide. Another employee of the museum, who was unable to hold the painting, got into a terrible car accident just a few days later. And a visitor to the museum, who allowed himself to touch the painting, burned alive in a fire after some time. However, it is possible that these are just coincidences.

Malevich's "Black Square" has an "elder brother"

The “Black Square”, which is perhaps the most famous painting by Kazimir Malevich, is a canvas 79.5 * 79.5 centimeters, on which a black square is depicted on a white background. Malevich painted his painting in 1915. And back in 1893, 20 years before Malevich, Alphonse Allais, a French humorist, drew his “black square”. True, Alle's painting was called "The Battle of Negroes in a Deep Cave on a Dark Night."

The Last Supper. Leonardo da Vinci.

Once on the street, the artist saw a drunkard who unsuccessfully tried to get out of the cesspool. Da Vinci took him to one of the drinking establishments, sat him down and began to draw. What was the surprise of the artist when, having opened up, the drunkard admitted that several years ago he had already posed for him. It turned out that this is the same singer.

Works of art that everyone knows often contain fascinating stories that are unknown.

Kazimir Malevich was the sixth artist who painted the black square, Shishkin co-authored his Morning in a Pine Forest, Dali had a serious psychosexual trauma, and Pablo Picasso survived after a bold response to the Gestapo. We admire the beauty of the greatest paintings, but the stories that happened before, during or after the painting of masterpieces often remain outside of our attention. And completely in vain. Sometimes such stories allow you to better understand the artist or simply marvel at the quirkiness of life and creativity.

Malevich's "Black Square" - one of the most famous and discussed works of art - is not such an innovation.

Artists have been experimenting with black all over since the 17th century. Robert Fludd, in 1617, was the first to paint a completely black work of art called "The Great Darkness", followed in 1843 by Bertal and his work "View of La Hougue (under the cover of night)". More than two hundred years later. And then almost without interruption - Gustave Dore's Twilight History of Russia in 1854, Paul Bielhold's Night Fight of Negroes in the Basement in 1882, and Alphonse Allais's "Battle of the Negroes in a Cave in the Dead Night" was completely plagiarized. And only in 1915, Kazimir Malevich presented his "Black Suprematist Square" to the public, which is how the picture is called in full. And it is his picture that is known to everyone, while others are known only to art historians. Malevich himself painted at least four versions of his "Black Suprematist Square", differing in pattern, texture and color, in the hope of finding absolute "weightlessness" and a flight of forms.

"Scream", Edvard Munch

As with Black Square, there are four versions of The Scream in the world. Two versions are painted in oil and two in pastel. There is an opinion that Munch, who suffered from manic-depressive psychosis, wrote it several times in an attempt to vent all the suffering that covered his soul. And it is possible that there would have been more strange men screaming from unbearable torment if the artist had not gone to the clinic. After a course of treatment, he never again tried to reproduce his "Scream", which became a cult.

"Guernica", Pablo Picasso

The huge fresco "Guernica", painted by Picasso in 1937, tells about the raid of the Luftwaffe volunteer unit on the city of Guernica, as a result of which the six thousandth city was completely destroyed. The picture was painted in just a month - the first days of work on the picture, Picasso worked for 10-12 hours and already in the first sketches one could see the main idea. This is one of the best illustrations of the nightmare of fascism, as well as human cruelty and grief. Guernica presents scenes of death, violence, atrocities, suffering and helplessness, without specifying their immediate causes, but they are obvious. And the most interesting moment in connection with this picture occurred in 1940, when Picasso was called to the Gestapo in Paris. “Did you do this?” the fascists asked him. "No, you did it."

"The Great Masturbator" Salvador Dali

In a picture with a strange and impudent name even for our time, there is actually no challenge to society. The artist actually depicted his subconscious, confessed to the viewer. The canvas depicts his wife Gala, whom he passionately loved; locusts, which he was terrified of; a fragment of a man with cut knees, ants and other symbols of passion, fear and disgust. The origins of this picture (but primarily the origins of his strange disgust and at the same time craving for sex) lie in the fact that in childhood Salvador Dali looked through a book on venereal diseases, accidentally left by his father.

The historical canvas, which tells the viewer about a dramatic moment in the history of our country, was in fact inspired not so much by the fact of the murder of his son and heir by Tsar John Vasilyevich, but by the murder of Alexander II by terrorist revolutionaries, and - most unexpectedly - bullfighting in Spain. The artist wrote about what he saw: “Misfortunes, living death, murders and blood make up the force that attracts to itself ... And I, having probably become infected with this bloodiness, upon arrival home, immediately set to the bloody scene.”

"Morning in a pine forest", Ivan Shishkin

The masterpiece, familiar to every Soviet child from breathtakingly tasty and scarce sweets, belongs to the pen not only of Shishkin. Many artists who were friends with each other often resorted to "the help of a friend", and Ivan Ivanovich, who had been painting landscapes all his life, was afraid that touching bears would not turn out the way he needed. Therefore, Shishkin turned to a familiar animal painter Konstantin Savitsky. Savitsky painted perhaps the best bears in the history of Russian painting, and Tretyakov ordered that his name be washed off the canvas, since everything in the picture “beginning from the idea and ending with the execution, everything speaks of the manner of painting, of the creative method peculiar to Shishkin.”

Works of art that everyone knows often contain fascinating stories that are unknown.

Kazimir Malevich was the sixth artist who painted the black square, Shishkin co-authored his "Morning in a Pine Forest", Dali had a serious psychosexual trauma, and Pablo Picasso survived after a bold response to the Gestapo. We admire the beauty of the greatest paintings, but the stories that happened before, during or after the painting of masterpieces often remain outside of our attention. And completely in vain. Sometimes such stories allow you to better understand the artist or simply marvel at the quirkiness of life and creativity.
Bright Side collected the most interesting and unknown stories about great paintings in this article.

"Black Square", Kazimir Malevich

"Black Square" by Malevich - one of the most famous and discussed works of art - is not such an innovation.
Artists have been experimenting with black "all over" since the 17th century. The first tightly black work of art called The Great Darkness was painted by Robert Fludd in 1617, followed in 1843 by Bertal and his View of La Hougue (Under Cover of Night) . More than two hundred years later. And then almost without interruption - "Twilight History of Russia" by Gustave Dore in 1854, "Night Fight of Negroes in the Basement" by Paul Bielhold in 1882, absolutely plagiarism "Battle of Negroes in a Cave in the Dead of Night" by Alphonse Allais. It was only in 1915 that Kazimir Malevich presented his "Black Suprematist Square" to the public, which is how the picture is called in full. And it is his picture that is known to everyone, while others are known only to art historians.
Malevich himself painted at least four versions of his "Black Suprematist Square", differing in pattern, texture and color, in the hope of finding absolute "weightlessness" and a flight of forms.

"Scream", Edvard Munch

As in the case of the Black Square, there are four versions of the Scream in the world. Two versions are painted in oil and two in pastel.
There is an opinion that Munch, who suffered from manic-depressive psychosis, wrote it several times in an attempt to vent all the suffering that covered his soul. And it is possible that there would have been more strange men screaming from unbearable torment if the artist had not gone to the clinic. After a course of treatment, he never again tried to reproduce his "Scream", which became a cult.

"Guernica", Pablo Picasso

The huge fresco "Guernica", painted by Picasso in 1937, tells about the raid of the Luftwaffe volunteer unit on the city of Guernica, as a result of which the six thousandth city was completely destroyed. The picture was painted in just a month - the first days of work on the picture, Picasso worked for 10-12 hours and already in the first sketches one could see the main idea.
This is one of the best illustrations of the nightmare of fascism, as well as human cruelty and grief. Guernica presents scenes of death, violence, atrocities, suffering and helplessness, without specifying their immediate causes, but they are obvious. And the most interesting moment in connection with this picture occurred in 1940, when Picasso was called to the Gestapo in Paris. “Did you do this?” the fascists asked him. "No, you did it."

"The Great Masturbator" Salvador Dali

In a picture with a strange and impudent name even for our time, there is actually no challenge to society. The artist actually depicted his subconscious, confessed to the viewer.
The canvas depicts his wife Gala, whom he passionately loved; locusts, which he was terrified of; a fragment of a man with cut knees, ants and other symbols of passion, fear and disgust.
The origins of this picture (but primarily the origins of his strange disgust and at the same time craving for sex) lie in the fact that in childhood Salvador Dali looked through a book on venereal diseases, accidentally left by his father.

"Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan November 16, 1581" by Ilya Repin

The historical canvas, which tells the viewer about a dramatic moment in the history of our country, was in fact inspired not so much by the fact of the murder of his son and heir by Tsar John Vasilyevich, but by the murder of Alexander II by terrorist revolutionaries, and - most unexpectedly - bullfighting in Spain. The artist wrote about what he saw: "Misfortunes, living death, murders and blood make up the force that attracts to itself ... And I, having probably become infected with this bloodiness, upon arrival home, immediately set to the bloody scene."

"Morning in a pine forest", Ivan Shishkin

The masterpiece, familiar to every Soviet child from breathtakingly tasty and scarce sweets, belongs to the pen not only of Shishkin. Many artists who were friends with each other often resorted to the "help of a friend", and Ivan Ivanovich, who had been painting landscapes all his life, was afraid that the touching bears would not turn out the way he needed. Therefore, Shishkin turned to a familiar animal painter Konstantin Savitsky.
Savitsky painted perhaps the best bears in the history of Russian painting, and Tretyakov ordered his name to be washed off the canvas, since everything in the picture "beginning from the idea and ending with the execution, everything speaks of the manner of painting, of the creative method peculiar to Shishkin."

Works of art that everyone knows often contain fascinating stories that are unknown.

Kazimir Malevich was the sixth artist who painted the black square, Shishkin co-authored his "Morning in a Pine Forest", Dali had a serious psychosexual trauma, and Pablo Picasso survived after a bold response to the Gestapo. We admire the beauty of the greatest paintings, but the stories that happened before, during or after the painting of masterpieces often remain outside of our attention. And completely in vain. Sometimes such stories allow you to better understand the artist or simply marvel at the quirkiness of life and creativity.
Bright Side collected the most interesting and unknown stories about great paintings in this article.

"Black Square", Kazimir Malevich

"Black Square" by Malevich - one of the most famous and discussed works of art - is not such an innovation.
Artists have been experimenting with black "all over" since the 17th century. The first tightly black work of art called The Great Darkness was painted by Robert Fludd in 1617, followed in 1843 by Bertal and his View of La Hougue (Under Cover of Night) . More than two hundred years later. And then almost without interruption - "Twilight History of Russia" by Gustave Doré in 1854, "Night Fight of Negroes in the Basement" by Paul Bielhold in 1882, completely plagiarized "Battle of Negroes in a Cave in the Dead of Night" by Alphonse Allais. It was only in 1915 that Kazimir Malevich presented his "Black Suprematist Square" to the public, which is how the picture is called in full. And it is his picture that is known to everyone, while others are known only to art historians.
Malevich himself painted at least four versions of his "Black Suprematist Square", differing in pattern, texture and color, in the hope of finding absolute "weightlessness" and a flight of forms.

"Scream", Edvard Munch

As in the case of the Black Square, there are four versions of the Scream in the world. Two versions are painted in oil and two in pastel.
There is an opinion that Munch, who suffered from manic-depressive psychosis, wrote it several times in an attempt to vent all the suffering that covered his soul. And it is possible that there would have been more strange men screaming from unbearable torment if the artist had not gone to the clinic. After a course of treatment, he never again tried to reproduce his "Scream", which became a cult.

"Guernica", Pablo Picasso

The huge fresco "Guernica", painted by Picasso in 1937, tells about the raid of the Luftwaffe volunteer unit on the city of Guernica, as a result of which the six thousandth city was completely destroyed. The picture was painted in just a month - the first days of work on the picture, Picasso worked for 10-12 hours and already in the first sketches one could see the main idea.
This is one of the best illustrations of the nightmare of fascism, as well as human cruelty and grief. Guernica presents scenes of death, violence, atrocities, suffering and helplessness, without specifying their immediate causes, but they are obvious. And the most interesting moment in connection with this picture occurred in 1940, when Picasso was called to the Gestapo in Paris. “Did you do this?” the fascists asked him. "No, you did it."

"The Great Masturbator" Salvador Dali

In a picture with a strange and impudent name even for our time, there is actually no challenge to society. The artist actually depicted his subconscious, confessed to the viewer.
The canvas depicts his wife Gala, whom he passionately loved; locusts, which he was terrified of; a fragment of a man with cut knees, ants and other symbols of passion, fear and disgust.
The origins of this picture (but primarily the origins of his strange disgust and at the same time craving for sex) lie in the fact that in childhood Salvador Dali looked through a book on venereal diseases, accidentally left by his father.

"Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan November 16, 1581" by Ilya Repin

The historical canvas, which tells the viewer about a dramatic moment in the history of our country, was in fact inspired not so much by the fact of the murder of his son and heir by Tsar John Vasilyevich, but by the murder of Alexander II by terrorist revolutionaries, and - most unexpectedly - bullfighting in Spain. The artist wrote about what he saw: "Misfortunes, living death, murders and blood make up the force that attracts to itself ... And I, having probably become infected with this bloodiness, upon arrival home, immediately set to the bloody scene."

"Morning in a pine forest", Ivan Shishkin

The masterpiece, familiar to every Soviet child from breathtakingly tasty and scarce sweets, belongs to the pen not only of Shishkin. Many artists who were friends with each other often resorted to the "help of a friend", and Ivan Ivanovich, who had been painting landscapes all his life, was afraid that the touching bears would not turn out the way he needed. Therefore, Shishkin turned to a familiar animal painter Konstantin Savitsky.
Savitsky painted perhaps the best bears in the history of Russian painting, and Tretyakov ordered his name to be washed off the canvas, since everything in the picture "beginning from the idea and ending with the execution, everything speaks of the manner of painting, of the creative method peculiar to Shishkin."