History of famous paintings. Interesting facts about paintings

Today we present to your attention twenty paintings that are worthy of attention and recognition. These paintings were painted by famous artists, and they should be known not only by the person who is engaged in art, but also by ordinary mortal people, since art paints our life, aesthetics deepens our view of the world. Give art its due place in your life...

1. "The Last Supper". Leonardo Da Vinci, 1495 - 1498

Monumental painting by Leonardo da Vinci depicting the scene of the last meal of Christ with his disciples. Created in the years 1495-1498 in the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.

The painting was commissioned by Leonardo from his patron, Duke Lodovico Sforza and his wife Beatrice d'Este. The coat of arms of Sforza is painted on the lunettes above the painting, formed by a ceiling with three arches. The painting was begun in 1495 and completed in 1498; work was intermittent. The date of commencement of work is not exact, since "the archives of the monastery were destroyed, and an insignificant part of the documents that we have dated 1497, when the painting was almost completed."

The painting became a milestone in the history of the Renaissance: the correctly reproduced depth of perspective changed the direction of development of Western painting.

It is believed that many secrets and hints are hidden in this picture - for example, there is an assumption that the images of Jesus and Judas are written off from one person. When Da Vinci painted the picture, in his vision, Jesus personified goodness, while Judas was pure evil. And when the master found “his Judas” (a drunkard from the street), it turned out that, according to historians, this drunkard had served as a prototype for painting the image of Jesus a few years before. Thus, we can say that this picture captured a person in different periods of his life.

2. "Sunflowers". Vincent van Gogh, 1887

Title of two cycles of paintings Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. The first series was made in Paris in 1887. It is dedicated to lying flowers. The second series was completed a year later, in Arles. She depicts a bouquet of sunflowers in a vase. Two Parisian paintings Acquired by van Gogh's friend Paul Gauguin.

The artist painted sunflowers eleven times. The first four paintings were created in Paris in August - September 1887. Large cut flowers lie like some strange creatures dying before our eyes.

3. "The ninth wave". Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky?, 1850.

One of the most famous paintings Russian marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky, kept in the Russian Museum.

The painter depicts the sea after the strongest night storm and people who were shipwrecked. The rays of the sun illuminate the huge waves. The largest of them - the ninth shaft - is ready to fall on people trying to escape on the wreckage of the mast.

Despite the fact that the ship is destroyed and only the mast remains, the people on the mast are alive and continue to fight against the elements. The warm tones of the picture make the sea not so harsh and give the viewer hope that people will be saved.

Created in 1850, the painting "The Ninth Wave" immediately became the most famous of all his marinas and was acquired by Nicholas I.

4. "Nude Maja". Francisco Goya, 1797-1800

Painting Spanish artist Francisco Goya, painted around 1797-1800. Pairs with the painting "Maja dressed" (La maja vestida). The paintings depict maja - a Spanish townswoman of the 18th-19th centuries, one of the favorite objects of the artist's image. "Nude Maja" is one of the early works Western art depicting a fully nude woman without mythological or negative connotations.

5. "Flight of lovers." Marc Chagall, 1914-1918

Work on the painting "Above the City" began in 1914, and finishing touches the master applied only in 1918. During this time, Bella turned from a beloved not only into an adored spouse, but also the mother of their daughter Ida, forever becoming the main muse of the painter. The union of a rich daughter of a hereditary jeweler and a simple Jewish youth, whose father made a living by unloading herring, can only be called a misalliance, but love was stronger and overcame all conventions. It was this love that inspired them, lifting them to heaven.

Karina depicts Chagall's two loves at once - Bella and dear Vitebsk. The streets are presented in the form of houses, separated by a high dark fence. The viewer will not immediately notice a goat grazing on the left side of the center of the picture, and a simple peasant with his pants down in the foreground - humor from the painter, escaping from general context and the romantic mood of the work, but this is the whole Chagall ...

6. "The face of war." Salvador Dali, 1940

Painting by Spanish artist Salvador Dali, painted in 1940.

The painting was created on the way to the USA. Impressed by the tragedy that broke out in the world, the bloodthirstiness of politicians, the master starts work on the ship. Located in the Boijmans-van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam.

Having lost all hope for normal life in Europe, the artist from his beloved Paris leaves for America. War covers the Old World and seeks to take over the rest of the world. The master does not yet know that staying in the New World for eight years will make him truly famous, and his works - masterpieces of world art.

7. "Scream". Edvard Munch, 1893

The Scream (Norwegian Skrik) is a series of paintings created between 1893 and 1910 by the Norwegian Expressionist painter Edvard Munch. They depict a human figure screaming in despair against a blood-red sky and a highly generalized landscape background. In 1895, Munch created a lithograph on the same subject.

The red, fiery hot sky covered the cold fjord, which, in turn, gives rise to a fantastic shadow, similar to some kind of sea monster. Tension distorts space, lines break, colors don't match, perspective is destroyed.

Many critics believe that the plot of the picture is the fruit of a sick fantasy of a mentally ill person. Someone sees in the work a premonition of an ecological catastrophe, someone solves the question of what kind of mummy inspired the author to do this work.

8. "Girl with a pearl earring." Jan Vermeer, 1665

The painting "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (Dutch. "Het meisje met de parel") was written around 1665. AT given time stored in the Mauritshuis Museum, The Hague, the Netherlands, and is calling card museum. The painting, nicknamed the Dutch Mona Lisa, or Mona Lisa of the North, is written in the Tronie genre.

Thanks to Peter Webber's 2003 film Girl with a Pearl Earring, great amount people who are far from painting learned about the wonderful Dutch artist Jan Vermeer, as well as about his most famous painting, Girl with a Pearl Earring.

9. "Tower of Babel". Pieter Brueghel, 1563

Famous painting by Pieter Brueghel. The artist created at least two paintings on this subject.

The painting is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

There is a story in the Bible about how the people of Babylon tried to build high tower to reach the sky, but God made it so that they spoke in different languages, ceased to understand each other, and the tower remained unfinished.

10. "Algerian women." Pablo Picasso, 1955

"Women of Algeria" - a series of 15 paintings created by Picasso in 1954-1955 based on the paintings of Eugene Delacroix; the paintings are distinguished by the letters assigned by the artist from A to O. "Version O" was written on February 14, 1955; for some time it belonged to the famous American art collector of the 20th century, Victor Ganz.

Pablo Picasso's "Women of Algiers (version O)" was sold for $180 million.

11. "New planet". Konstantin Yuon, 1921

Russian Soviet painter, master of landscape, theater artist, art theorist. Academician of the Academy of Arts of the USSR. People's Artist USSR. Laureate Stalin Prize first degree. Member of the CPSU since 1951.

This amazing, created in 1921 and not at all characteristic of the realist artist Yuon, the painting “New Planet” is one of the brightest works that embodied the image of the changes that the October Revolution became in the second decade of the 20th century. New system, new way and new image thinking just born Soviet society. What awaits humanity now? Bright future? They didn't think about it at the time, but what Soviet Russia and the whole world is entering an era of change, as is the rapid birth of a new planet.

12. "Sistine Madonna". Raphael Santi, 1754

Painting by Raphael, which has been in the Old Masters Gallery in Dresden since 1754. Belongs to the generally recognized peaks of the High Renaissance.

Huge in size (265 × 196 cm, as the size of the painting is indicated in the catalog of the Dresden Gallery) the canvas was created by Raphael for the altar of the church of the monastery of St. Sixtus in Piacenza, commissioned by Pope Julius II. There is a hypothesis that the painting was painted in 1512-1513 in honor of the victory over the French, who invaded Lombardy during the Italian Wars, and the subsequent incorporation of Piacenza into the Papal States.

13. "Penitent Mary Magdalene". Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), painted around 1565

A painting painted around 1565 by the Italian artist Titian Vecellio. Belongs State Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Sometimes the date of creation is given as "1560s".

The model of the painting was Giulia Festina, who struck the artist with a shock of golden hair. The finished canvas greatly impressed the Duke of Gonzaga, and he decided to order a copy of it. Later, Titian, changing the background and posing of the woman, painted a couple more similar works.

14. Mona Lisa. Leonardo Da Vinci, 1503-1505

Portrait of Mrs. Lisa del Giocondo, (ital. Ritratto di Monna Lisa del Giocondo) - a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, located in the Louvre (Paris, France), one of the most famous works painting in the world, which is believed to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of the Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, painted around 1503-1505.

According to one of the put forward versions, "Mona Lisa" is a self-portrait of the artist.

15. “Morning in a pine forest”, Shishkin Ivan Ivanovich, 1889.

Painting by Russian artists Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky. Savitsky painted the bears, but the collector Pavel Tretyakov erased his signature, so one painting is often listed as the author.

The idea for the painting was suggested to Shishkin by Savitsky, who later acted as a co-author and depicted the figures of cubs. These bears, with some differences in posture and number (at first there were two of them), appear in preparatory drawings and sketches. The animals turned out so well for Savitsky that he even signed the painting together with Shishkin.

16. "We didn't wait." Ilya Repin, 1884-1888

Painting by Russian artist Ilya Repin (1844-1930), painted in 1884-1888. It is part of the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery.

Painting shown at XII traveling exhibition, is included in the narrative cycle dedicated to the fate of the Russian populist revolutionary.

17. Ball at the Moulin de la Galette, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876.

The picture painted French artist Pierre Auguste Renoir in 1876.

The place where the painting is located is the Musée d'Orsay. The Moulin de la Galette is an inexpensive tavern in Montmartre where the students and working youth of Paris gathered.

18. Starry night. Vincent van Gogh, 1889

De sterrennacht- a painting by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, written in June 1889, with a view of the predawn sky over a fictional town from the east window of the artist's dwelling in Saint-Remy-de-Provence. Since 1941 kept in the Museum contemporary art in New York. Considered one of the best works Van Gogh and one of the most significant works Western painting.

19. "Creation of Adam". Michelangelo, 1511.

Fresco by Michelangelo, painted around 1511. The fresco is the fourth of the nine central compositions of the ceiling. Sistine Chapel.

The Creation of Adam is one of the most outstanding mural compositions in the Sistine Chapel. In endless space, God the Father flies, surrounded by wingless angels, with a fluttering white tunic. The right hand is extended towards Adam's hand and almost touches it. Lying on a green rock, Adam's body gradually begins to move, awakens to life. The whole composition is concentrated on the gesture of two hands. The hand of God gives impulse, and the hand of Adam receives it, giving the whole body vital energy. By the fact that their hands do not touch, Michelangelo emphasized the impossibility of connecting the divine and the human. In the image of God, according to the artist, not a miraculous principle prevails, but a gigantic creative energy. In the image of Adam, Michelangelo sings of the strength and beauty of the human body. In fact, it is not the very creation of man that appears before us, but the moment at which he receives a soul, a passionate search for the divine, a thirst for knowledge.

20. "Kiss in the starry sky." Gustav Klimt, 1905-1907

Painting by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, painted in 1907-1908. The canvas belongs to the period of Klimt's work, called "golden", last work the author in his "golden period".

On a rock, on the edge of a flower meadow, in a golden aura, lovers stand completely immersed in each other, fenced off from the whole world. Due to the uncertainty of the place of what is happening, it seems that the couple depicted in the picture is moving into a cosmic state that is not subject to time and space, beyond all historical and social stereotypes and cataclysms. Complete solitude and the man's face turned back only emphasize the impression of isolation and detachment in relation to the observer.

Source - Wikipedia, muzei-mira.com, say-hi.me

While admiring still lifes, we can hardly imagine what was depicted in the first paintings painted in this genre. And on them, in fact, decay products were painted: rotting fruits, withering flowers. Very often such works were decorated with a human skull. The artists once again wanted to remind that we are all just guests in this world...

The Massacre of the Innocents by Rubens is considered the most expensive painting in the world. The painting wanders from one rich man to another, and its price is steadily growing. Last time it was bought for more than 73 million euros. No wonder the buyer wished to remain anonymous...

The artist most offended by "grateful" fans can be called Henri Matisse. In 1961, the Museum of Modern Art, located in New York, presented his painting "The Boat" to the public. And only after almost a month and a half, a casual art connoisseur noticed that the masterpiece was not hanging as it should be for a masterpiece, but upside down. The confusion was terrible...

Even during the life of Ilya Repin on his famous Ivan Grozny, who had just killed his son, was assassinated. Mad icon painter, unable to bear scary look king, cut the canvas with a knife. Not only the best restorers were involved in the restoration, but also Repin himself. But the master did not want to return to the original Ivan the Terrible, who appeared 20 years ago, and painted the face of the king in a new way. As a result, it turned purple. Secretly from Repin, the restorers restored the face of Ivan IV to its former color. When the picture was shown to the artist, he did not pay attention to such "arbitrariness".

Can Christ and Judas have the same face? Maybe if it's the face of the sitter. Painting " The Last Supper”cost Leonardo da Vinci a titanic effort. The artist found the man who posed for him as "Christ" quite quickly - the singer perfectly suited his role church choir. But the search for "Judas" took three years. One day, walking down the street, the master saw a drunkard who could not get out of the cesspool. The lover of the green serpent was still young, but due to regular drinking, he looked much older than his years. Leonardo led him to the nearest drinking establishment, seated him at the table and began to draw. What was the astonishment of the artist when the sober drunkard said that he had already posed for him several years ago! It was the same singer...

Manet and Monet are confused not only by modern art lovers - they were also confused by contemporaries. Artists not only lived at the same time and had similar surnames, but also borrowed ideas from each other. After Manet presented the painting “Breakfast on the Grass” to the public, Monet, without thinking twice, wrote his own, and under the same name.

Many of Vasnetsov's "colleagues" disliked neither himself nor the paintings he painted. The battlefield littered with corpses, which remained after the battle between Prince Igor and the Polovtsy, they called nothing more than "Dead". Another picture of the master - "Flying Carpet" - received an even more malicious name: "Carpet with Ears".

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"The Persistence of Memory"

Only Salvador Dali could come up with this painting. Spanish painter depicted a hanging clock, which seemed to have lost all its hardness and flowed smoothly from a branch, chest of drawers and the face of a sleeping man. The idea of ​​​​creating a painting came to Dali quite by accident. He noticed how the Camembert melted in the sun, and transferred this state of cheese to the objects in the picture.

Many critics have tried to understand the meaning that Dali put into his work. Someone saw in it the theory of relativity of Albert Einstein, believing that this is how the artist conveyed the law of physics about space and time into painting. The author himself said that the theory of Heraclitus, which asserted the connection of time and the flow of thoughts, is better suited for his masterpiece.

"The Last Supper"

From under the brush of Leonardo da Vinci appeared many magnificent creations of the Renaissance. Yet The Last Supper stands out among them. This is not just a picture of one of Italian artists. She keeps in herself deep meaning and the history of the formation of the Christian religion.

All attention in the picture is focused on two heroes: Christ and Judas. For the face of Jesus, a young man from the church choir perfectly suited. Only the image of vile Judas was still not given to the artist. Yet three years later, Leonardo da Vinci found the perfect sitter. They became some drunkard who was lying in the gutter. Steeped in cheap booze and constant visits to the tavern, he soberly remembered that he once posed for an artist a long time ago. It turns out that on the canvas Jesus and Judas had the face of the same person. Only if at first it was a young and clean singer from the church, then the second is a dirty and lost drunkard.

"Dream"

Once the work of Pablo Picasso's "Dream" was sold for an incredible price of 139 million dollars. In 2006, art collector Steve Wynn decided to part with one of the paintings. During the presentation, the man gesticulated so vigorously that he hit the work with his elbow. The painting was seriously damaged. The incident made such a strong impression on the collector that he found a hidden message from above in this and decided to keep the picture for himself.

"Boat"

A painting by Henri Matisse made a splash at an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And even greater interest and even a scandal around the work could cause the negligence of the museum staff. They put the painting upside down. Only after almost two months, one of the visitors, who is well versed in painting, was able to notice a gross mistake. Really, none of the 115 thousand people who visited the exhibition and left flattering comments saw this. Nevertheless, the news quickly spread and hit the front pages of the city's newspapers.

"Feast of the Gods on Olympus"

The most mysterious creation of the Dutch painter Peter Rubens was found in the Czech Republic in the 1960s. Exact date the creation of the painting was unknown until scientists discovered a specific arrangement of the planets on the canvas. The god Jupiter was Duke Gonzaga of Mantua. Sun, Cupid, Venus and Poseidon were the positions of Jupiter, Venus and the Sun. Venus is approaching the constellation Pisces. This arrangement of the planets was typical during the winter solstice of 1602.

"Sistine Madonna"

Look at the work of Raphael. Created for the altar of the church, it kept a lot of mysteries that scientists still constantly question. Sixtus II has six fingers on his hand, which is very symbolic, because the name of the pope is translated as "sixth". This is just what it looks like. If you look closely, this is not the sixth finger, but just an extension of the palm. It's just that the shadows created such an impression. So, another mystery solved.

"Morning in a pine forest"

Many paid attention to the wrapper of the well-known since childhood and so delicious chocolates. Little bear cubs play in the forest thicket. Only these cute animals were not written by Ivan Shishkin at all. The Russian artist was a great landscape painter, able to convey every twig and blade of grass, but he could not draw people and animals. Then he turned to the artist Konstantin Savitsky for help, who helped Shishkin finish drawing the cubs. The painting itself originally belonged to two authors. Yet few people know about it. Indeed, after the purchase of the painting, Pavel Tretyakov erased the name of Savitsky, leaving only Shishkin.

Interesting facts about painting
Some famous paintings have a very interesting, and sometimes even funny history of creation. Facts will tell you something you may not know 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 historians, Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper 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 picture 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 at the table with wine and bread.
Almost all researchers of Leonardo's work agree that perfect place for looking at the picture - 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 the amazing variety and richness of the 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, the color of which contrasts with the clothes of Christ, she is tilted in the opposite direction from Jesus, who is sitting in the center. The space between this female figure and Jesus has the shape of the letter V, 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.
Leonardo's brush captures the last a 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 completed 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 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 a choir performance, 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 sketches, 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, 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 cave drawings in the cave of Altamira, 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. Majority modern products are high in calories and low in nutritional value. In addition to the fact that modern people do not receive enough nutrients, 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.

AT recent times 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, nutritional 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 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 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 course 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 that 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 Alfons exhibited at the Vivien Gallery his masterpiece “Battle of the Negroes in a Cave in the Dead Night” - 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 Bilo presented the painting Combat de nègres 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 success, 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» 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 he, exposing his stunning pioneering work, did not at all try to look like a significant 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 Idea to portray soft watch came to Salvador Dali's mind when he watched Camembert cheese melt in the sun.

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

tragic life 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 is 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 has fascinated me,
And rapture took over 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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Each creation of the artist is unique, in each picture there is a piece of the soul of its creator. But like any other thing, painting has its own nuances, artists have their own tricks. Each picture is associated Interesting Facts, the most curious of which we will present to you.

1. Apelles (370 - 306 BC) was an outstanding ancient Greek artist, a friend of Alexander the Great. Many interesting facts are associated with his name. According to one of the legends, Apelles held a competition with another artist for the realism of the image. When the canvas was removed from the competitor's painting, the birds immediately flocked to the surprisingly lively vine branch. Then they began to remove the veil from the painting by Apelles, but the assistants did not succeed - the veil was depicted in the picture!

2. One of the most famous paintings by Rubens, "The Feast of the Gods on Olympus", had a date of creation unknown for a long time. Finally, astronomers took a closer look at it, and it turned out that the characters were located exactly as they were located in the sky of the planet in 1602.

3. In Soviet times, every artist had to be able to pass his picture through a commission, often little versed in the fine arts. I had to invent the most interesting and unexpected moves. So one artist painted a completely inappropriate yellow dog in the corner of the picture. It was this yellow dog that became main theme discussions for the commission, which no longer paid any attention to anything else. A verdict was passed - to accept the picture, after the removal of the dog.

4. Van Meegeren was the most talented Dutch artist. Unfortunately, his works were not evaluated, but his copies of paintings famous painters enjoyed unprecedented popularity. It was these copies that he sold to the Nazis. After the war, he faced a dilemma - either to be accused of selling the national treasure, or to prove that they were fakes. Interestingly, in just a few days, under the supervision of the court, he actually created a new picture.

5. Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov (1844-1927) was a recognized master historical painting. His brush belongs interesting picture with the original title "Christ and the Sinner". But the picture was not accepted at that time, since the artist depicted Christ without the obligatory halo, in fact, as himself ordinary person. The picture managed to be exhibited for the audience only after renaming it to The Prodigal Wife.

6. One artist managed to introduce his fake in the most original way. He painted another picture on top of a fake canvas and took it all to the restorer. In the course of his work, he discovered this “dual” interesting fact and it was announced the discovery of the “unknown Monet”, the authenticity of which was not in doubt for a long time.

7. Another original way allows you to sell a fake. Two paintings are inserted into the frame, one of which is genuine. This whole "sandwich" is tested and receives an official conclusion about the authenticity of the work. After that, one of the paintings is taken out, and the second one is sold to a naive buyer.

8. Paintings by Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov on epic scenes among other Russian artists were not very popular, some even called him “After the battle of Igor Svyatoslavovich with the Polovtsy” “Dead” and his fabulous “Flying Carpet” “Carpet with ears”.

9. An interesting business was made by one lady in a painting autographed by Ilya Efimovich Repin. She just bought a certain painting for only 10 rubles, but with a proud signature “I. Repin. The lady showed this work to Ilya Efimovich after some time. The artist laughed and added “This is not Repin”, after which the lady sold his autograph (of course, along with the picture) for 100 rubles.

10. Artists often helped each other, because everyone has their favorite stories, but there are also weaknesses. It is natural in this case to use the help of a friend - Repin wrote Pushkin for Aivazovsky's painting “Pushkin on the Seashore”, Nikolai Chekhov depicted a lady in black for the painting “Autumn Day. Sokolniki" by Levitan, and the most famous bears from Shishkin's "Morning in pine forest” wrote Savitsky.