Facts about painting and artists. The most unusual facts from the life of great artists

This material tells interesting facts about artists. The sequence is naturally random, and the interestingness of the facts is subjective. If you are interested in the world of art and creativity, this material is a must read.

Van Gogh's ear

"Self-portrait with a cut off ear and a pipe." 1888

Everyone knows that Van Gogh cut off his ear, but they imagine it as if he cut off his whole ear. Although in fact, he only cut off the tip of his lobe. Then he took it to a brothel, to Gauguin’s beloved woman, and ordered her to keep it as her most precious treasure. You can read about Van Gogh’s ear in more detail in the material I published earlier. By the way, the next fact is about Van Gogh’s friend, namely, we will talk about Paul Gauguin.

What kind of women did Paul Gauguin like?

Gauguin's mother was from Peru, due to the fact that he spent his entire childhood in his mother's homeland, he developed a love for the exotic and unusual, non-European female beauty. He was a notorious womanizer and was famous for liking fat and rough women. He always looked for the most unusual and non-standard representatives of the fair sex. But soon he moved to the Marquesas Islands, and died of syphilis, side by side with his young Tahitian wife.

Claude Monet's Garden

Claude Monet was a great lover of flowers and flora in general. He liked to paint nature at different times of the day and seasons. His favorite pastime is watching the colors of flowers change :) He was a very famous and influential artist, this allowed him to live with dignity. He was able to fulfill his childhood dream, he created an ideal garden that blooms all year round, this was done specifically so that there was always something to draw. It still exists and also blooms beautifully, here is a video from it:

Quick portrait of Picasso

The writer Ehrenburg was a good friend of Picasso, and one day the artist decided to paint a portrait of his good friend. Ehrenburg was very happy and began to nervously sit down, straighten his hair and in every possible way prepare for a long, responsible process. It took the artist less than 5 minutes and he said: “that’s it, look.” Ehrenburg was very surprised and asked why so quickly? The master answered him: “I’ve known you for 40 years, I also learned to draw portraits for 40 years, that’s why I don’t need more time.”

Morning in a pine forest and bears

I don’t know everything about this popular “deception,” but this is a common situation among artists, especially when they are members of creative associations. Shishkin never managed to finish his picture, namely, he couldn’t get the bears to work. Then his friend Konstantin Savitsky came to the rescue, for whom this task was not difficult. Over time, in order to increase Shishkin’s value and “promote” him as an artist, Savitsky was removed from co-authorship.

The logo for Chupa Chups was invented by Salvador Dali

It was the great master of surrealism who came up with the shape of the flower; he sketched it in one evening. The logo lasted in this form for several decades. For this he was paid a tidy sum. It was after this incident that he got the nickname “Avida Dollars” (In love with dollars).

The mystery of the black square

Malevich himself said that the black square is a symbol of the final break between art and academicism. The painting itself, in terms of beauty or aesthetics, naturally does not have much value. But in terms of meaning, this picture is very important and has great value. It was written precisely in its time and became a real symbol for contemporary artists of that time, it gave them the “green light”, it allowed them to create what they want.

Michelangelo da Caravaggio's first still life

This means that this is not only the first real still life of this great artist, but also that this is one of the first still lifes in the history of painting. In his paintings, he paid a lot of attention to fruits, and at the age of 23 (this is the age at which this picture was painted), he plucked up the courage and challenged all foundations, and painted only fruits in a basket. No one had done this before. These are some interesting facts about artists.

Dali worked with Hitchcock

Hitchcock asked the artist to help stage the main character's dream scene. Dali was famous for his surrealist paintings, which were essentially dreams on canvas. Dali offered Hitchcock a long and intricate scene, with clever references - but the director left only a few minutes. In fact, you can watch this scene for yourself:

In fact, Dali staged the dream scene in another Hollywood film called "Father of the Bride".

Van Gogh ate yellow paint

"Wheat Field with Crows"

Of course, he did not eat oil paint, but sometimes, when the artist felt sadness and melancholy, he ate paint of his favorite color - yellow. This color can be seen most often and most in Van Gogh's paintings. It is worth noting that yellow is a favorite color among people with schizophrenia.

Even those masterpieces of painting that seem familiar to us have their secrets.

Recently, a strange and unusual discovery was made in art history - an American student deciphered the musical notation depicted on the buttocks of a sinner from a painting by Bosch. The resulting tune has become one of the Internet sensations of recent times.

We believe that in almost every significant work of art there is a mystery, a “double bottom” or a secret story that you want to uncover. Today we will share a few of them.

Music on the buttocks

Hieronymus Bosch, "The Garden of Earthly Delights", 1500-1510.

Fragment of the right side of the triptych.

Disputes about the meanings and hidden meanings of the most famous work of the Dutch artist have not subsided since its appearance. The right wing of the triptych entitled “Musical Hell” depicts sinners who are tortured in the underworld with the help of musical instruments. One of them has music notes stamped on his buttocks. Oklahoma Christian University student Amelia Hamrick, who studied the painting, translated the 16th-century notation into a modern twist and recorded “a 500-year-old butt song from hell.”

Nude Mona Lisa

The famous “La Gioconda” exists in two versions: the nude version is called “Monna Vanna”, it was painted by the little-known artist Salai, who was a student and sitter of the great Leonardo da Vinci. Many art historians are sure that it was he who was the model for Leonardo’s paintings “John the Baptist” and “Bacchus”. There are also versions that Salai, dressed in a woman’s dress, served as the image of the Mona Lisa herself.

Old Fisherman

In 1902, the Hungarian artist Tivadar Kostka Csontvary painted the painting “The Old Fisherman”. It would seem that there is nothing unusual in the picture, but Tivadar put into it a subtext that was never revealed during the artist’s lifetime.

Few people thought of placing a mirror in the middle of the picture. In each person there can be both God (the Old Man's right shoulder is duplicated) and the Devil (the Old Man's left shoulder is duplicated).

Doubles at the Last Supper

Leonardo da Vinci, "The Last Supper", 1495-1498.

When Leonardo da Vinci wrote The Last Supper, he attached particular importance to two figures: Christ and Judas. He spent a very long time looking for models for them. Finally, he managed to find a model for the image of Christ among the young singers. Leonardo was unable to find a model for Judas for three years. But one day he came across a drunkard on the street who was lying in a gutter. He was a young man who had been aged by heavy drinking. Leonardo invited him to a tavern, where he immediately began to paint Judas from him. When the drunkard came to his senses, he told the artist that he had already posed for him once. It was several years ago, when he sang in the church choir, Leonardo painted Christ from him.

The innocent history of "Gothic"

Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930.

Grant Wood's work is considered one of the most strange and depressing in the history of American painting. The picture with the gloomy father and daughter is filled with details that indicate the severity, puritanism and retrograde nature of the people depicted. In fact, the artist did not intend to depict any horrors: during a trip to Iowa, he noticed a small house in the Gothic style and decided to depict those people who, in his opinion, would be ideal as inhabitants. Grant's sister and his dentist are immortalized as the characters Iowans were so offended by.

"Night Watch" or "Day Watch"?

Rembrandt, "Night Watch", 1642.

One of Rembrandt’s most famous paintings, “The Performance of the Rifle Company of Captain Frans Banning Cock and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburg,” hung in different rooms for about two hundred years and was discovered by art historians only in the 19th century. Since the figures seemed to appear against a dark background, it was called “Night Watch,” and under this name it entered the treasury of world art. And only during the restoration carried out in 1947, it was discovered that in the hall the painting had managed to become covered with a layer of soot, which distorted its color. After clearing the original painting, it was finally revealed that the scene represented by Rembrandt actually takes place during the day. The position of the shadow from Captain Kok's left hand shows that the duration of action is no more than 14 hours.

overturned boat

Henri Matisse, "The Boat", 1937.

Henri Matisse's painting "The Boat" was exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1961. Only after 47 days did someone notice that the painting was hanging upside down. The canvas depicts 10 purple lines and two blue sails on a white background. The artist painted two sails for a reason; the second sail is a reflection of the first on the surface of the water. In order not to make a mistake in how the picture should hang, you need to pay attention to the details. The larger sail should be the top of the painting, and the peak of the painting's sail should be toward the top right corner.

Deception in self-portrait

Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait with a Pipe, 1889.

There are legends that Van Gogh allegedly cut off his own ear. Now the most reliable version is that van Gogh damaged his ear in a small brawl involving another artist, Paul Gauguin. The self-portrait is interesting because it reflects reality in a distorted form: the artist is depicted with his right ear bandaged because he used a mirror when working. In fact, it was the left ear that was affected.

Two "Breakfasts on the Grass"

Edouard Manet, Luncheon on the Grass, 1863.

Claude Monet, Luncheon on the Grass, 1865.

The artists Edouard Manet and Claude Monet are sometimes confused - after all, they were both French, lived at the same time and worked in the style of impressionism. Monet even borrowed the title of one of Manet’s most famous paintings, “Luncheon on the Grass,” and wrote his own “Luncheon on the Grass.”

Alien bears

Ivan Shishkin, “Morning in the Pine Forest”, 1889.

The famous painting belongs not only to Shishkin. Many artists who were friends with each other often resorted to “the help of a friend,” and Ivan Ivanovich, who painted landscapes all his life, was afraid that his touching bears would not turn out the way he wanted. Therefore, Shishkin turned to his friend, the animal artist 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 “from the concept to the execution, everything speaks of the manner of painting, of the creative method peculiar to Shishkin.”

In 1961, Matisse's "Boat" collage hung upside down for 2 months at the Museum of Modern Art in New York without any of the 116,000 visitors noticing.

In 1912, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa 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 the age when he could not yet 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, 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 Visbal and installed in 2017.

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

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

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

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

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

Rodin died of pneumonia in 1917 after the French government refused him financial assistance with housing but kept his statues in museums.

Vincent van Gogh committed suicide after completing the painting "Wheatfield with Crows."

In his youth, Pablo Picasso lived poorly and used to warm himself by burning his own paintings.

Despite being nominated for an Oscar in 2011, named Person 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 has no eyebrows. This was the fashion during the Renaissance.

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

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

The famous humanoid Halloween pumpkins were created by Ray Villafane, who has been called the Picasso of pumpkin carving.

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

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

New Jersey has a spoon museum with more than 5,400 items from every state and nearly every country.

Andy Warhol created the Rolling Stone logo, which depicts a large tongue. He first appeared on the cover of the album "Sticky Fingers".

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.

Each of Dali's works contains either a portrait of him or a silhouette.

The idea for a soft watch came to Dali while he was watching Camembert cheese melt in the sun.

Edgar Degas was so fascinated by ballet dancers that he created more than 1,500 works with their participation.

The theme of all the artist’s works Marcel Duchamp it was everyday life. His most famous work is called “Fountain”, and is nothing more than the erupting urine of the artist himself.

The work of Henri Matisse, “The Boat”, within 46 days hung upside down , on display in New York before anyone noticed. The picture was appreciated by 1,600 visitors.

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

Jackson Pollock often painted his paintings with cigarettes.

Work of the artist Auguste Rodin, "Bronze Age", was so realistic that people thought there was a living person inside the sculpture.

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

Vermeer used a 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, La Gioconda, a work by Leonardo da Vinci, was stolen. During the 3 years that 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, La Gioconda was valued at $100 million, and in 2009 at $700 million.

Most artists and performers are left-handed.

Pablo Picasso is considered to be the most famous artist in the world.

Raphael is known mainly for his large number of paintings of Madonnas. But at the same time, according to the historian Giorgio Vasari , the artist was an atheist. It is also known that all these paintings depict the same woman.

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

Andy Warhol wore a gray wig and eventually dyed his hair gray. After being told that he had blurred vision, he I started wearing opaque glasses with a tiny hole so I could see.

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

"Pieta" is the only work by Michelangelo that he signed. He was also a poet, with over 300 of his poems still available.

Michelangelo became the first Western artist whose biography was published during his lifetime.

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

Paul Gauguin was a laborer on the Panama Canal.

Paul Cezanne's first solo exhibition 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 never stopped working. even in old age, suffering from various forms of arthritis, he painted with a brush tied to his sleeve.

Salvador Dali created the Chupa Chups logo.

Claude Monet spent most of his time drawing caricatures, mainly of his teachers.

Salvador Dali's nickname was " Avida Dollars ", which translated means "passionately loves dollars."

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

Picasso's full name consists of 23 words: Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Martir Patricio Clito Ruiz y Picasso.

Picasso's first word was "pencil".

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

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 already 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 critics, Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” is the greatest work of world art. In The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown focuses readers' attention on some of the symbolic elements of this painting in the moments when Sophie Neveu, while in Lee Teabing's house, learns that Leonardo may have encrypted some great secret in his masterpiece.
“The Last Supper” is a fresco painted on the wall of the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan. Even in the era of Leonardo himself, it 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 written evidence of those years, it began to deteriorate. It measures 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 in red, in a manner anticipating the usual use of cardboard. This is a kind of preparation 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 “The Divine Proportion”. It was this moment - when Christ announces betrayal - that Leonardo da Vinci captured. To achieve accuracy and lifelikeness, he studied the poses and facial expressions of many of his contemporaries, whom he later depicted in the painting. The identities of the apostles have repeatedly been the subject of controversy, however, judging by the inscriptions on a copy of the painting kept 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 Zelotes.
Many art historians believe that this composition should be perceived 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 view the painting is from a height of approximately 13-15 feet above the floor and at a distance of 26-33 feet from it. There is an opinion - now disputed - that composition and its system of perspective are based on the musical canon of proportion.
What gives The Last Supper its unique character is that, unlike other paintings of its kind, it shows the amazing variety and richness of the characters’ emotions caused by Jesus’ words that one of his disciples would betray him. No other painting of the Last Supper can even come close to the unique composition and attention to detail in Leonardo's masterpiece.
So what secrets could the great artist encrypt in his creation? In The Discovery of the Templars, Clive Prince and Lynn Picknett argue that several elements of the structure of the Last Supper indicate symbols encrypted in it.
Firstly, they believe that the figure on the right hand of Jesus (for the viewer it is on the left) is not John, but a certain woman. She is wearing a robe, the color of which contrasts with the clothes of Christ, and she is tilted in the opposite direction from Jesus, who is sitting in the center. The space between this female figure and Jesus is shaped like a V, and the figures themselves form an M.
Secondly, in the picture, in their opinion, next to Peter a certain hand is visible, clutching a knife. Prince and Picknett claim that this hand does not belong to any of the characters in the film.
Thirdly, sitting directly to the left of Jesus (to the right for the audience), Thomas, addressing 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.

Zloty section" Leonardo da Vinci

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

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

While pondering 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: “The one who drank and put the cup in its place turns his head to the speaker, the other connects the fingers of both hands and with frowning eyebrows 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 to which each was called occupy in the overall composition. Refining poses and gestures in his drawings, he looked for forms of expression that would draw all the figures into 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 their own way.

“The Last Supper” is Leonardo’s most mature and complete work.
There are several legends telling 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 his work in the middle and resumed it only after he had found the ideal models.

Once, when the artist was present at a choir performance, he saw a perfect image of Christ in one of the young singers and, inviting him to his workshop, made several sketches and studies from him.
Three years have passed. The Last Supper was almost completed, but Leonardo had not yet found a suitable model for Judas. The cardinal in charge of painting the cathedral was hurrying him, demanding that the fresco be completed as soon as possible.
And after many days of searching, the artist saw a man lying in a 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 didn’t really understand what was happening, but Leonardo captured on canvas the sinfulness, selfishness, and wickedness that his face breathed.
When he 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 fear and anguish:
- I've already seen this picture before!
- When? - Leonardo asked 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 Leonardo’s slowness, the prior of the monastery persistently demanded that he finish his work as soon as possible. “It seemed strange to him to see Leonardo standing immersed in thought for the whole half of the day. He wanted the artist to never let go of his brushes, just as he never stops working in the garden. Not limiting himself 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 manner 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 topics, Leonardo then pointed out to him that he was close to finishing the painting and that he only had two heads left to paint - Christ and the traitor Judas. “He would still 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 same prior, so intrusive and immodest. This remark greatly amused the Duke, who told him that he was right a thousand times. Thus, the poor embarrassed prior continued to push on with the work in the garden and left Leonardo alone, who completed 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. This paint was used to write the initial letters of texts and to draw small illustrations in ancient and medieval books.

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

4 Researchers, having studied dozens of paintings by great artists written from 1000 to 1800, came to the conclusion that during this period the amount of food depicted increased by 69%.

This conclusion was made by scientists who analyzed the dynamics of changes in portions of food depicted in the paintings of various masters...

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 in the paintings 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 food portions. The size of the heads of Christ's disciples was taken as a constant indicator on the basis of which the comparison was made.

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

Modern man gets fat not only because he eats more. Most modern foods are high in calories and have little 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 leavening agents that are rich in current products. Therefore, the load on these organs increases and metabolism is disrupted.

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

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

Two brother professors - a specialist in nutritional psychology and theologian - Brian and Craig Wansink together analyzed the amount of food depicted in 52 of the most famous paintings of 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 bread personifies the body of the Lord, and wine his blood.

Scientists have examined paintings created in the last thousand years. She measured the size of the food depicted and correlated them with the average size of the apostle’s head in each painting in order to obtain a certain specific value that did not depend on the size of the canvas. A curious thing emerged: the size of portions, the size of plates and the size of pieces of bread have been constantly increasing since the 11th century to the present day. Thus, the size of the main course increased by 69%, the size of the plates by 66%, and the size of the bread by 23%.

Analysis of the paintings revealed a number of other interesting points. In the Middle Ages, the apostles were portrayed as ascetics. However, the meals appearing in paintings before 1498 (the year in which the world's most famous Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci, was painted) were quite large. The 16th century Mannerist artist Jacopo Tintoretto turned out to be the most “generous” with food: in his painting 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 of the scientific work, the paintings are only a reflection of “the impressive sociohistorical growth of production, accessibility, 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 “The Battle of Negroes in a Cave in the Dead of Night” - an all-black rectangular canvas - at the Vivienne Gallery.

“Black Square” was first painted not by Malevich, but by the French poet Bilot, 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 nègres dans un tunnel” (“Battle of Negroes in a Tunnel”). True, it was not a square, but a rectangle.

The French journalist, writer and eccentric humorist Alphonse Allais liked the idea so much that he developed it further 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 Allais put out a pristine white sheet of Bristol paper entitled “The First Communion of Girls Suffering from Chlorosis in the Snowy Season.”

. Six months later, Alphonse Allais's next painting 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 monochrome painting without the slightest sign of an image (1894). Finally, in 1897, Allais published a book of 7 paintings, Album primo-avrilesque (April Fool's Album).

Thus, twenty years before the Suprematist revelations of Kazimir Malevich, the venerable artist Alphonse Allais became the “unknown author” of the first abstract paintings. Alphonse Allais also became famous for the fact that almost seventy years later 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, while exhibiting his stunningly innovative works, he did not at all try to look like a significant philosopher or a serious pioneer.

6 Abstract artist Henri Matisse's painting "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 is depicted sailing and its reflection in the water surface)) And you need to look at it by turning it 90 degrees
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In my opinion, a wonderful illustration of the true “value” of such art.

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

8 Vincent Van Gogh sold only 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 shine of his stars and sunflowers. A hungry, almost beggarly existence, full of loneliness and contempt of others, has already turned into worldwide excitement and interest in the 20th century. During his life, Van Gogh sold only one painting (“Red Vineyards at Arles”), and exactly one hundred years later at Christie’s auction in New York, his “Portrait of Doctor 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 path on earth with despair and suicide. Van Gogh lived only 37 years, of which only the last seven were devoted to painting. However, his creative legacy is amazing. This is about a thousand drawings and almost the same number of paintings, created as a result of volcanic creative eruptions, when for many weeks Van Gogh painted one or two paintings every day. 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 a stunning dialogue full of love and suffering - 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, awarding the artist a gold medal.

Aivazovsky’s “Italian” paintings, presented at exhibitions in Naples and Rome, brought recognition and success to the painter. Critics wrote that no one had ever depicted light, air and water so vividly and authentically. The English artist Joseph Mallord William Turner, who visited one of the exhibitions at which 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 was wrong,
Taking your picture for reality.
But your work fascinated me
And delight took possession of me.
Your art is high and monumental,
Because you are inspired by genius.

World creation. Chaos. 1841

The largest work created by the master in Italy is “The Creation of the World. Chaos" (1841, Museum of the Armenian Mekhitarist 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 interrelation of two primordial elements - sky and water, which are illuminated by divine light, 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 fell over the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters” was highly appreciated by Pope Gregory XVI.

Thank you..

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