Secrets of old paintings at Tretyakov Gallery. Secrets and mysteries of famous paintings Mysteries of Leonardo da Vinci: mirror hoaxes of a genius

The artist sees the world in his own way. Driven by divine providence, he offers the viewer illusionary paintings full of desire to show the obvious. Optical deception or, scientifically speaking, optical illusion is a ubiquitous phenomenon and can be observed endlessly, perceiving the world around us and even ordinary objects.

The ephemerality is especially evident when it comes to the art and works of great masters of the brush, their mysterious canvases, which are worth racking your brains over...

Mysteries of Leonardo da Vinci: mirror hoaxes of a genius

According to researchers, they were able to comprehend the message of the greatest artist with the help of mirrors. Sacred images are what the genius wanted to show the world. One of the most famous paintings of the great hoaxer clearly hints at the presence of the Old Testament Yahweh. The young John the Baptist depicted in the sketch is not looking at Mary or Saint Anne. His gaze passes over the newborn Jesus. He is looking at the face of God! It was his bizarre image that attracted the boy's attention.

The idea of ​​​​creating paintings, the image of which appears under certain conditions, belongs to Leonardo da Vinci. This kind of art is called anamorphic. His Mona Lisa hides an amazing face. It can be seen in the area of ​​​​the right hand of Mona Lisa, the “Last Supper” hides the inverted Grail, and John the Baptist keeps the image of a fantastic creature, hinting at the process of creation. One of the first anamorphic drawings was an image of a child's head, which can only be viewed from a certain angle.

Anamorphic paintings by Istvan Orosz

"The Mysterious Island" - the most famous anamorph of Istvan Oros

The enchanting mystery paintings of the Hungarian graphic artist are based on the laws of physics, so in order to strengthen their perception you will have to study at least a school course. The creator's imagination literally knows no bounds.

The magician hides the most incredible things and phenomena in his paintings, forcing the viewer not only to admire what he saw, but also to think. To obtain an anamorphic image, Oros uses cylindrical, pyramidal or cone-shaped mirror objects. It is enough to put them in the right place and the correct image appears in an obvious light.

3D illusions by Alessandro Diddi

Looking at them, I want to understand how he manages, using only paper and pencil, to create miracles that deceive the human brain.

Diddy has the talent to breathe the spark of God into every drawing. His characters are so real that they even frighten with their presence. He explains his secret simply, suggesting that we try to understand anamorphic art. Next is a matter of technology.

Graphics by Maurits Cornelis Escher

He became famous for his special worldview and ability to juggle with the ordinary laws of the logic of space. Escher's phantasmagoric paintings are called graphic illustrations of the theory of relativity. This type of illusory images aims to achieve a stereo effect. Samples of such pictures are created using special cameras (invention of Ivan Aleksandrovsky, 1854).

The graphics are based on double rendering of the scene (shooting from two cameras). You can see these bizarre sketches only if you know special techniques.

Even those masterpieces of painting that seem familiar to us have their secrets. By and large, almost every significant work of art has a mystery, a “double bottom” or a secret story that you want to reveal.

Salvador Dali's Revenge

The painting “Figure at a Window” was painted in 1925, when Dali was 21 years old. At that time, Gala had not yet entered the artist’s life, and his muse was his sister Ana Maria. The relationship between brother and sister deteriorated when he wrote in one of the paintings “sometimes I spit on the portrait of my own mother, and this gives me pleasure.” Ana Maria could not forgive such shocking behavior. In her 1949 book, Salvador Dali Through the Eyes of a Sister, she writes about her brother without any praise. The book infuriated Salvador. For another ten years after that, he angrily remembered her at every opportunity. And so, in 1954, the painting “A Young Virgin Indulging in the Sin of Sodomy with the Help of the Horns of Her Own Chastity” appeared.

The woman’s pose, her curls, the landscape outside the window and the color scheme of the painting clearly echo “Figure at the Window.” There is a version that Dali took revenge on his sister for her book.

Two-faced Danae

Many secrets of one of Rembrandt's most famous paintings were revealed only in the 60s of the twentieth century, when the canvas was illuminated with X-rays. For example, the shooting showed that in an early version the face of the princess, who entered into a love affair with Zeus, was similar to the face of Saskia, the painter’s wife, who died in 1642. In the final version of the painting, it began to resemble the face of Gertje Dirks, Rembrandt’s mistress, with whom the artist lived after the death of his wife.

Van Gogh's yellow bedroom

In May 1888, Van Gogh acquired a small studio in Arles, in the south of France, where he fled from Parisian artists and critics who did not understand him. In one of the four rooms, Vincent sets up a bedroom. In October everything is ready, and he decides to paint Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles. For the artist, the color and comfort of the room were very important: everything had to evoke thoughts of relaxation. At the same time, the picture is designed in alarming yellow tones. Researchers of Van Gogh's work explain this by the fact that the artist took foxglove, a remedy for epilepsy, which causes serious changes in the patient's perception of color: the entire surrounding reality is painted in green and yellow tones.

Toothless perfection

The generally accepted opinion is that the Mona Lisa is perfection and her smile is beautiful in its mystery. However, American art critic (and part-time dentist) Joseph Borkowski believes that, judging by her facial expression, the heroine has lost many teeth. While studying enlarged photographs of the masterpiece, Borkowski also discovered scars around her mouth. “She “smiles” like that precisely because of what happened to her,” the expert believes. “The expression on her face is typical for people who have lost their front teeth.”

Major on face control

The public, who first saw the film “Major's Matchmaking,” laughed heartily: Fedotov filled it with ironic details that were understandable to the audience of that time. For example, the major is clearly not familiar with the rules of noble etiquette: he showed up without the required bouquets for the bride and her mother. And her merchant parents dressed the bride herself in an evening ball gown, although it was daytime (all the lamps in the room were extinguished). The girl obviously tried on a low-cut dress for the first time, is embarrassed and tries to run away to her room.

Why is Liberty naked?

According to art critic Etienne Julie, Delacroix based the woman's face on the famous Parisian revolutionary - the laundress Anne-Charlotte, who went to the barricades after the death of her brother at the hands of royal soldiers and killed nine guardsmen. The artist depicted her with her breasts bare. According to his plan, this is a symbol of fearlessness and selflessness, as well as the triumph of democracy: the naked breast shows that Liberty, as a commoner, does not wear a corset.

Non-square square

In fact, “Black Square” is not black at all and not square at all: none of the sides of the quadrangle are parallel to any of its other sides, and to none of the sides of the square frame that frames the picture. And the dark color is the result of mixing various colors, among which there was no black. It is believed that this was not the author’s negligence, but a principled position, the desire to create a dynamic, moving form.

Melodrama of the Austrian Mona Lisa

One of Klimt's most significant paintings depicts the wife of the Austrian sugar magnate Ferdinad Bloch-Bauer. All of Vienna was discussing the stormy romance between Adele and the famous artist. The wounded husband wanted to take revenge on his lovers, but chose a very unusual method: he decided to order Klimt a portrait of Adele and force him to make hundreds of sketches until the artist began to vomit from her. Bloch-Bauer wanted the work to last several years, so that the sitter could see how Klimt's feelings were fading. He made a generous offer to the artist, which he could not refuse, and everything turned out according to the scenario of the deceived husband: the work was completed in 4 years, the lovers had long since cooled off to each other. Adele Bloch-Bauer never knew that her husband was aware of her relationship with Klimt.

The painting that brought Gauguin back to life

Gauguin's most famous painting has one peculiarity: it is “read” not from left to right, but from right to left, like the Kabbalistic texts in which the artist was interested. It is in this order that the allegory of human spiritual and physical life unfolds: from the birth of the soul (a sleeping child in the lower right corner) to the inevitability of the hour of death (a bird with a lizard in its claws in the lower left corner). The painting was painted by Gauguin in Tahiti, where the artist escaped from civilization several times. But this time life on the island did not work out: total poverty led him to depression. Having finished the canvas, which was to become his spiritual testament, Gauguin took a box of arsenic and went to the mountains to die. However, he did not calculate the dose, and the suicide failed. The next morning, he swayed to his hut and fell asleep, and when he woke up, he felt a forgotten thirst for life. And in 1898, his business began to improve, and a brighter period began in his work.

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).

To an exhibition of paintings by Aivazovsky. But now here, in Tretyakov Gallery, in the Engineering Building, a unique exhibition is being held Secrets of old paintings. When you look at the back of the painting and find out that on the other side of the canvas, it turns out, there are also interesting mysteries. When else will they show you what is hidden under the main layer of the painting in X-ray radiation? When else will you see sketches of famous paintings in which the subjects and faces can be completely different?

Let's start with the most famous painting by Vasily Pukirev "Unequal Marriage". Pay attention to the young man with a beard who stands behind the bride. This is Vasily Pukirev himself and it was believed that this is the story of his unhappy love, when his bride was forced to marry Alexei Markovich Poltoratsky, who was the leader of the Tver nobility.

But...Let's look at the sketch of the painting and what do we see? Did you notice? Behind the bride is a similar, but slightly different person.

02.

This is Pukirev’s friend Sergei Mikhailovich Varentsov. He was in love with Sofya Nikolaevna Rybnikova, who was given in marriage to Andrei Aleksandrovich Karzinkin. And Varentsov was present at this wedding

03.

04. But what else do we see when analyzing the picture and history? It turns out that Andrei Karzinkin from the second version was only 37 years old at the time of the wedding, while Alexey Poltoratsky was quite an old man, which we see in the sketch “Head of an Old Man”, which was written for the painting. Although there are versions that the head was copied from Prince Pavel Tsitsianov or from the cook Vladimir Ivanovich, who served with the Varentsovs

05. And here, many years later, in 1907, a joker appears - a pencil drawing by V.D. Sukhov. And on it is the inscription: “Praskovya Matveevna Varentsova, with whom 44 years ago the artist V.V. Pukirev painted his famous painting “Unequal Marriage.” Mrs. Varentsova lives in Moscow, in the Mazurin almshouse.” So the mystery of the painting was solved

Go ahead. Here is Isaac Brodsky's painting "Park Alley", painted in 1930. It would seem that what is unusual about this? A park with Soviet people walking. But the researchers paid attention to trees whose crown was not very typical for Soviet parks

06.

The same painting by Brodsky from the Italian cycle “Park Alley in Rome”, written in 1911, was known. She was considered lost. And so the researchers decided to illuminate the painting “Park Alley” with X-rays. And what did they see? They saw the same painting “Park Alley in Rome” that was considered missing. Imagine 1930. The flywheel of repression begins to unwind. And a picture. praising bourgeois Italy could bring big problems to the artist. And Brodsky, slightly changing the figures of people, turns an Italian park into a Soviet park. But, thanks to X-rays and the tireless researchers of the Tretyakov Gallery, we can see the painting “Park Alley in Rome”. You can compare

07.

08. “Portrait of an unknown person in a cocked hat” by Fyodor Stepanovich Rokotov. It would seem, what is unusual about it? Well, the face looks like a woman's. But there seems to be nothing more. It was believed that this was a portrait of Count Bobrinsky.

09. But no. X-ray revealed to us a woman’s face, presumably the wife of the landowner Struisky, Olimpiada Sergeevna Balbekova. She died at the age of 20

10. “Portrait of Elizaveta Petrovna in her youth” by an unknown artist also seems to be a classic portrait of the mid-18th century. This is a copy of the painting by the court painter L. Caravaque "Portrait of Tsarevna Elizaveta Petrovna in a man's suit"

11. But looking at the reverse side of the picture, we see a mirror portrait of Elizabeth with the inscription “Her Imperial Highness the Crown Princess of Gdrnia in Her Young Late Late, which was after the Most Serene Empress of Gdrnia Elisavet Petrovna.” It is interesting that the portrait was painted on the thinnest canvas. This is the only job like this in the world

12.

13. A funny story is connected with the painting “The Nun” by Ilya Repin. This is Sofia Repina, who married the artist’s brother. But why is she depicted as a nun?

14. The fact is that, according to the recollections of the artist’s niece L.A. Shevtsova-Spore, Repin and Sophia quarreled, and the artist freaked out. Well, a creative person happens. I took it and remade the light portrait of Sophia in a lace dress into a monastic one.

I guess I’ll stop here and won’t reveal the secrets of the other old paintings anymore. There must be a mystery for you. And, believe me, there are still a lot of secrets of various famous paintings that can be unraveled. So go, run urgently to this unique exhibition. It runs until August 21st. You still have time to catch it.

Thank you Grushenka , catherine_catty , lotta20 , balakina_ann , julia_lambert , da_dmitriy , nastyono4ka , bulyukina_e ,

When we enter a museum and look at the masterpieces of great artists, we cannot always determine that what we are looking at is a mystery painting. But some masters of painting were lovers of symbolism and allegory, which was reflected in their works. The mystery of great paintings could lie both in the subject itself and under the layer of paint. We bring to your attention just a few works of art in which riddles are encrypted.

Painting by Hendrik van Antonissen “View of the Sands of Scheveningen”

Leonardo da Vinci's painting "The Last Supper"

Painting by Vincent Van Gogh “Cafe Terrace at Night”

John Sargent's painting "Portrait of Madame X"

Michelangelo's fresco "The Creation of Adam"

Painting by Domenico Ghirlandaio “Madonna with Saint Giovannino”

Painting by Jan van Eyck “Portrait of the Arnolfini couple”

Picasso's painting "The Old Guitarist"

Leonardo da Vinci's painting "Mona Lisa"

Millions of people admire the works of famous artists of the past. Their amazing colors, the play of shadow and light, the skill with which the smallest details are so carefully painted. But are we looking at paintings carefully enough? Do we see everything that the artist wanted to show us? At first glance, it only seems that these are just landscapes, portraits, historical and biblical subjects. They may contain the most amazing secrets of history, the secrets of their creators, and under the layer of paint of one painting, a completely different one may be hidden. Only careful study and analysis carried out by experts can lift the veil of these secrets for us, but sometimes even they cannot do this, and the mysteries of famous paintings remain unsolved for future generations.

Even those masterpieces of painting that seem familiar to us and studied almost millimeter by millimeter have their secrets. Almost every significant work of art has a mystery, a “double bottom” or a secret story that you want to uncover. Today we will share a few of them.

Bruegel's proverbs

The painting "Flemish Proverbs" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder can be called one of the largest and most fascinating puzzles. The artist depicted a land literally inhabited by Dutch proverbs!

About 112 idioms are recognized in the picture, some of them are known to you and me. Try searching for: “armed to the teeth,” “swimming against the tide,” or “banging your head against the wall.” Perhaps you can solve the rest? For example, those who talk about human stupidity or, conversely, about foresight?

Music of sin?

Hieronymus Bosch, "The Garden of Earthly Delights", 1500-1510. This painting has caused a lot of controversy since its birth, which continues 500 years later. One of the topics for research was the right side of the triptych, called “Musical Hell,” which depicts the torment of sinners in hell who are tortured using musical instruments. The researchers' attention was drawn to the notes written by the artist on... the buttocks of one of the sinners. The notes were rearranged in a modern way and... a melody from the underworld began to sound, which became a sensation.

And this is what the music sounds like, played according to the notes from the picture:

Two muses of one artist?

One of Rembrandt’s most famous paintings, “Danae,” received the nickname “two-faced.” X-ray photography showed that Danae’s face was painted twice: the first time it was an image similar to Saskia, the painter’s deceased wife, and the second, later one, resembles the face of his other lover, Gertje Dirks, who became the artist’s girlfriend after Saskia’s death.

Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn, "Danae", 1636 - 1647.

Dali's Revenge

The painting “Figure at a Window” was painted in 1925, when Dali was 21 years old. At that time, Gala had not yet entered the artist’s life, and his muse was his sister Anna Maria. The relationship between brother and sister deteriorated when he wrote in one of the paintings “sometimes I spit on the portrait of my own mother, and this gives me pleasure.” Anna Maria could not forgive such shocking behavior.

In her 1949 book, Salvador Dali Through the Eyes of a Sister, she writes about her brother without any praise. The book infuriated Salvador. For another ten years after that, he angrily remembered her at every opportunity. And so, in 1954, the painting “A Young Virgin Indulging in the Sin of Sodomy with the Help of the Horns of Her Own Chastity” appeared. The woman’s pose, her curls, the landscape outside the window and the color scheme of the painting clearly echo “Figure at the Window.” There is a version that Dali took revenge on his sister for her book.

Two sides of every person

Old Fisherman, Tivadar Kostka Chontvari, 1902. An old tired fisherman is a portrait of an ordinary person, like all of us and nothing more. What's the mystery here? No one could understand it during the artist’s lifetime. And its essence is that in each of us there lives an Angel and a Demon, in the soul of each there is God and there is a Devil. Place a mirror in the middle of the picture and you will see that in every person there can be both God and the Devil.

Austrian Mona Lisa

One of Klimt's most significant paintings depicts the wife of the Austrian sugar magnate Ferdinad Bloch-Bauer. All of Vienna was discussing the stormy romance between Adele and the famous artist. The wounded husband wanted to take revenge on his lovers, but chose a very unusual method: he decided to order Klimt a portrait of Adele and force him to make hundreds of sketches until the artist began to vomit from her.

Gustav Klimt, "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer", 1907.

Bloch-Bauer wanted the work to last several years, so that the sitter could see how Klimt's feelings were fading. He made a generous offer to the artist, which he could not refuse, and everything turned out according to the scenario of the deceived husband: the work was completed in 4 years, the lovers had long since cooled off to each other. Adele Bloch-Bauer never knew that her husband was aware of her relationship with Klimt.

Mysteries of the Last Supper

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

Leonardo da Vinci fresco "The Last Supper" 1495-1498. Over more than 5 centuries of existence, the famous fresco was destroyed and restored more than once (the last restoration lasted 21 years!). Many looked for secrets in it and found them - where did the “extra” hand with a knife come from? From whom did Leonardo paint Jesus and Judas?

Technologist Slavisa Pesci achieved the visual effect by superimposing its own translucent mirror reflection on top of the original, which revealed two additional figures at the edges of the picture and a woman standing to the left of Jesus with a baby.

Musician Giovanni Maria Pala interpreted the bread and hands on the table as a musical notation of a musical composition.

Researcher Sabrina Sforza Galitzia believes she has solved the puzzle contained in The Last Supper, which predicts a global flood that will begin on March 21, 4006 and mark the beginning of a new era for humanity.

Van Gogh's yellow bedroom

Vincent van Gogh, "Bedroom in Arles", 1888 - 1889.

In May 1888, Van Gogh acquired a small studio in Arles, in the south of France, where he fled from Parisian artists and critics who did not understand him. In one of the four rooms, Vincent sets up a bedroom. In October, everything is ready, and he decides to paint “Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles.” For the artist, the color and comfort of the room were very important: everything had to evoke thoughts of relaxation. At the same time, the picture is designed in alarming yellow tones.

Researchers of Van Gogh's work explain this by the fact that the artist took foxglove, a remedy for epilepsy, which causes serious changes in the patient's perception of color: the entire surrounding reality is painted in green and yellow tones.

Deceptions in painting

Sometimes the search for secrets in the paintings of famous artists reveals deception, voluntary or involuntary. This happened with Rembrandt's painting "The Night Watch" (1642). In fact, it was a day watch! It’s just that over the course of a couple of hundred years, during which the painting wandered through different halls until it fell into the hands of art critics, it managed to become covered with a thick layer of soot that darkened the entire background. After thoroughly cleaning the surface, details were discovered that confirmed the “day version” - the shadow from the captain’s hand falls in such a way that it can be assumed that the painting depicts a patrol that took to the city streets no later than 2 o’clock in the afternoon.

Rembrandt, "Night Watch", 1642.

Vincent van Gogh misled everyone with his Self-Portrait with a Pipe, in which he depicted himself with a bandaged ear. The ear was indeed damaged, but not the right one, but the left one. The deception is obvious and, most likely, accidental - he simply painted himself while looking in the mirror.

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

And one more deception that we all know from childhood from candy wrappers. The famous "Morning in the Pine Forest" (1889) by Ivan Shishkin, the greatest master of landscape. The artist, who painted landscapes beautifully, was afraid that his bears would not come out “alive” and truly touching. Therefore, he resorted to the help of another master animal artist, Konstantin Savitsky, who knew how to draw bears like no one else. Initially, the names of both authors were on the canvas, but... Tretyakov ordered the name of the animal painter to be washed off.

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

Secrets of Gioconda

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.

The generally accepted opinion is that the Mona Lisa is perfection and her smile is beautiful in its mystery. However, American art critic (and part-time dentist) Joseph Borkowski believes that, judging by her facial expression, the heroine has lost many teeth. While studying enlarged photographs of the masterpiece, Borkowski also discovered scars around her mouth. “She “smiles” like that precisely because of what happened to her,” the expert believes. “Her facial expression is typical of people who have lost their front teeth.”

Overturned boat

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.

Henri Matisse, "The Boat", 1937.

Two "Breakfasts on the Grass"

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.”

Edouard Manet, Luncheon on the Grass, 1863.

Claude Monet, Luncheon on the Grass, 1865.

How many more secrets, secret codes and messages, erroneous interpretations and deceptions are hidden in the paintings of great artists? Who knows, maybe they will be revealed literally tomorrow, or maybe only by the next generation of researchers.