Italian scientists say they have found remains that may belong to Lisa del Giocondo. Perhaps the secret of the Mona Lisa will be revealed. In honor of this, let's remember the most mysterious paintings in history.
1. Gioconda
The first thing that comes to mind when it comes to mysterious paintings, or about mystery paintings - this is the “Mona Lisa”, painted by Leonardo da Vinci in 1503-1505. Gruye wrote that this picture can drive anyone crazy who, having looked at it enough, begins to talk about it.
There are many “mysteries” in this work of da Vinci. Art critics write dissertations on the tilt of Mona Lisa's hand, medical specialists make diagnoses (from the fact that Mona Lisa has no front teeth to the fact that Mona Lisa is a man). There is even a version that Gioconda is a self-portrait of the artist.
By the way, the painting gained particular popularity only in 1911, when it was stolen by the Italian Vincenzo Peruggio. They found him using his fingerprint. So “Mona Lisa” also became the first success of fingerprinting, and a huge success in marketing the art market.
2. Black square
Everyone knows that the “Black Square” is not actually black, nor is it a square. It's really not a square. In the catalog for the exhibition, it was stated by Malevich as a “quadrangle”. And really not black. The artist did not use black paint.
It is less known that Malevich considered “Black Square” his best work. When the artist was buried, “Black Square” (1923) stood at the head of the coffin, Malevich’s body was covered with a white canvas with a sewn square, a black square was also painted on the lid of the coffin. Even the train and the back of the truck had black squares on them.
3. Scream
What is mysterious about the painting “The Scream” is not that it supposedly has a heavy influence on people, forcing them to almost commit suicide, but that this painting is essentially realism for Edvard Munch, who at the time of writing this masterpiece suffered from manic depression. depressive psychosis. He even recalled exactly how he saw what he wrote.
“I was walking along a path with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red, I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned against the fence - I looked at the blood and flames over the bluish-black fiord and the city - my friends moved on, and I stood trembling with excitement, feeling an endless cry piercing nature.”
4. Guernica
Picasso painted Guernica in 1937. The painting is dedicated to the bombing of the city of Guernica. They say that when Picasso was called to the Gestapo in 1940 and asked about Guernica: “Did you do this?”, the artist replied: “No, you did this.”
Picasso painted a huge fresco in no more than a month, working 10-12 hours a day. “Guernica” is considered a reflection of the horror of fascism and inhuman cruelty. Those who have seen the picture with their own eyes claim that it creates anxiety and sometimes panic.
5. Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan
We all know the painting “Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan,” usually calling it “Ivan the Terrible kills his son.”
Meanwhile, Ivan Vasilyevich’s murder of his heir is a very controversial fact. So, in 1963, the tombs of Ivan the Terrible and his son were opened in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. Research has made it possible to claim that Tsarevich John was poisoned.
The poison content in his remains is many times higher than the permissible limit. Interestingly, the same poison was found in the bones of Ivan Vasilyevich. Scientists have concluded that royal family has been a victim of poisoners for several decades.
Ivan the Terrible did not kill his son. This is precisely the version adhered to, for example, by the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, Konstantin Pobedonostsev. Seeing Repin’s famous painting at the exhibition, he was outraged and wrote to Emperor Alexander III: “The painting cannot be called historical, since this moment... is purely fantastic.” The version of the murder was based on the stories of the papal legate Antonio Possevino, who can hardly be called a disinterested person.
There was once a real assassination attempt on the painting.
On January 16, 1913, twenty-nine-year-old Old Believer icon painter Abram Balashov stabbed her three times, after which Ilya Repin had to virtually paint the faces of the Ivanovs depicted in the painting anew. After the incident, the then curator of the Tretyakov Gallery Khruslov, having learned about the vandalism, threw himself under the train.
6. Hands resist him
The painting by Bill Stoneham, painted in 1972, has, frankly, not the best reputation. According to information on E-bay, the painting was found in a landfill some time after its purchase. On the very first night that the painting ended up in the house of the family that found it, the daughter ran to her parents in tears, complaining that “the children in the painting are fighting.”
Since that time, the painting has had a very bad reputation. Kim Smith, who bought it in 2000, constantly receives angry letters demanding that he burn the painting. The newspapers also wrote that ghosts sometimes appear in the hills of California, like two peas in a pod like the children from Stoneham’s painting.
7. Portrait of Lopukhina
Finally, the “bad picture” - the portrait of Lopukhina, painted by Vladimir Borovikovsky in 1797, after some time began to have a bad reputation. The portrait depicted Maria Lopukhina, who died shortly after the portrait was painted. People began to say that the picture “takes away one’s youth” and even “takes one to the grave.”
It is not known for certain who started such a rumor, but after Pavel Tretyakov “fearlessly” acquired the portrait for his gallery, talk about the “mystery of the painting” subsided.
Works of art that everyone knows often contain unknown, fascinating stories.
Kazimir Malevich was the sixth artist who painted a black square, Shishkin wrote his "Morning in pine forest"co-authored, Dali had a serious psychosexual trauma, and Pablo Picasso survived after a bold response to the Gestapo. We admire the beauty greatest paintings, but the stories that happened before, during or after the writing of masterpieces often remain beyond our attention. And completely in vain. Sometimes such stories allow you to better understand the artist or simply be amazed at the quirkiness of life and creativity.
Bright Side has collected in this material the most interesting and unknown stories about great paintings.
"Black Square", Kazimir Malevich
Malevich's "Black Square" - one of the most famous and discussed works of art - is not such an innovation.Artists have been experimenting with the color “all black” since the 17th century. First tight black work art entitled "The Great Darkness" was painted by Robert Fludd in 1617, followed in 1843 by Bertal and his work "View of La Hougue (under the cover of night)". More than two hundred years later. And then almost without interruption - “The Twilight History of Russia” by Gustave Doré in 1854, “Night Fight of Negroes in a Cellar” by Paul Bilhold in 1882, a completely plagiarized “Battle of Negroes in a Cave in the Dead of Night” by Alphonse Allais. And only in 1915 Kazimir Malevich presented his “Black Suprematist Square” to the public, which is exactly what the painting is called in full. And it is his painting that is known to everyone, while others are familiar only to art historians.
Malevich himself painted at least four versions of his “Black Suprematist Square”, differing in design, texture and color, in the hope of finding absolute “weightlessness” and flight of forms.
"The Scream", Edvard Munch
As with Black Square, there are four versions of Scream in the world. Two versions are painted in oil and two in pastel.
There is an opinion that Munch, who suffered from manic-depressive psychosis, wrote it several times in an attempt to take out all the suffering that gripped his soul. And it is possible that there would have been more strange little people screaming from unbearable torment if the artist had not gone to the clinic. After the course of treatment, he never again tried to reproduce his “Scream”, which became a cult classic.
"Guernica", Pablo Picasso
The huge fresco painting “Guernica,” painted by Picasso in 1937, tells the story of a raid by a Luftwaffe volunteer unit on the city of Guernica, as a result of which the city of six thousand was completely destroyed. The painting was painted literally in a month - the first days of work on the painting, Picasso worked for 10-12 hours and already in the first sketches one could see the main idea.
This is one of the best illustrations of the nightmare of fascism, as well as human cruelty and grief. Guernica presents scenes of death, violence, brutality, suffering and helplessness, without specifying their immediate causes, but they are obvious. And the most interesting point in connection with this painting occurred in 1940, when Picasso was summoned by the Gestapo in Paris. “Did you do this?” the Nazis asked him. “No, you did it.”
"The Great Masturbator", Salvador Dali
In a film with a strange and arrogant title even for our time, there is actually no challenge to society. The artist actually depicted his subconscious and confessed to the viewer.
The canvas depicts his wife Gala, whom he loved passionately; the locusts, which he was terrified of; fragment of a man with cut knees, ants and other symbols of passion, fear and disgust.
The origins of this picture (but primarily the origins of his strange disgust and at the same time craving for sex) lie in the fact that as a child, Salvador Dali looked through a book about venereal diseases that his father accidentally left behind.
"Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan November 16, 1581", Ilya Repin
The historical painting, which tells the viewer about a dramatic moment in the history of our country, was in fact inspired not so much by the fact of the murder of his son and heir by Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, but by the murder of Alexander II by terrorist revolutionaries, and - most unexpectedly - bullfighting in Spain. The artist wrote about what he saw: “Misfortune, living death“, murder and blood constitute an attractive force... And I, having probably become infected with this bloodiness, upon arriving home, immediately set to work on the bloody scene.”
"Morning in a pine forest", Ivan Shishkin
A masterpiece familiar to everyone Soviet child for breathtakingly tasty and scarce candies, it is not only Shishkin’s work. 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 about the manner of painting, about creative method, characteristic of Shishkin."
Bill Stoneham "Hands Resist Him"
1972
This work, of course, cannot be ranked among the masterpieces of world painting, but the fact that it is strange is a fact.
There are legends surrounding the painting with a boy, a doll and his hands pressed against the glass. From “people are dying because of this picture” to “the children in it are alive.” The picture looks really creepy, which gives rise to a lot of fears and speculation among people with weak psyches.
The artist assured that the picture depicts himself at the age of five, that the door is a representation of the dividing line between real world and the world of dreams, and the doll is a guide who can guide the boy through this world. The hands represent alternative lives or possibilities.
The painting gained notoriety in February 2000 when it was listed for sale on eBay with a backstory saying that the painting was “haunted.” “Hands Resist Him” was bought for $1,025 by Kim Smith, who was then simply inundated with letters from creepy stories and demands to burn the painting.
The idea to depict a flowing clock came to Salvador Dali during dinner when he noticed Camembert melting in the sun.
It was later that Dali was asked whether Einstein’s theory of relativity was encrypted on the canvas, and he answered with a smart look: “Rather, Heraclitus’ theory that time is measured by the flow of thought. That’s why I called the painting “The Persistence of Memory.” And first there was cheese, processed cheese.”"The Last Supper"
When Leonardo da Vinci wrote " last supper», special attention he focused on two figures: Christ and Judas. Leonardo found a model for the face of Jesus relatively quickly - a young man who sang in a church choir took his role. But Leonardo searched for a face capable of expressing the vice of Judas for three years. One day, while walking down the street, the master saw a drunkard in a gutter. Da Vinci brought the drunkard to a tavern, where he immediately began to paint Judas from him.
When the drunk sobered up, he remembered that several years ago he had already posed for an artist. This was the same singer. In Leonardo's great fresco, Jesus and Judas have the same face.
"Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan"
In 1913, a mentally ill artist slashed Repin’s painting “Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan” with a knife. It was only thanks to the masterful work of restorers that the painting was restored. Ilya Repin himself came to Moscow and redrew Grozny’s head in a strange purple color - over two decades, the artist’s ideas about painting have changed greatly. Restorers removed these edits and returned the painting to an exact match of its museum photographs. Repin, seeing the restored canvas later, did not notice the corrections.
"Dream"
In 2006, American collector Steve Wynn agreed to sell Pablo Picasso's "The Dream" for $139 million, which would be one of the highest prices in history. But when talking about the painting, he waved his arms too expressively and tore the art with his elbow. Wynn regarded this as a sign from above and decided not to sell the painting after the restoration, which, by the way, cost a pretty penny.
"Boat"
A less destructive, but no less curious incident happened with a painting by Henri Matisse. In 1961 the Museum contemporary art in New York, presented the master’s painting “Boat” to the audience. The exhibition was a success. But only seven weeks later, a casual art connoisseur noticed that the masterpiece was hanging upside down. During this time, 115 thousand people managed to see the art, and the review book was replenished with hundreds of admiring comments. The embarrassment spread across all the newspapers.
"Battle of Negroes in a Cave in the Dead of Night"
The famous “Black Square” was not the first painting of its kind. 22 years before Malevich, in 1893 French artist and the writer Alle Alphonse exhibited his masterpiece “The Battle of the Negroes in the Cave” in the Vivien Gallery late at night» - completely black rectangular canvas.
"Feast of the Gods on Olympus"
In the 1960s One of the most famous paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, “The Feast of the Gods on Olympus,” was found in Prague. For a long time the date of its writing remained a mystery. The answer was found in the picture itself, moreover, by astronomers. They guessed that the positions of the planets were subtly encrypted on the canvas. For example, the Duke of Mantua Gonzaga in the image of the god Jupiter, Poseidon with the Sun and the goddess Venus with Cupid reflect the position of Jupiter, Venus and the Sun in the Zodiac.
In addition, it is clear that Venus is heading towards the constellation Pisces. Meticulous stargazers have calculated that such a rare position of the planets in the sky was observed in the days winter solstice in 1602. Thus, a fairly accurate dating of the painting was carried out.
"Breakfast on the Grass"
Edouard Manet, "Luncheon on the Grass"
Claude Monet, "Luncheon on the Grass"
Edouard Manet and Claude Monet are confused not only by current applicants art schools– even their contemporaries confused them. Both lived in Paris at the end of the 19th century, communicated with each other and were almost namesakes. Thus, in the film “Ocean’s Eleven” the following dialogue takes place between the characters of George Clooney and Julia Roberts:
- I always confuse Monet and Manet. I only remember that one of them married his mistress.
- Monet.
- So Mane had syphilis.
- And they both wrote from time to time.
But the artists had little confusion with names; in addition, they actively borrowed ideas from each other. After Manet presented the painting “Luncheon on the Grass” to the public, Monet, without thinking twice, painted his own with the same name. As usual, there was some confusion.
"Sistine Madonna"
When looking at Raphael's painting " Sistine Madonna“It is clearly visible that Pope Sixtus II has six fingers on his hand. Among other things, the name Sixtus translates as “sixth,” which ultimately gave rise to a lot of theories. In fact, the “lower little finger” is not a finger at all, but part of the palm. It's noticeable if you look closely. No mysticism and secret harbingers of the Apocalypse for you, it’s a pity.
"Morning in a pine forest"
The bear cubs from Shishkin’s painting “Morning in a Pine Forest”, printed by confectioners, are not at all the work of Shishkin. Ivan was an excellent landscape painter, he brilliantly knew how to convey the play of light and shadow in the forest, but he was not good at people and animals. So, at the artist’s request, the cute bear cubs were painted by Konstantin Savitsky, and the picture itself was signed with two names. But Pavel Tretyakov, after purchasing the landscape for his collection, erased Savitsky’s signature, and all the laurels went to Shishkin.
Today, in every museum you can listen to wonderful guides who will tell you in detail about the collection and the artists represented in it. At the same time, many parents know that it is difficult for most children to spend even an hour in a museum, and stories about the history of painting tire them quite quickly. To prevent children from getting bored in the museum, we offer a “cheat sheet” for parents - ten entertaining stories about paintings from the Tretyakov Gallery that will be of interest to both children and adults.
1. Ivan Kramskoy. "Mermaids", 1871
Ivan Kramskoy is primarily known as the author of the painting “Unknown” (it is often mistakenly called “Stranger”), as well as a number of beautiful portraits: Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Shishkin, Dmitry Mendeleev. But it’s better for children to start getting acquainted with his work from magical picture“Mermaids”, with which this is the story.
In August 1871, the artist Ivan Kramskoy was visiting the country estate of his friend, art lover and famous philanthropist Pavel Stroganov. Walking in the evenings, he admired the moon and admired its magical light. During these walks, the artist decided to paint a night landscape and try to convey all the charm, all the magic of a moonlit night, to “catch the moon” - in his own words.
Kramskoy began work on the painting. The river bank appeared in moonlit night, a hillock and a house on it, surrounded by poplars. The landscape was beautiful, but something was missing - magic was not born on the canvas. Nikolai Gogol’s book “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” came to the artist’s aid, or rather a story called “May Night, or the Drowned Woman” - fabulous and a little creepy. And then mermaid girls appeared in the picture, illuminated by moonlight.
The artist worked so carefully on the painting that he began to dream about it and constantly wanted to complete something in it. A year after it was bought by the founder of the Tretyakov Gallery, Pavel Tretyakov, Kramskoy once again wanted to change something in it and made small changes right in the exhibition hall.
Kramskoy’s canvas became the first “fairy-tale” painting in the history of Russian painting.
2. Vasily Vereshchagin. "Apotheosis of War", 1871
It so happened that people have always fought. From time immemorial, brave leaders and powerful rulers equipped their armies and sent them to war. Of course, they wanted distant descendants to know about their military exploits, so poets wrote poems and songs, and artists created beautiful paintings and sculptures. In these paintings, the war usually looked like a holiday - bright colors, fearless warriors going into battle...
The artist Vasily Vereshchagin knew about the war firsthand - he took part in battles more than once - and painted many paintings in which he depicted what he saw with his own eyes: not only brave soldiers and their commanders, but also blood, pain and suffering.
One day he thought about how to show all the horrors of war in one picture, how to make viewers understand that war is always grief and death, how to let others look at its disgusting details? He realized that it was not enough to paint a picture of a battlefield dotted with dead soldiers - such canvases had existed before. Vereshchagin came up with a symbol of war, an image, just by looking at which, everyone can imagine how terrible any war is. He painted a scorched desert, in the middle of which rises a pyramid of human skulls. There are only dry, lifeless trees around, and only crows fly to their feast. In the distance one can see a dilapidated city, and the viewer can easily guess that there is no more life there either.
3. Alexey Savrasov. “The Rooks have Arrived”, 1871
Everyone has known the painting “The Rooks Have Arrived” since childhood, and probably everyone wrote from it school essays. And today teachers will definitely tell children about Savrasov’s lyrical landscapes and that already in the very title of this picture one can hear a joyful harbinger of the morning of the year and everything in it is filled with a deep meaning close to the heart. Meanwhile, few people know that the famous “Rooks...”, as well as all the other works of Savrasov, might not have existed at all.
Alexey Savrasov was the son of a small Moscow haberdasher. The boy’s desire to engage in painting did not cause delight in the parent, but nevertheless Moscow school painting and sculpture Kondrat Savrasov let his son go. Both teachers and classmates recognized the talent young artist and predicted a great future for him. But it turned out that, without even studying for a year, Alexey, apparently due to his mother’s illness, was forced to stop studying. His teacher Karl Rabus turned for help to the Chief of Police of Moscow, Major General Ivan Luzhin, who helped the talented young man receive an art education.
If Luzhin had not taken part in fate young artist, one of the most famous paintings in the history of Russian painting would never have been born.
4. Vasily Polenov. "Moscow courtyard", 1878
Sometimes, in order to write beautiful picture, the artist travels a lot, searches for a long time and meticulously for the most beautiful views, in the end, he finds the treasured place and time after time comes there with a sketchbook. And it also happens that in order to create a wonderful work, he just needs to go to his own window, look at a completely ordinary Moscow courtyard - and a miracle happens, an amazing landscape appears, filled with light and air.
This is exactly the miracle that happened to the artist Vasily Polenov, who looked out of the window of his apartment in the early summer of 1878 and quite quickly painted what he saw. Clouds glide easily across the sky, the sun rises higher and higher, warming the earth with its warmth, lighting up the domes of churches, shortening thick shadows... It would seem to be a simple picture, which the artist himself did not take seriously at first: he wrote it and almost forgot about it. But then he was invited to take part in the exhibition. He didn’t have anything significant, and Polenov decided to exhibit “Moscow Courtyard”.
Oddly enough, it was this “insignificant picture” that brought fame and glory to Vasily Polenov - both the public and critics loved it: it has warmth and bright colors, and its characters can be examined endlessly, inventing a story about each of them.
5. Ivan Shishkin. "Morning in a Pine Forest", 1889
“Morning in a Pine Forest” by Ivan Shishkin is probably the most famous painting from the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery. In our country everyone knows her, thanks to reproductions in school textbooks, or maybe thanks to chocolates"Teddy Bear."
But not everyone knows that Shishkin himself painted only a morning forest in a foggy haze, and has nothing to do with bears. This painting is the fruit of joint creativity between Shishkin and his friend, artist Konstantin Savitsky.
Ivan Shishkin was an unsurpassed master of depicting all sorts of botanical subtleties - critic Alexander Benois He was fairly scolded for his passion for photographic accuracy, calling his paintings lifeless and cold. But the artist was not friends with zoology. They say that this is why Shishkin turned to Savitsky with a request to help him with the bears. Savitsky did not refuse his friend, but did not take his work seriously - and did not sign.
Later, Pavel Tretyakov purchased this painting from Shishkin, and the artist invited Savitsky to leave a signature on the painting - after all, they worked on it together. Savitsky did so, but Tretyakov did not like it. Declaring that he bought the painting from Shishkin, but didn’t want to know anything about Savitsky, he demanded a solvent and removed the “extra” signature with his own hands. And so it happened that today in Tretyakov Gallery indicate the authorship of only one artist.
6. Viktor Vasnetsov. "Bogatyrs", 1898
Viktor Vasnetsov is considered the most “fabulous” artist in the history of Russian painting - it was his brushes that belonged to such famous works, like “Alyonushka”, “The Knight at the Crossroads”, “Heroic Leap” and many others. But his most famous painting is “Bogatyrs”, which depicts the main characters of Russian epics.
The artist himself described the picture as follows: “The heroes Dobrynya, Ilya and Alyosha Popovich are on a heroic outing - they are noticing in the field whether there is an enemy somewhere, are they offending anyone?”
In the middle, on a black horse, Ilya Muromets looks into the distance from under his palm, the hero has a spear in one hand, and a damask club in the other. On the left, on a white horse, Dobrynya Nikitich takes his sword out of its sheath. On the right, on a red horse, Alyosha Popovich holds a bow and arrows in his hands. There is a curious story connected with the heroes of this picture - or rather with their prototypes.
Viktor Vasnetsov thought for a long time what Ilya Muromets should look like, and for a long time he could not find the “right” face - brave, honest, expressing both strength and kindness. But one day, completely by chance, he met the peasant Ivan Petrov, who came to Moscow to earn money. The artist was amazed - on a Moscow street he saw the real Ilya Muromets. The peasant agreed to pose for Vasnetsov and... remained for centuries.
In the epics, Dobrynya Nikitich is quite young, but for some reason Vasnetsov’s painting depicts a middle-aged man. Why did the artist decide to act so freely with folk tales? The solution is simple: Vasnetsov portrayed himself in the image of Dobrynya; just compare the picture with the artist’s portraits and photographs.
7. Valentin Serov. “Girl with peaches. Portrait of V. S. Mamontova”, 1887
"Girl with Peaches" is one of the most famous portraits in the history of Russian painting, written by the artist Valentin Serov.
The girl in the portrait is Verochka, the daughter of philanthropist Savva Mamontov, whose house the artist often visited. It is interesting that the peaches lying on the table were not brought from warm regions, but grew not far from Moscow, right in the Abramtsevo estate, which was a completely unusual thing in the 19th century. Mamontov had a gardener-magician working for him - in his skillful hands, fruit trees bloomed even in February, and the harvest was harvested already at the beginning of summer.
Thanks to Serov’s portrait, Vera Mamontova went down in history, but the artist himself recalled how hard it took him to persuade a 12-year-old girl, who had an unusually restless character, to pose. Serov worked on the painting for almost a month, and every day Vera sat quietly in the dining room for several hours.
The work was not in vain: when the artist presented the portrait at the exhibition, the public really liked the painting. And today, more than a hundred years later, “Girl with Peaches” delights visitors to the Tretyakov Gallery.
8. Ilya Repin. “Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan November 16, 1581,” 1883–1885.
Looking at this or that painting, you often wonder what was the source of inspiration for the artist, what prompted him to paint just such a work? In the case of Ilya Repin’s painting “Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan November 16, 1581,” guess about true reasons not at all easy.
The painting depicts a legendary episode from the life of Ivan the Terrible, when in a fit of anger he struck death blow to his son Tsarevich Ivan. However, many historians believe that in fact there was no murder and the prince died of illness, and not at all from the hand of his father. It would seem, what could force an artist to turn to such a historical episode?
As the artist himself recalled, the idea to paint the painting “Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan” came to him after... a concert at which he heard the music of the composer Rimsky-Korsakov. It was the symphonic suite "Antar". The sounds of music captured the artist, and he wanted to embody in painting the mood that was created in him under the influence of this work.
But music was not the only source of inspiration. Traveling around Europe in 1883, Repin attended a bullfight. The sight of this bloody spectacle impressed the artist, who wrote that, “having become infected... with this bloodiness, upon arriving home, he immediately began the bloody scene “Ivan the Terrible with his son.” And the blood picture was a great success."
9. Mikhail Vrubel. "Demon Seated", 1890
How sometimes the title of a painting means a lot. What does the viewer see when first looking at Mikhail Vrubel’s painting “The Seated Demon”? A muscular young man sits on a rock and sadly looks at the sunset. But as soon as we say the word “demon”, the image of a magical evil creature immediately appears. Meanwhile, Mikhail Vrubel's demon is not an evil spirit at all. The artist himself has said more than once that the demon is a spirit “not so much evil as suffering and sorrowful, but at the same time a powerful spirit, ... majestic.”
This painting is interesting for its painting technique. The artist applies paint to the canvas not with a conventional brush, but with a thin steel plate - a palette knife. This technique allows you to combine the techniques of a painter and a sculptor, literally “sculpting” a picture using paints. This is how a “mosaic” effect is achieved - it seems that the sky, rocks, and even the hero’s body itself are not painted with paint, but are laid out from carefully polished, perhaps even precious stones.
10. Alexander Ivanov. "The Appearance of Christ to the People (The Appearance of the Messiah)", 1837–1857.
Alexander Ivanov’s painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People” is a unique event in the history of Russian painting. It’s not easy to talk about it with children, especially 6-7 year olds, but they should definitely see this monumental canvas, on which the artist worked for more than 20 years and which became his life’s work.
The plot of the picture is based on the third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew: John the Baptist, baptizing the Jewish people on the banks of the Jordan in the name of the expected Savior, suddenly sees Him coming, in whose name he baptizes people. ABOUT compositional features paintings, about its symbols and artistic language the children will find out later. During the first acquaintance, it is worth talking about how one painting became the artist’s life’s work.
After finishing his studies at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Alexander Ivanov was sent “for an internship” to Italy. “The Appearance of Christ to the People” was supposed to be a work of record. But the artist takes his work very seriously: he carefully studies the Holy Scriptures, history, spends months searching for the desired landscape, spends an endless amount of time looking for an image for each character in the picture. The money that was allocated to him for work is running out, Ivanov leads a miserable existence. Painstaking work over the painting led to the artist’s vision being damaged and he was forced to undergo long-term treatment.
When Ivanov completed his work, the Italian public enthusiastically accepted the painting; this was one of the first cases of European recognition of a Russian artist. In Russia, it was not immediately appreciated - only after the artist’s death did real fame come to him.
While working on the painting, Ivanov created more than 600 sketches. In the room where it is exhibited, you can see some of them. It is interesting to use these examples to trace how the artist worked on the composition, landscape, and images of the characters in the picture.
Selection of records
