Works of art reflecting the images of prominent people. The greatest works of art. "Night Cafe Terrace" reminds of the "Last Supper"

Some world-famous works of art hide secrets that even modern scientists have not yet been able to unravel. In our review, ten works of art with a mysterious history, which, however, makes them even more attractive.

Girl with a pearl earring

Despite all theories, no one knows who exactly Jan Vermeer portrayed in 1665 in the famous painting "Girl with a Pearl Earring". She looks like she has no idea she's being drawn. Some said that this was Vermeer's daughter, others that this was his mistress, and still others said that this was an invented image, and in real life she never existed. The only thing that can be said for sure is that the girl is wearing a very expensive piece of jewelry. The identity of Vermeer himself remains a mystery. Very little is known about his life. Perhaps only that Jan always lived in the city of Delft and had 15 children.

Two paintings in one

While restoring a masterpiece by Robert Reid, a 20th-century American impressionist, restorer Barry Bauman was amazed to find that another canvas was hiding under the paint layer of the painting being restored. This hidden painting, called "In the Garden", depicted a young woman. She sat at a table in the open air and read something while sipping tea. Many artists paint on top of part of a painting, but Reed, for completely unknown reasons, made a second painting on top of a completely finished first. All that is known about Reid is that he was an avid gambler and died before the Great Depression in America.

Love and betrayal by Wally Neusel

In the early 1900s, Wally Neusel was the mysterious muse of the Austrian painter Egon Schiele. She appeared in several of his paintings (including erotic ones) and is believed to have been his mistress. Neusel came from a poor family in Tattendorf, Austria, and met Schiele when she was only 16 years old. Over time, their relationship grew into a purely professional one. Schiele abruptly left Neusel in 1915 to marry a more respectable woman.

David's hidden weapon

It is still debated whether Michelangelo's statue of David has a hidden weapon in his right hand. Some suggest that David is holding a hidden fustibal in his hand (a throwing weapon that was a sling attached to a stick, allowing you to throw stones up to 180 meters). According to the Bible, David only had a sling and five stones when he went out to fight Goliath. Since the creation of the sculpture by Michelangelo, everyone thought that David had a sling in his hand. But some scholars today argue that the straps of the sling are attached to something in David's hand that may very well be a fustibal handle.

Statue of Jesus with real teeth

In a small Mexican town, it was accidentally discovered that a 300-year-old statue of Jesus has real human teeth with roots. No one knows where these teeth came from, because in the religious traditions of earlier times, it was customary to carve hair and teeth from statues from animal bones. Created in the 18th century, the statue of Christ was about to be restored before being X-rayed. Restorers were shocked to find perfectly preserved human teeth on x-rays.

Image of a man under the portrait of an ironer

Thanks to the use of an infrared camera during the restoration, a completely different picture was discovered under the portrait of The Ironer (Pablo Picasso, 1906). This second painting had an inverted image of a man with a mustache. Scientists still do not know who this man was and whether it was Picasso who painted him. Various versions were put forward - from a self-portrait to the fact that this is an acquaintance of the artist.

Study by candlelight

There is still debate around the painting “Study by Candlelight” - whether it belongs to the brush of Vincent van Gogh, or whether it is a fake, as his nephew claims. The painting looks like a Van Gogh self-portrait, but its bottom third is unfinished and also contains a strange image that looks like a Japanese kabuki actor. This image at the bottom of the self-portrait was completed with ink, not paint. The picture was first acquired by William Goetz, an executive at Universal Pictures, in 1948. At that time, the authenticity of the work was certified. But later, Van Gogh's nephew declared The Study by Candlelight to be a fake.

Missing ballerina

No one knows how the painting "Dancer Making Points" by Edgar Degas disappeared from the apartment of its former owner, reclusive millionaire Huguette Clark. But when the painting turned up at the home of Henry Bloch, art collector and co-founder of H&R Block, Clark filed a complaint with the FBI claiming the painting was hers. Although Clarke never claimed the painting was missing, and Bloch claimed to have acquired it legally, the painting was returned to Huguette Clarke. After that, the lawyer of the millionaire immediately transferred the painting to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Clarke received a hefty amount of compensation, and Bloch was allowed to hang the painting in his home until the time of his death, after which the painting must be re-transferred to the museum.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Robbery

In 1990, the biggest robbery in the world took place at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Two criminals disguised as policemen stole paintings by Edgar Degas, Rembrandt and Jan Vermeer worth nearly $500 million. Over 25 years, investigators have collaborated with dozens of people who allegedly spoke on behalf of informants with information about the kidnapping. But every time things came to a standstill. Now the reward for information that will lead to the return of the paintings is already as much as $ 5 million. But none of the paintings have ever been found.

Another Mona Lisa

Many people believe that there is only one "Mona Lisa" - the famous painting in the Louvre. In fact, there is another portrait in the Prado Museum in Madrid, which was painted either by da Vinci himself or by one of his students. At the same time, the picture is not a copy of the one that is housed in the Louvre. Interestingly, the second painting has a slightly different perspective, which can create a 3-D effect. Also, few people know that there is another image of the same woman by Leonardo da Vinci - the Isleworth Mona Lisa painting, which is recognized by some experts as the earliest version of the canvas.

To create an impressive work of art, you need to have special skills that will distinguish your creations from the work of other masters. In some cases, artists consciously or unconsciously include hidden clues in their masterpieces that can shed light on their personal lives, desires, and technique. Many of these keys are hidden in plain sight. So grab your brushes and get creative...

1. Rembrandt mirrors

Rembrandt became famous for his use of the play of light in his magnificent paintings. At that time, many artists resorted to lighting effects, like Rembrandt, but none of them could capture the beauty of the world around them on canvas the way the great master did. Over the years, researchers have tried to unlock the secret of Rembrandt's technique by carefully studying the details of his paintings.

To create the effect of almost photographic precision, Rembrandt manipulated the environment with the help of mirrors and lighting - what, in fact, modern photographers do now. When painting self-portraits, Rembrandt used complex combinations of flat and concave mirrors, along with a camera obscura, to get the best possible likeness. During his lifetime, the great artist did not reveal his technique to anyone. And only after testing the system of mirrors, art historians learned about the secret of his greatness.

2. Music of the "Last Supper"

Leonardo da Vinci was talented not only in art, but also in other creative fields such as music and writing. One day he decided to combine his talents in order to create a very curious Easter egg in one of his most famous paintings.

The Last Supper contains an interesting feature, namely musical accompaniment. In the picture, bread, as well as the hands of Christ and the apostles, are stacked on the table in such a way that they form a five-line musical staff. If you read the notes from right to left, as Da Vinci himself liked to write in his diaries, then you can get a whole composition that foreshadows the suffering of Jesus Christ.

3. Lost portrait of Edgar Degas

Between 1876 and 1880, Edgar Degas worked on the painting known as "Portrait of a Woman". The name speaks for itself. The picture really depicted only a woman in a black robe, but over time, another portrait began to emerge on her.

In 1922, employees of the Parisian museum noticed that something strange was happening with the "Portrait of a Woman". There were discolored spots and other strange details on it. However, this was soon forgotten. And only with the help of modern X-ray technology, we finally managed to discover what Edgar Degas painted more than a century ago.

In 2016, during an examination that lasted thirty-three hours, it was found that Degas painted another woman in his mysterious painting, most likely his first model and muse, Emma Daubigny. A portrait like the one painted under "Portrait of a Woman" actually exists, but is in a private collection and is rarely exhibited. This painting was most likely another sketch that Degas later decided to sketch.

4 Michelangelo And Arthritis

Michelangelo lived to the age of 89 and died in 1564. As it became known, in old age he struggled with a very common disease today: osteoarthritis.

A few years before his death, Michelangelo stopped signing paintings with his own name, entrusting this matter to other people. He also stopped painting (by any means) and switched to a hammer and chisel to satisfy his craving for art and the desire to create beauty.

In letters to his nephew, Michelangelo complained of "gout" and stiffness of hand movements. At that time, gout was used to describe discomfort in almost all joints of the body, but Michelangelo specifically referred to pain in the hands. In the portraits, where Michelangelo is depicted in old age, it is clear that the artist suffered from arthritis.

5. Bacchus and jaundice

In 1592 the famous painter Caravaggio moved to Rome. Here he became seriously ill, so he was forced to spend six months in the hospital of Santa Maria della Consolazione, where he began to paint his famous painting "Sick Bacchus" (or "Bacchino Malato"). On it we see Bacchus with yellow skin, which is a symptom of jaundice. Apparently, it was because of this illness that Caravaggio ended up in the hospital for such a long time.

Bacchus, according to Roman mythology, was the god of wine. Knowing that the symptoms of chronic alcoholism included a yellow complexion, Caravaggio decided that the best sitter for a portrait of a god suffering from alcoholism would be himself.

The fact that Caravaggio chose to use his own suffering to depict Bacchus dying of drunkenness shows the artist's dedication to his work.

6. Andrew Wyeth and Helga

In the mid-1980s, American artist Andrew Wyeth shocked the art world with over 200 portraits of the same woman he created over the course of a decade. These paintings and drawings became known as the "Portraits of Helga". When Wyeth created them, he kept it a closely guarded secret. His wife also did not know about these portraits.

The only person Wyeth told about Helga was his girlfriend, Nancy Hoving. She swore to keep the secret entrusted to her.

According to Hoving, Wyeth "liked to create mysteries ... to solve them later." In many paintings, Helga is depicted naked.

Wyeth said that his wife did not like it when he painted naked models, so he, out of respect for her, chose not to reveal the existence of paintings with Helga until he presented them to the public.

7. The man in Picasso's Blue Room

Picasso painted The Blue Room in 1901 during the so-called Blue Period. At that time, Picasso had no money, and he was constantly depressed. The artist expressed his melancholy with the help of blue and blue paints. The painting "The Blue Room" has always attracted art critics because of the strange strokes that Picasso used.

When the researchers studied the Blue Room using infrared technology, they discovered a mysterious man in a bow tie underneath the painting. We do not know who he was or why Picasso painted him. It is possible that it was Ambroise Vollard, the Parisian art dealer who helped Picasso organize his first exhibition. We all know that Picasso, due to his poor financial situation, could not afford to buy canvases, so he decided to paint the "Blue Room" over an unfinished portrait of a man with a bow tie.

8 Turbulence And The Starry Night

One of the most striking works of Van Gogh is the painting "Starry Night", which he painted in 1889, when he was in a psychiatric hospital. This happened during one of Van Gogh's worst psychotic episodes, however, it was thanks to him that he created a work of art, which, as it turned out relatively recently, contained a scientific fact discovered only in the 1940s, many years after the death of the great artist. .

Turbulence and turbulent flow are harder to describe than quantum mechanics. However, in his painting Starry Night, Van Gogh actually depicted ideal turbulence. His other paintings from this period also depict ideal turbulence. This led art historians to believe that while in a state of mental imbalance, Van Gogh was miraculously able to see and draw turbulence many decades before this phenomenon was first described.

9. Monet's cataract

One of the hallmarks of Impressionism are hazy and blurry paintings. The most famous impressionist painter is considered to be Claude Monet, whose paintings in the last years of his life became increasingly blurry and dull. This deterioration in his creative activity can be explained by the cataract that he developed with age.

The influence of poor eyesight is clearly seen in Monet's painting "Japanese Bridge" (1922), which was painted in unusually bright colors. Perhaps he drew it from memory, overcompensating certain colors and hues to make it sharp.

In 1923, Monet finally agreed to an operation, after which he burned most of his old paintings, as he realized how terrible his eyesight was.

10. Goya and Joseph Bonaparte

In 1823, the artist Francisco Goya created a portrait of Don Ramon Satue, a judge of the Supreme Court of Spain. However, under the layer of paint, there may be a historical figure that was much more important and famous than Satue. We are talking about Joseph Bonaparte, brother of the French Emperor Napoleon. Joseph Bonaparte was appointed by his brother King of Spain, which he ruled from 1809 to 1813.

With the help of X-rays, a painted Joseph Bonaparte in a uniform with medals was found under the portrait of Satue. The portrait was painted during his reign, and Goya did his best to hide it.

Goya survived many of the political upheavals that affected Spain in the early 1880s. After the Napoleonic troops were withdrawn from the country, it became dangerous to keep things that were associated with the regime. For this reason, Goya decided to paint judge Ramon Satue on the portrait of the former king of Spain. His secret was revealed only after 200 years.

ART AND HISTORY: THE ESSENCE OF INTERRELATIONSHIP Semenova AN, Tarasova MV The Siberian Federal University the Institute of Humanities, the Art and Culture Studies Department Krasnoyarsk, Russia The fact of the influence of historical events on art over time is irrefutable. New styles in art arose due to changes in a person's attitude to the world, which were the result of the constant running of time, significant historical events were recorded in works of artistic culture, as if illustrating the era. In addition, each person of art belongs to a certain time and, at least indirectly, reflects the current historical situation in his work. Art, thus, becomes a kind of chronicle of changing epochs, recording all the changes of time more accurately than any scientist. But does art always only follow history, sometimes catching up, sometimes lagging behind the events of modern reality? Perhaps it happens that history is forced to submit to the power of art and develop under its influence in a different way? After all, like history, art is the work of man, and everything depends only on what kind of people in a certain era will be more necessary for a person of an era in general: people who change history, or people who create ideals, works of art? This problem remains important in our time, since the mutual influence of history and art creates a picture of the world of a certain era as a whole. If we assume that the fact of reverse influence is possible, then in order to prove it, it is necessary to consider simultaneously historical and artistic processes and understand their interaction. An event so significant for history as the Hundred Years War between England and France (1337-1453) became a whole era within the European Middle Ages and the longest military conflict in the history of mankind. These times were especially difficult for France, whose territory became the scene of hostilities and internal contradictions. Despite all the difficulties, France managed to win the 116-year-old war for its freedom, which was largely brought to the country by ordinary people raised by the calls of Joan of Arc and other patriots. At the same time, the artistic culture of the Hundred Years War is characterized, interestingly, not by decline, but on the contrary, a strong upsurge.In the midst of death and disease, disasters and destruction, paradoxical is the construction of "airy" Gothic temples, which lift up the prayers of a suffering person for salvation to God. At the end of the XIV-beginning of the XV centuries. a transition is being made from the mature Gothic of France to the late one in connection with the desperate desire of a person to be saved among everything that is happening around, to shout to the Lord by any means. This is the time of the hardest defeats for the country, practically devoid of independence and captured by the British. Late Gothic temples became even more elongated upwards, decorative elements take on a fiery, heavenly shape. As a fire blazes in the soul of a believer, so the temple itself becomes almost completely transparent from the stained-glass windows, representing the Mountain City in the midst of earthly chaos. In addition, the development of the very type of city cathedral is indicative, accommodating (gathering) the entire population of the city and being its “heart”. Its united volumes unite believers in a single prayerful impulse, just as the popular movement united almost the entire population of France under its banners to fight for the freedom of their homeland. The temple sculpture of Gothic temples, enlivening the cathedrals, in the era of the Hundred Years War, pays great attention to the Mother of God. The strengthening of Her cult speaks of the need in the worldview of a person during the Hundred Years War to find peace with a close, human Deity. The image of the Mother of God also appears here as the image of the Mother of all mankind, ready to listen to all the sorrows of an unfortunate person and convey prayers to the Lord. The desire to change the terrible reality is observed not only in temple art, but also in folk literature, where songs appeared, compiled by ordinary people, describing the hardships of life and hopes for a brighter future. Artistic images created during the Hundred Years War helped a person to realize that he is able to win, and the people, united by faith and patriotism with the power of works of art, were able to liberate their country. A person oppressed by historical events can find a way out of a spiritual crisis with the help of artistic culture. It is works of art that most strongly influence the inner world of a person, change his attitude to the world. A person exists in a certain reality, which he seeks to change. This is possible only with the help of art, where such spaces are created in which a person is surrounded by another world (temples are built during the war). Helping people find ideals, art shows the way to a new reality, pushes them to actions that can change the world around them, and, therefore, change the course of history. The process of the influence of history on art and art on history does not stop for a moment. Mutual influence enriches both developing areas, which confirms the relevance of this problem. dynamically

Today's most innovative artists do not take up the brush, but call on science to show nature as a synthesis of the visible and the invisible. They create works that are radically different from anything ever seen before, and that may change our perception of the world - a truly new avant-garde.
As famous video artist Peter Weibel says: "Today art is the offspring of science and technology." It's an unusual thought, but he's right.

One of the earliest innovative pieces shown to mankind was the surgically grown "third ear" by the artist Stelarc, on April 13, 2009 - on display at the Edinburgh International Science Festival. The plan is to mount a microphone in the hand, allowing web users to "hear" through their hands.

The artist Stelarc, a well-known proponent of "modified body enhancement", actually grew a left ear on his left arm. The ear was made from Stelarc's own stem cells and woven into a biodegradable polymer.

Eduardo Katz's Alba is a genetically modified white rabbit, made glowing green using the jellyfish green protein gene. Thus, Alba became a being that does not exist in nature, which led to a lively debate on the ethics of genetic modification.

Blown glass sculpture by Josiah McElheny, "Islands of the Universes" is a poem about the creation of an incredible space called the universe. Each universe is a giant starburst and it has about 1000 glass balls and 5000 rods; about 14 feet across and 12 feet long.

The length of the rods is proportional to the length of time, and symbolizes the Big Bang.

The glass spheres represent galaxies at the appropriate moment, and the bulbs represent quasars. McElheny collaborated with the cosmologist to ensure that these models are scientifically sound. Completed in 2006, this piece is especially relevant today due to recent data that seems to support the multiverse hypothesis - the mind-boggling assumption that universes are constantly being created.

Physicist and artist Julian Voss-Andrea created the Quantum Man sculpture, which is over eight feet tall and is made up of over a hundred parallel steel sheets.

From the front, it's a person, but when you walk towards it, the person becomes invisible. It depicts the ambiguous duality of waves - the particles of quantum physics, which - unimaginably - as waves and particles at the same time. An electron can appear in experiments either as a wave or as a particle.

"Flight Patterns" by Aaron Koblin, another work of art that consists of concrete data. Koblin collected data on 250,000 flights that crossed the US on August 12, 2008.

Another of Koblin's creations, "This Exquisite Forest", was created with the help of crowdsourcing. This is a surrealist parallel game "Exquisite Corpse" in which players add a drawing or suggestions without knowing what is happening in front of it. For this Exquisite Forest, viewers have added animations using software supplied by Google.

Abstract plan

I. Art of pre-revolutionary Russia

II. The influence of historical events on the development of Soviet art

1. Revolutionary creativity

but. Poster campaign

b. Soviet battle art

3. Military art

but. "Combat Pencil"

b. Military characters

4. Khrushchev's "thaw"

5. Brezhnev's bureaucracy in art

III. Creative legacy for future generations

I. Art of pre-revolutionary Russia

Late XIX - early XX century. - an important period in the development of Russian art. It coincides with the stage of the liberation movement in Russia, which V.I. Lenin called proletarian. It was a time of fierce class battles, three revolutions - 1905-1907, the February bourgeois-democratic and Great October socialist revolutions, the time of the collapse of the old world. The surrounding life, the events of this extraordinary time determined the fate of art: it underwent many difficulties and contradictions in its development.

In the art of the 1890s, the following trend was revealed. Many artists now sought to find in life, first of all, its poetic sides, therefore, even in genre paintings, they included the landscape. Often turned to ancient Russian history. These trends in art can be traced in the work of such artists as A.P. Ryabushkin, B.M. Kustodiev and V. M. Nesterov. At the very end of the 1890s, a new art society "World of Art" was formed in Russia, headed by A.N. Benois and S. P. Diaghilev, which had a great influence on the artistic life of the country.

Changes in Russian art at the turn of the two centuries were more clearly reflected in architecture. Driven by the development of capitalism, urban planning is booming. Banks, various industrial buildings are being erected, many apartment buildings are being built, and new types of residential complexes are being sought. At the turn of the XIX - XX centuries. And during the entire first decade of the twentieth century in Russian architecture, just like in a number of European countries, the so-called Art Nouveau style (from French Modern) is being formed. In Russia, its origins were architects F. Shekhtel, L. Kekushev, I. Fomin, artists E. Polenova, M. Yakunchikova, S. Malyutin.

The next stage in the history of Russian art - the period of the 19th - the beginning of the 20th century (until 1917) - is characterized, on the one hand, by the activities of outstanding masters such as V.A. Serov, M.A. Vrubel, K.A. Korovin, V. E. Borisov-Musatov, and many others. in their own way continued and developed the realistic traditions of Russian culture, and on the other hand, an active manifestation, especially at the beginning of the 20th century, of some new trends based mostly on the denial of these traditions, trends that focused in the 1910s in the world-famous movement Russian avant-garde.

Russian art of the 1910s had to endure the illnesses of the times. It went through the influence of formalist currents - cubism, futurism, even non-objective art. Much of this is now only the property of history.

In Russia in 1913-1916, the formal searches and forebodings of Parisian painters received a real theoretical justification, the road to which Paris opened, without daring, however, to shoulder the burden of a long journey. The movement, which received the name "Futurism" in Russia, was formally much richer and more diverse than what followed the socio-patriotic verbiage of the Marinetti club. The Russian artistic environment managed to combine the innovative tendencies of cubism and futurism, that is, to achieve such a synthesis that turned out to be unattainable in Paris. Russian synthesis was primarily conceptual. It was the result of the creativity of numerous groupings of artists united in the St. Petersburg association "Union of Youth". Through the process of public debate, press appearances and theatrical performances in 1913, under the auspices of the Youth League, a common platform was developed for revolutionary concepts that would lead many participants to non-objective art.

The leading artists of the beginning of the century faithfully depicted the existing reality, their art was directed against the oppression of man, and it was also permeated with love of freedom.

II.The influence of historical events on the development of Soviet art

2. Revolutionary creativity

With the advent of the world's first state of workers and peasants, previously unknown horizons opened up before the artists. The Soviet state examines the phenomena of the surrounding life from the standpoint of the Marxist-Leninist worldview, the communist party spirit. Deeply analyzing and depicting the events of the past and present, it draws the prospect of revolutionary development. The successful development of art after October would have been impossible without the leading and guiding activity of the Communist Party.

Naturally, it was not at once that the artists realized the enormity of the tasks facing art after the revolution. Most of the masters of art were immediately actively involved in the artistic life of the country, unconditionally devoted their work to serving the Motherland.

Naturally, in the first years of Soviet power, monumental art came to the fore, which most directly responded to the call of the times.

2. Art of the Stalin period

“1920 - The Civil War, the dirt of the trenches, the convoys with those who died of typhus could not kill the love of art among the people. On the stormy squares, the wind destroyed the first panels, monuments to workers, scientists, ideas of labor and freedom were erected. Hunger. People in terrible tension are fighting for their rights and for their lives. (Al. Deneyka "Life, Art, Time" p. 227).

In the period of the 1920s, the authorities took over the entire cultural sphere. There is an urgent need for images capable of clearly explaining to the people the policy of Soviet power.

Lenin's plan for monumental propaganda set great tasks for artists - they had to create images of remarkable people of the past: revolutionaries, philosophers, writers, artists, composers, artists. IN AND. Lenin pointed out that these monuments should be erected instead of the old monuments to tsars and reactionaries.

Among the artists can be noted prominent representatives of the Association of Artists of the Revolution (AHR) I. Brodsky, K. Yuon, V. Mashkov and others., "The Society of Easel Artists": A. Deneyka, Yu. Pimenov and others. M. Grekov and P. Konchalovsky also worked in the 1920s and 1930s.

Acquaintance with Soviet art of the 1920s and 1930s makes it possible to see with what enthusiasm the artists strove to reflect the new in Soviet reality, and among them are masters of the older generation who began their career long before the revolution. An example is the works of B. M. Kustodiev (1878-1927). He was always attracted by the life of the crowd, the streets, holidays, fairs, bazaars of provincial cities and the capital. He paints colorful scenes of peasant and provincial philistine-merchant life (Fair series). Master of the portrait ("Chaliapin", 1922), theater artist.