Secrets of "Ladies with an Ermine": What does the cute animal in the painting of Leonardo da Vinci hide
"The Lady with the Ermine" (1489-1490) is one of the most important works of all Western art, the subject of the greatest rarity of the genius Leonardo da Vinci and…

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Unknown portrait of Da Vinci’s brush: Did the great master really write “Princess Leonardo” and whom he portrayed
It may seem that the legacy of Leonardo da Vinci has many paintings - this artist, who died five hundred years ago, is mentioned too much and too often in…

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"The Invisible Artist", which creates paintings on people, like on canvases
Since today many acts of civil protest in China remain strictly prohibited, a well-known Chinese artist-photographer, master of the original creative camouflage of people, Liu Bolin invented a unique technique…

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portrait resemblance

Vincent Laurence van der Winne and his still lifes vanitas: where did the artist hide his portrait?

Vincent Laurence van der Winne (1628–1702) is a Dutch artist and writer. Initially, van der Winne was engaged in weaving, but then, sensing a craving for fine art, he decided to focus on painting. Especially popular are the still lifes of this master, in which he hid his own portrait. Der Winne was the only (according to available historical data) student of Frans Hals, the artist of the Golden Age of Holland, who actually painted his portrait in 1660.

Van der Vinne’s paintings are mainly vanitas still lifes and genre scenes, many of which include a portrait paper sketch of the painter himself. His style was later copied by Evert Collier, Peter van Eisen and Barent van Eisen. Continue reading

Secrets of self-portraits of famous artists: Reflection in the mirror, portrait-bacon and other oddities

Self-portrait in most cases is an instrument of narcissism, an attempt to leave your image in eternity. But if a genius takes up the matter, his image on canvas can turn into a real masterpiece, which not only perpetuates the appearance of the master, but also puzzles, surprises, fascinates the viewer. For centuries, some of these self-portraits have been knocked out of the familiar notion of this genre, while not losing either their fans or the attention of researchers.

Jan van Eyck, “Portrait of the Arnolfini Couple”

It is from the Renaissance that the development of the self-portrait genre begins – an interest in a person and a person naturally generated the artist’s attention to his own image. But self-portraits in their traditional, academic form did not appear immediately. At first, the masters who wanted to portray themselves in the picture either inscribed their figure in the composition as one of the secondary characters, or became “their own sitters” and the main characters of their works. Continue reading

The tragedy of the author of the most famous portrait of Chekhov: How he lost his family and paintings, and why he got to Solovki Osip Braz
Over several centuries of development, Russian culture has presented the world with a galaxy of brilliant painters, whose works are included in the world treasury of fine art. Among them…

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The world of childhood of the XIX century in the paintings of Gaetano Cierizi
Many viewers are interested in everyday painting of old masters of the past centuries, who knew how not only to reliably capture the life of their people in the smallest…

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Sentimental paintings about the village children of Frederick Morgan
Today, lovers of sentimental painting are given the opportunity to get acquainted with the magnificent gallery of genre paintings by the English artist Frederick Morgan, who worked at the turn…

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