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…

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Other worlds in pastel-candy paintings with mysterious subjects
Syd Bee is an artist from Seattle whose work seems to have been torn straight from the world of dreams. Bee uses rich, pink tones in many of his works,…

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Two brides for one groom: The riddle of a picturesque plot about the mystical betrothal of St. Catherine
The American artist Marilyn Sunderland covers her pumpkin sculptures with the plexus of leaves, flowers and berries, figures of fantastic fish, birds and butterflies, turning a regular vegetable grown in…

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three guys

How the primitive paintings of Grandma Moses influenced the course of the Cold War

Having crossed the age limit for 60 years, many no longer expect any fateful changes from life and quietly live out their lives. However, history knows many cases when older people achieved tremendous success at a very respectable age. Most often this happened when they took up brushes and paints. So, one of the most popular artists of America in the mid-twentieth century – Grandmother Moses, who first painted at 76, had a stunning world-wide fame as a painter for her 100th birthday and was drawn into the intrigues of American propaganda.

Grandmother Moses (1860-1961), whose real name is Anna Mary Moses, nee Robertson, is a well-known American amateur artist, one of the most famous representatives of primitivism in the history of painting in the United States. The farmer’s wife and mother of 10 children, five of whom died before reaching the age of one, became famous when she was over eighty. Continue reading

Why did the famous socialist realist Heliy Korzhev begin to write mutant-turliks and paintings on biblical motifs

In recent years, in the world of art, interest in the work of Soviet artists has revived. And there was a time when their work was written off to a landfill, and their names were vilified by newfangled critics and art historians of a new formation. From the Soviet period, the legacy of only a few artists remained untouched, among which the name of Helium Korzhev, who had an amazing gift of vision and was able to masterfully convey in one gesture, in the expression on his face, what the whole generation was thinking.

A bit about the artist

Helium – in translation the God of the Sun. His parents wanted to name their son Tractor, but since he was born in a sultry summer, he was named Helios. And if more officially, then Heliy Korzhev is a Soviet painter, teacher, professor, a bright representative of the “severe style”. As well as an academician of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, a national artist, a laureate of several State Prizes. Continue reading

The bloody drama that broke out centuries ago in Rembrandt’s brilliant painting Lucretius

As a rule, artists in all ages, creating their paintings, meticulously approached the choice of subjects that would inspire them to write unique and masterpieces. And since in the old days, plots were taken from legends, myths, biblical stories, the same theme was revealed by painters in different variations and several times. And today I would like to recall one of such legendary stories that laid the foundation for the works of many eminent masters of European painting. This heart-rending plot did not pass by the famous Dutchman Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn.
And the story, which occupied all the thoughts of the artist, was about the pious Roman Lucretia, the beloved heroine of the Renaissance and Baroque artists, who tragically passed away, but tried to save her honor. Continue reading

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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Skillful fakes that museums took for originals
Artistic fakes are a very real threat that museums constantly have to contend with. Fake artifacts appear in many museums from time to time, which can be displayed for several…

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Ciphers, signs and self-portraits: How artists of the past signed their paintings
Not every masterpiece of painting contains the signature of the artist. There were reasons for this, both at the dawn of the Renaissance and in the modern era; they are…

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