What is special about the landscapes that are called the most Italian: Veduta and Capriccio
History did not preserve the name of the tourist that the first one wanted to take away from Italy a picturesque "postcard" in memory of the trip and thereby laid…

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Did Leonardo da Vinci have a second Mona Lisa: The Riddles of the “Iselworth Mona Lisa”
For many decades, there has been debate about whether the Iselworth Mona Lisa is a genuine, earlier version of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous work, which attracts millions of visitors…

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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…

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10 years of happiness and 28 years of grief in the life of the artist Vasily Surikov

The personal life of prominent people always attracts the attention of readers, especially if it is full of piquant details, incredible stories, secrets and mysteries. But today we will talk about the personal life of the artist Vasily Surikov, about which not so much is known. But the amazing story of his love will not leave anyone indifferent.

A bit from the biography

Artist Vasily Surikov was born in Krasnoyarsk, his ancestors were from the Don Cossacks who conquered Siberia with Ermak, after the death of which they went up the Yenisei and founded the Krasnoyarsk prison. The artist was born in 1848 in the family of an office clerk who came from an old Yenisei Cossack family. And is it necessary to say that the character of the future painter, formed in the harsh environment of the Siberian region, was just as strong and unshakable. Years later, this power was embodied in the heroic images of his paintings. Continue reading

High Renaissance Titans: Who They Are and What Their Contribution to Art History

The Renaissance refers to the rediscovery of ideals from classical antiquity. Artists no longer thought about the art of antiquity. Now they had the tools, technology, knowledge and confidence to create in their own direction. In general, the Renaissance was a revolution in realism, when artists and sculptors developed new methods to make their work more realistic.

The High Renaissance also represented a rapprochement of geniuses – an unthinkable wealth of talents concentrated in the same field in the same time interval. While this revival took place in many creative fields – the poetry of Dante Alighieri, the architecture of Filippo Brunelleschi, the scientific experiments of Galileo, works of visual art act as the most iconic representations of the Renaissance. 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

What is special about the landscapes that are called the most Italian: Veduta and Capriccio
History did not preserve the name of the tourist that the first one wanted to take away from Italy a picturesque "postcard" in memory of the trip and thereby laid…

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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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