Mystical portraits of girls. Mystical paintings (16 photos)

In almost every significant work of art there is a mystery, a double bottom or a secret story that you want to uncover.

Music on the buttocks

Hieronymus Bosch, "Garden earthly pleasures", 1500-1510.

Fragment of a triptych

Disputes about the meanings and hidden meanings The most famous work of the Dutch artist has not subsided since its appearance. On right wing a triptych called "Musical Hell" depicts sinners who are tortured in the underworld with the help of musical instruments. One of them has notes imprinted on his buttocks. Oklahoma Christian University student Amelia Hamrick, who studied the painting, transposed the 16th-century notation into a modern twist and recorded "a 500-year-old ass song from hell."

Nude Mona Lisa

The famous "Gioconda" exists in two versions: the nude version is called "Monna Vanna", it was painted by the little-known artist Salai, who was a student and sitter of the great Leonardo da Vinci. Many art critics are sure that it was he who was the model for Leonardo's paintings "John the Baptist" and "Bacchus". There are also versions that dressed in a woman's dress, Salai served as the image of Mona Lisa herself.

Old Fisherman

In 1902, the Hungarian artist Tivadar Kostka Chontvari painted the painting " Old Fisherman". It would seem that there is nothing unusual in the picture, but Tivadar laid a subtext in it, which was never disclosed during the life of the artist.

Few people thought of putting a mirror in the middle of the picture. In each person there can be both God (the right shoulder of the Old Man is duplicated) and the Devil (the left shoulder of the old man is duplicated).

Was there a whale?

Hendrik van Antonissen "Scene on the Shore".

It would seem that, ordinary landscape. Boats, people on the shore and the desert sea. And only an X-ray study showed that people gathered on the shore for a reason - in the original, they examined the carcass of a whale washed ashore.

However, the artist decided that no one would want to look at a dead whale and repainted the painting.

Two "Breakfasts on the Grass"

Edouard Manet, Luncheon on the Grass, 1863.

Claude Monet, Breakfast on the Grass, 1865.

Artists Edouard Manet and Claude Monet are sometimes confused - after all, they were both French, lived at the same time and worked in the style of impressionism. Even the name of one of Manet's most famous paintings, "Breakfast on the Grass", Monet borrowed and wrote his "Breakfast on the Grass".

Twins at the Last Supper

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1495-1498.

When Leonardo da Vinci wrote " last supper”, he attached particular importance to two figures: Christ and Judas. He was looking for sitters for them for a very long time. Finally, he managed to find a model for the image of Christ among the young singers. Leonardo failed to find a sitter for Judas for three years. But one day he came across a drunkard lying in the gutter on the street. He was a young man who had been aged by heavy drinking. Leonardo invited him to a tavern, where he immediately began to write Judas from him. When the drunkard came to his senses, he told the artist that he had already posed for him once. It was a few years ago, when he sang in the church choir, Leonardo wrote Christ from him.

"Night Watch" or "Day Watch"?

Rembrandt, " The night Watch", 1642.

One of Rembrandt’s most famous paintings, “The Performance of the Rifle Company of Captain Frans Banning Cock and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenbürg,” hung in different halls for about two hundred years and was discovered by art historians only in the 19th century. Since the figures seemed to stand out against a dark background, it was called the Night Watch, and under this name it entered the treasury of world art.

And only during the restoration, carried out in 1947, it turned out that in the hall the picture had managed to become covered with a layer of soot, which distorted its color. After clearing the original painting, it was finally revealed that the scene presented by Rembrandt actually takes place during the day. The position of the shadow from the left hand of Captain Kok shows that the duration of the action is no more than 14 hours.

capsized boat

Henri Matisse, "The Boat", 1937.

In the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1961, Henri Matisse's painting "The Boat" was exhibited. Only after 47 days did someone notice that the painting was hanging upside down. The canvas depicts 10 purple lines and two blue sails on a white background. The artist painted two sails for a reason, the second sail is a reflection of the first one on the surface of the water.
In order not to be mistaken in how the picture should hang, you need to pay attention to the details. The larger sail should be at the top of the painting, and the peak of the sail of the painting should be directed to the upper right corner.

Deception in a self-portrait

Vincent van Gogh, Self Portrait with a Pipe, 1889.

There are legends that Van Gogh allegedly cut off his own ear. Now the most reliable version is that van Gogh's ear was damaged in a small scuffle with the participation of another artist, Paul Gauguin.

The self-portrait is interesting because it reflects reality in a distorted form: the artist is depicted with a bandaged right ear, because he used a mirror when working. In fact, the left ear was damaged.

alien bears

Ivan Shishkin, "Morning in the Pine Forest", 1889.

The famous painting belongs not only to the brush of Shishkin. Many artists who were friends with each other often resorted to "the help of a friend", and Ivan Ivanovich, who had been painting landscapes all his life, was afraid that touching bears would not turn out the way he needed. Therefore, Shishkin turned to a familiar animal painter Konstantin Savitsky.

Savitsky drew perhaps the best bears in history Russian painting, and Tretyakov ordered that his name be washed off the canvas, since everything in the picture "starting from the idea and ending with the execution, everything speaks of the manner of painting, of the creative method peculiar to Shishkin."

Innocent story "Gothic"

Grant Wood, american gothic", 1930.

Grant Wood's work is considered one of the strangest and most depressing in history. American painting. The picture with a gloomy father and daughter is overflowing with details that indicate the severity, puritanism and retrogradeness of the people depicted.
In fact, the artist did not intend to depict any horrors: during a trip to Iowa, he noticed a small house in gothic style and decided to portray those people who, in his opinion, would be ideally suited as inhabitants. Grant's sister and his dentist are immortalized in the form of characters that the people of Iowa were so offended by.

Revenge of Salvador Dali

The painting "Figure at the Window" was painted in 1925, when Dali was 21 years old. Then Gala had not yet entered the life of the artist, and his sister Ana Maria was his muse. The relationship between brother and sister deteriorated when he wrote on one of the paintings "sometimes I spit on a portrait of my own mother, and it gives me pleasure." Ana Maria could not forgive such shocking.

In her 1949 book Salvador Dali Through the Eyes of a Sister, she writes about her brother without any praise. The book infuriated El Salvador. For another ten years after that, he angrily remembered her at every opportunity. And so, in 1954, the picture "A young virgin indulging in Sodomy sin with the help of the horns of her own chastity" appears. The pose of the woman, her curls, the landscape outside the window and the color scheme of the painting clearly echo the Figure at the Window. There is a version that this is how Dali took revenge on his sister for her book.

Two-faced Danae

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Danae, 1636-1647.

Many secrets of one of the most famous paintings by Rembrandt were revealed only in the 60s of the twentieth century, when the canvas was illuminated with X-rays. For example, the shooting showed that in the early version the face of the princess, who entered into love affair with Zeus, it looked like the face of Saskia, the wife of the painter, who died in 1642. In the final version of the painting, it began to resemble the face of Gertier Dirks, Rembrandt's mistress, with whom the artist lived after the death of his wife.

Van Gogh's yellow bedroom

Vincent van Gogh, "Bedroom in Arles", 1888 - 1889.

In May 1888, Van Gogh acquired a small workshop in Arles, in the south of France, where he fled from the Parisian artists and critics who did not understand him. In one of the four rooms, Vincent sets up a bedroom. In October, everything is ready, and he decides to paint Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles. For the artist, the color, the comfort of the room was very important: everything had to suggest thoughts of relaxation. At the same time, the picture is sustained in disturbing yellow tones.

Researchers of Van Gogh's creativity explain this by the fact that the artist took foxglove, a remedy for epilepsy, which causes serious changes in the patient's perception of color: the entire surrounding reality is painted in green-yellow tones.

Toothless perfection

Leonardo da Vinci, "Portrait of Mrs. Lisa del Giocondo", 1503 - 1519.

The generally accepted opinion is that Mona Lisa is perfection and her smile is beautiful in its mysteriousness. However, the American art critic (and part-time dentist) Joseph Borkowski believes that, judging by the expression on her face, the heroine has lost a lot of her teeth. While examining enlarged photographs of the masterpiece, Borkowski also found scars around her mouth. “She smiles so much precisely because of what happened to her,” the expert believes. “Her facial expression is typical of people who have lost their front teeth.”

Major on face control

Pavel Fedotov, Major's Matchmaking, 1848.

The public, who first saw the painting "Major's Matchmaking", laughed heartily: the artist Fedotov filled it with ironic details that were understandable to viewers of that time. For example, the major is clearly not familiar with the rules of noble etiquette: he appeared without the proper bouquets for the bride and her mother. And the bride herself, her merchant parents discharged in the evening ball gown, although it is daytime (all the lamps in the room are extinguished). The girl obviously tried on a low-cut dress for the first time, is embarrassed and tries to run away to her room.

Why Freedom is naked

Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix, Liberty at the Barricades, 1830.

According to the art historian Etienne Julie, Delacroix painted the face of a woman from the famous Parisian revolutionary - the laundress Anna-Charlotte, who went to the barricades after the death of her brother at the hands of royal soldiers and killed nine guards. The artist depicted her bare-chested. According to his plan, this is a symbol of fearlessness and selflessness, as well as the triumph of democracy: naked breasts show that Svoboda, like a commoner, does not wear a corset.

non-square square

Kazimir Malevich, Black Suprematist Square, 1915.

In fact, the "Black Square" is not at all black and not at all square: none of the sides of the quadrangle is parallel to any of its other sides, and none of the sides of the square frame that frames the picture. And the dark color is the result of mixing various colors, among which there was no black. It is believed that this was not the negligence of the author, but a principled position, the desire to create a dynamic, mobile form.

Specialists of the Tretyakov Gallery have discovered the author's inscription on a famous painting by Malevich. The inscription reads: "Battle of the Negroes in a dark cave." This phrase refers to the title of the playful painting. French journalist, writer and artist Alphonse Allais "The Battle of the Negroes in a Dark Cave late at night”, which was a completely black rectangle.

Melodrama of the Austrian Mona Lisa

Gustav Klimt, "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer", 1907.

One of Klimt's most significant paintings depicts the wife of the Austrian sugar magnate Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. All Vienna discussed the stormy romance between Adele and the famous artist. The wounded husband wanted to take revenge on his lovers, but chose a very unusual way: he decided to order a portrait of Adele for Klimt and make him make hundreds of sketches until the artist starts to turn out of her.

Bloch-Bauer wanted the work to last several years, and the model could see how Klimt's feelings fade away. He made a generous offer to the artist, which he could not refuse, and everything turned out according to the scenario of the deceived husband: the work was completed in 4 years, the lovers had long cooled off towards each other. Adele Bloch-Bauer never found out that her husband was aware of her relationship with Klimt.

The painting that brought Gauguin back to life

Paul Gauguin, "Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?", 1897-1898.

Gauguin's most famous canvas has one feature: it is "read" not from left to right, but from right to left, like Kabbalistic texts that the artist was interested in. It is in this order that the allegory of the spiritual and physical life of a person unfolds: from the birth of the soul (a sleeping child in the lower right corner) to the inevitability of the hour of death (a bird with a lizard in its claws in the lower left corner).

The painting was painted by Gauguin in Tahiti, where the artist fled from civilization several times. But this time life on the island did not work out: total poverty led him to depression. Having finished the canvas, which was to become his spiritual testament, Gauguin took a box of arsenic and went to the mountains to die. However, he did not calculate the dose, and the suicide failed. The next morning, he staggered to his hut and fell asleep, and when he woke up, he felt a forgotten thirst for life. And in 1898, his affairs went uphill, and a brighter period began in his work.

112 proverbs in one picture

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, "Netherlands Proverbs", 1559

Pieter Brueghel the Elder depicted a land inhabited by literal images of the Dutch proverbs of those days. There are approximately 112 recognizable idioms in the painted picture. Some of them are still used today, such as "swim against the current", "bang your head against the wall", "armed to the teeth" and "big fish eats small ones".

Other proverbs reflect human stupidity.

Subjectivity of art

Paul Gauguin, Breton village under the snow, 1894

Gauguin's painting "Breton Village in the Snow" was sold after the death of the author for only seven francs and, moreover, under the name "Niagara Falls". The auctioneer accidentally hung the painting upside down after seeing a waterfall in it.

hidden picture

Pablo Picasso, The Blue Room, 1901

In 2008, infrared showed that another image was hidden under the "Blue Room" - a portrait of a man dressed in a suit with a butterfly and resting his head on his hand. “As soon as Picasso had new idea, he took up the brush and embodied it. But he did not have the opportunity to buy a new canvas every time the muse visited him, ”art historian Patricia Favero explains the possible reason for this.

Inaccessible Moroccan women

Zinaida Serebryakova, Naked, 1928

Once Zinaida Serebryakova received tempting offer- go to creative journey to depict the nude figures of oriental maidens. But it turned out that it was simply impossible to find models in those places. An interpreter for Zinaida came to the rescue - he brought his sisters and his bride to her. No one before and after that was able to capture the closed Oriental women naked.

Spontaneous insight

Valentin Serov, "Portrait of Nicholas II in a jacket", 1900

For a long time Serov could not paint a portrait of the tsar. When the artist completely gave up, he apologized to Nikolai. Nikolai was a little upset, sat down at the table, stretching out his hands in front of him ... And then it dawned on the artist - here he is! A simple military man in an officer's jacket with clear and sad eyes. This portrait is considered the best image last emperor.

Again deuce

© Fedor Reshetnikov

The famous painting "Again deuce" is just the second part of the artistic trilogy.

The first part is "Arrived for the holidays." Clearly wealthy family the winter vacation, a joyful student-excellent student.

The second part is "Again the deuce." A poor family from the outskirts of the working class, the height of the school year, a dull stunner who again grabbed a deuce. In the upper left corner you can see the picture "Arrived for the holidays."

The third part is "Re-examination". Country house, summer, everyone is walking, one malicious ignoramus who failed the annual exam is forced to sit within four walls and cram. In the upper left corner you can see the picture "Again deuce".

How masterpieces are born

Joseph Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed, 1844

In 1842, Mrs. Simon traveled by train in England. Suddenly, a heavy downpour began. The elderly gentleman sitting across from her got up, opened the window, stuck his head out, and stared like that for about ten minutes. Unable to contain her curiosity, the woman also opened the window and looked ahead. A year later, she discovered the painting “Rain, Steam and Speed” at an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts and was able to recognize in it the very episode on the train.

Anatomy lesson from Michelangelo

Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam, 1511

A pair of American neuroanatomy experts believe that Michelangelo actually left some anatomical illustrations in one of his most famous works. They believe that a huge brain is depicted on the right side of the picture. Surprisingly, even complex components such as the cerebellum, optic nerves, and pituitary gland can be found. And the catchy green ribbon perfectly matches the location of the vertebral artery.

The Last Supper by Van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh, Café Terrace at Night, 1888

Researcher Jared Baxter believes that Van Gogh's Café Terrace at Night contains a dedication to Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. In the center of the picture is a waiter with long hair and in a white tunic, reminiscent of the clothes of Christ, and around him exactly 12 cafe visitors. Baxter also draws attention to the cross, located directly behind the back of the waiter in white.

Dali's image of memory

Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1931

It is no secret that the thoughts that visited Dali during the creation of his masterpieces were always in the form of a very realistic images, which the artist then transferred to the canvas. So, according to the author himself, the painting "The Persistence of Memory" was painted as a result of associations that arose at the sight of processed cheese.

What is Munch shouting about

Edvard Munch, "The Scream", 1893.

Munch spoke about the idea of ​​one of the most mysterious paintings in world painting: "I was walking along the path with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red, I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence - I looked at blood and flames over the bluish-black fjord and the city - my friends went on, and I stood, trembling with excitement, feeling the endless cry piercing nature. But what kind of sunset could scare the artist so?

There is a version that the idea of ​​"Scream" was born by Munch in 1883, when there were several strongest eruptions of the Krakatoa volcano - so powerful that they changed the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere by one degree. A copious amount of dust and ash spread throughout the globe even reaching Norway. For several evenings in a row, the sunsets looked as if the apocalypse was about to come - one of them became a source of inspiration for the artist.

Writer among the people

Alexander Ivanov, "The Appearance of Christ to the People", 1837-1857.

Dozens of sitters posed for Alexander Ivanov for his main picture. One of them is known no less than the artist himself. In the background, among travelers and Roman horsemen who have not yet heard the sermon of John the Baptist, one can notice a character in a brown tunic. His Ivanov wrote with Nikolai Gogol. The writer closely communicated with the artist in Italy, in particular on religious issues, and gave him advice in the process of painting. Gogol believed that Ivanov "had long since died for the whole world, except for his work."

Michelangelo's gout

Raphael Santi, The School of Athens, 1511.

Creating the famous fresco "The School of Athens", Raphael immortalized his friends and acquaintances in images ancient Greek philosophers. One of them was Michelangelo Buonarroti "in the role" of Heraclitus. For several centuries, the fresco kept the secrets of Michelangelo's personal life, and modern researchers have suggested that the artist's strangely angular knee indicates that he has a joint disease.

This is quite likely, given the peculiarities of the lifestyle and working conditions of Renaissance artists and Michelangelo's chronic workaholism.

Mirror of the Arnolfinis

Jan van Eyck, "Portrait of the Arnolfinis", 1434

In the mirror behind the Arnolfinis, you can see the reflection of two more people in the room. Most likely, these are witnesses present at the conclusion of the contract. One of them is van Eyck, as evidenced by the Latin inscription placed, contrary to tradition, above the mirror in the center of the composition: "Jan van Eyck was here." This is how the contracts were usually sealed.

How a flaw turned into a talent

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Self-portrait at the age of 63, 1669.

Researcher Margaret Livingston studied all of Rembrandt's self-portraits and found that the artist suffered from strabismus: in the images, his eyes look in different sides, which is not observed in the portraits of other people by the master. The disease led to the fact that the artist could better perceive reality in two dimensions than people with normal vision. This phenomenon is called "stereo blindness" - the inability to see the world in 3D. But since the painter has to work with a two-dimensional image, it was precisely this shortcoming of Rembrandt that could be one of the explanations for his phenomenal talent.

Sinless Venus

Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, 1482-1486.

Before the advent of The Birth of Venus, the image of a naked female body in painting symbolized only the idea of ​​original sin. Sandro Botticelli was the first European painter not to find anything sinful in him. Moreover, art historians believe that pagan goddess love symbolizes the Christian image on the fresco: its appearance is an allegory of the rebirth of the soul that has undergone the rite of baptism.

Lute player or lute player?

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Lute Player, 1596.

For a long time, the painting was exhibited in the Hermitage under the title "Lute Player". Only at the beginning of the 20th century, art historians agreed that the canvas still depicts a young man (probably, Caravaggio was posed by his friend artist Mario Minniti): on the notes in front of the musician, a recording of the bass part of the madrigal by Jacob Arcadelt “You know that I love you” is visible . A woman could hardly make such a choice - it's just hard for the throat. In addition, the lute, like the violin at the very edge of the picture, was considered a male instrument in the era of Caravaggio.

Visual arts have always been considered closely related to the mystical realm. After all, any image is an energy imprint of the original, especially when it comes to portraits. It is believed that they are able to influence not only those from whom they are written, but also other people. You don't have to look far for examples: let's turn to the Russian painting XIX- the beginning of the twentieth century.

The mysticism of the portrait of Maria Lopukhina

Delightful beauties, who stare at us from the canvases of great painters, will always remain just like that: young, charming and plump. vital energy. However, the true fate of beautiful models is not always as enviable as it might seem at first glance. This is very easy to verify with an example. famous portrait Maria Lopukhina, who came out from under the brush of Vladimir Borovikovsky.

Maria Lopukhina, descended from the count family of Tolstoy, immediately after own wedding(she was 18 years old) posed for Vladimir Borovikovsky. The portrait was commissioned by her husband. At the time of writing, Maria looked just great. Her face radiated so much charm, spirituality and dreaminess ... There could be no doubt that the charming model was waiting for a long and happy life. An incomprehensible fact, but Mary died of consumption when she was only 23 years old.

Much later, the poet Polonsky wrote "Borovikovsky saved her beauty ...". However, immediately after the death of the young beauty, not everyone would share this opinion. After all, at that time there was talk in Moscow that it was the unfortunate portrait that was to blame for the death of Maria Lopukhina.

From this picture began to shy away, as if from a ghost. It was believed that if a young lady looked at her, she would soon die. According to some reports, a mysterious portrait killed about ten girls of marriageable age. It was said that Mary's father, a famous mystic, after his daughter died, lured her spirit into this canvas.

However, after almost a hundred years, Pavel Tretyakov was not afraid and acquired this visual image for his own gallery. After that, the picture "pacified". But what was it - empty gossip, a strange coincidence, or is there something more behind the mysterious phenomenon? Unfortunately, we will most likely never know the answer to this question.

Ilya Repin - a storm of sitters?

It is unlikely that anyone will argue that Ilya Efimovich Repin is one of the greatest Russian painters. But there is one strange and tragic circumstance: many who had the honor of being his sitters soon died. Among them are Mussorgsky, Pisemsky, Pirogov, Italian actor Mercy d'Argento. As soon as the artist took up the portrait of Fyodor Tyutchev, he also died. Of course, in all cases there were objective reasons for death, but here are the coincidences ... Even the hefty men who posed for Repin for the painting “Barge haulers on the Volga” are said to have prematurely given their souls to God.

"Barge haulers on the Volga", 1870-1873

However, the most creepy story happened with the painting "Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan on November 16, 1581", which in our time is better known as "Ivan the Terrible kills his son." Even balanced people, when looking at the canvas, felt uneasy: the scene of the murder was written too realistically, there was too much blood on the canvas, which seems real.

The canvas exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery made a strange impression on visitors. Some sobbed in front of the picture, others fell into a stupor, the third had hysterical seizures. And on January 16, 1913, the young icon painter Abram Balashov cut the canvas with a knife. He was sent to a mental hospital, where he died. The canvas has been restored.

"Ivan the Terrible kills his son", 1883-1885

It is known that Repin thought for a long time before taking on a picture of Ivan the Terrible. And not in vain. The artist Myasoedov, from whom the image of the tsar was painted, soon, in anger, almost killed his young son, who was also called Ivan, like the murdered prince. The image of the latter was written from the writer Vsevolod Garshin, who later went crazy and committed suicide by throwing himself into a flight of stairs ...

The Murder That Wasn't

The story that Ivan the Terrible is a son-killer is just a myth.

It is believed that Ivan the Terrible killed his son in a fit of anger by hitting his staff to the temple. The reasons for different researchers are called different: from domestic quarrels to political friction. Meanwhile, none of the sources directly states that the prince and heir to the throne was killed by his own father!

The Piskarevsky Chronicler says: “At 12 midnight in the summer of November 7090, on the 17th day ... the repose of Tsarevich John Ioannovich.” The Novgorod Fourth Chronicle reports: “The same (7090) year, Tsarevich John Ioannovich reposed at Matins in Sloboda.” The cause of death is not named.
In the 60s of the last century, the graves of Ivan the Terrible and his son were opened. On the skull of the prince there were no injuries characteristic of a brain injury. Therefore, there was no sonicide? But where did the legend about him come from?

Antonio Possevino - representative of the Vatican in Russia during the times of Ivan the Terrible and the Great Troubles

Its author is the Jesuit monk Anthony Possevin (Antonio Possevino), who was sent to Moscow as an ambassador from the Pope with a proposal for the Orthodox Church to come under the authority of the Vatican. The idea did not meet with the support of the Russian tsar. Possevin, meanwhile, allegedly became an eyewitness family scandal. The sovereign was angry with his pregnant daughter-in-law, the wife of his son Ivan, for "obscene appearance" - either she forgot to put on a belt, or she put on only one shirt, while it was supposed to wear four. In a temper, the father-in-law began to beat the unfortunate staff. The prince stood up for his wife: before that, the father had already sent his two first wives to the monastery, who could not conceive from him. John Jr. was not unreasonably afraid that he would lose the third - his father would simply kill her. He rushed at the priest, who, in a fit of violence, struck with his staff and pierced his son's temple. However, apart from Possevin, not a single source confirms this version, although later other historians, Staden and Karamzin, willingly picked it up.

• Modern researchers suggest that the Jesuit invented the legend in retaliation for the fact that he had to return to the papal court "without salt."

When exhumed in bone tissue prince, the remains of poisons were found. This may indicate that John the Younger died of poisoning (which is not uncommon for those times), and not at all from a blow with a hard object!

Nevertheless, in Repin's painting, we see precisely the version of sonicide. It is performed with such extraordinary plausibility that you involuntarily believe that everything actually happened. Hence, of course, the "deadly" energy.

And again Repin distinguished himself

Repin's self-portrait

Once Repin was ordered a huge monumental painting "The Ceremonial Meeting of the State Council." The painting was completed by the end of 1903. And in 1905, the first Russian revolution broke out, during which the heads of the officials depicted on the canvas flew. Some lost their posts and titles, others even paid with their lives: Minister V.K. Plehve and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the former governor-general of Moscow, were killed by terrorists.

In 1909, the artist, commissioned by the Saratov City Duma, painted a portrait. As soon as he finished the work, Stolypin was shot dead in Kyiv.

Who knows - maybe if Ilya Repin had not been so talented, tragedies might not have happened. Back in the 15th century, the scientist, philosopher, alchemist and magician Cornelius Agrippa Nettesheim wrote: "Beware of the painter's brush - his portrait may turn out to be more alive than the original."

P. A. Stolypin. Portrait by I. Repin (1910)

Mystical painting "Stranger" by Ivan Kramskoy

Painting miraculously experienced two periods of mass interest in itself, and in a completely different eras. For the first time - after writing in 1883, it was considered the embodiment of aristocracy and was very popular with the sophisticated St. Petersburg public.

Unexpectedly, another surge of interest in the "Unknown" occurred already in the second half of the 20th century. The apartments were decorated with reproductions of Kramskoy's work cut out of magazines, and copies of The Unknown were one of the most popular commissions from artists of all levels. True, for some reason the picture was already known under the name "The Stranger", perhaps under the influence of the work of the same name by Blok. Even sweets "Stranger" were created with a picture of Kramskoy on the box. So the erroneous title of the work finally "came into life."

Long-term studies of "who is depicted in Kramskoy's painting" did not yield results. According to one version, the prototype of the "symbol of aristocracy" was a peasant woman named Matryona, who married the nobleman Bestuzhev.

"The Stranger" by Ivan Kramskoy is one of the most mysterious masterpieces of Russian painting.

At first glance, there is nothing mystical in the portrait: the beauty is driving along Nevsky Prospekt in an open carriage.

Many considered the heroine of Kramskoy an aristocrat, but fashionable, trimmed with fur and blue satin ribbons a velvet coat and a stylish beret hat, coupled with scowling eyebrows, lipstick on her lips and a blush on her cheeks, betray her as a lady of the then demi-monde. Not a prostitute, but obviously the kept woman of some noble or rich person.

However, when the artist was asked if this woman exists in reality, he only grinned and shrugged his shoulders. In any case, no one has seen the original.
Meanwhile, Pavel Tretyakov refused to purchase a portrait for his gallery - perhaps he was afraid of the belief that portraits of beauties "suck strength" from living people.

Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy

"Stranger" began to travel to private collections. And very soon gained notoriety. Its first owner was abandoned by his wife, the house of the second burned down, the third went bankrupt. All these misfortunes were attributed to the fatal picture.

Kramskoy himself did not escape the curse. Less than a year after the creation of Unknown, two of his sons died one after the other.

The "damned" picture went abroad. They say that there she also caused all sorts of troubles to her owners. In 1925, "The Stranger" returned to Russia and yet took its place in the Tretyakov Gallery. Since then, no more incidents have occurred.

Maybe the whole point is that the portrait from the very beginning should have taken its rightful place?

The curse of the killer paintings

Associated with many works of art Mystic stories and riddles. Moreover, some experts believe that dark and secret forces are involved in the creation of a number of canvases. There are grounds for such an assertion. All too often amazing facts have happened to these fatal masterpieces and unexplained events- fires, deaths, madness of authors...

One of the most famous "cursed" paintings is " crying boy"- a reproduction of a painting by the Spanish artist Giovanni Bragolin. The story of its creation is as follows: the artist wanted to paint a portrait of a crying child and took his little son as a sitter. But, since the baby could not cry to order, the father deliberately brought him to tears, lighting in front of him The artist knew that his son was terribly afraid of fire, but art was dearer to him than the nerves of his own child, and he continued to mock him.
Once brought to hysterics, the kid could not stand it and shouted, shedding tears: "Burn yourself!" This curse did not take long to come true - two weeks later the boy died of pneumonia, and soon burned alive in own house and his father... This is the backstory. The painting, or rather its reproduction, gained its sinister fame in 1985, in England.
This happened thanks to a series of strange coincidences - in Northern England, one after another, residential buildings began to ignite. There were human casualties. Some victims mentioned that only a cheap reproduction depicting a crying child miraculously survived from all the property. And there were more and more such reports, until, finally, one of the fire inspectors publicly announced that in all the burnt houses, without exception, the "Crying Boy" was found intact.
Immediately, the newspapers were flooded with a wave of letters, which reported various accidents, deaths and fires that occurred after the owners bought this painting. Of course, the "Crying Boy" immediately began to be considered cursed, the story of its creation surfaced, overgrown with rumors and fiction ... As a result, one of the newspapers published an official statement that everyone who has this reproduction should immediately get rid of it, and the authorities henceforth it is forbidden to acquire and keep it at home.
The Crying Boy is still infamous to this day, especially in northern England. By the way, the original has not yet been found. True, some doubters (especially here in Russia) deliberately hung this portrait on their wall, and, it seems, no one burned down. But still, there are very few who want to test the legend in practice.

Assumption

American astronomers have solved the mystery of the painting "The Scream" by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. They found the answer to a question that has long tormented art historians - why the sky in the famous painting by Munch of 1893 has such a strange and unique flaming red color.

As it turned out, the color scheme of the picture is by no means a figment of the imagination, but quite realistic image sunsets in Europe during that period. They acquired a completely unexpected color after the eruption of the Krakatau volcano in Indonesia in August 1883, when a huge amount of ash was thrown into the atmosphere of the planet. This eruption is considered one of the most powerful and tragic in the history of mankind.

Scientists at the University of Texas conducted a detailed analysis of Munch's diaries, materials about the Krakatoa eruption, and studied Norwegian newspaper reports in 1883. "Our research trip to Oslo reached its main point when we found a turn in the road and realized that we were exactly in the place where Munch stood 120 years ago," said research leader Donald Olson, professor of physics and astronomy at the university. that he looked southwest. Looking in this direction, one could see the sunsets associated with the Krakatoa eruption in the winter of 1883-84.
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The Dutch artist Pieter Brueghel the Elder painted The Adoration of the Magi for two years. He "copied" the Virgin Mary from his cousin. She was a barren woman, for which she received constant cuffs from her husband. It was she who, as simple medieval Dutch gossiped, "infected" the picture. Four times "Magi" were bought by private collectors. And each time the same story was repeated: in a family for 10-12 years no children were born ...

Finally, in 1637, the painting was bought by the architect Jacob van Campen. By that time, he already had three children, so the curse did not really scare him.

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Probably the most famous bad picture of the Internet space with the following story: A certain schoolgirl (often mentioned Japanese) before opening her veins (jumping out of the window, eating pills, hanging herself, drowning herself in the bathroom) drew this picture.

If you look at her for 5 minutes in a row, the girl will change (eyes will turn red, hair will turn black, fangs will appear).
In fact, it is clear that the picture is clearly not drawn by hand, as many like to claim. Although no one gives clear answers how this picture appeared.

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8. Now it hangs modestly without a frame in one of the shops in Vinnitsa. "Rain Woman" is the most expensive of all works: it costs $500. According to the sellers, the painting has already been bought three times, and then returned. Clients explain that they are dreaming about her. And someone even says that he knows this lady, but does not remember where. And everyone who has ever looked into her white eyes will forever remember the feeling of a rainy day, silence, anxiety and fear.

The exhibits were stolen from a museum located in close proximity to the central Tahrir Square, where mass demonstrations against the former ruler of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, have taken place over the past three weeks.

Looters made their way into the museum on January 28, taking advantage of the chaos that reigned during the mass unrest, Agence France-Presse reports, citing the Egyptian Minister of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass.

Among the stolen objects of cultural value are a statue of the young ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun made of gilded wood and part of another statue of the same ruler.

cursed treasure

In addition, the thieves took away limestone statues of Pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti, a bust of Princess Amarana, an amulet in the form of a scarab beetle hanging on a mummy, and a number of other objects of ancient culture.

A criminal case has already been opened on the fact of the theft, and at the moment the local police are interrogating the suspects.

"Representatives law enforcement and the military plans to interrogate the criminals who are already in custody," Hawass said.

The museum, founded in 1858 by the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, was protected by military and civilian volunteers for three weeks after the protests began.

About 100 thousand exhibits are stored in the building, of which, perhaps, the most famous is the supposedly cursed treasure from the tomb of Tutankhamen.

The pictures are back.

Added after 42 minutes 59 seconds
Anna Akhmatova once said: "When a person dies, his portraits change." A picturesque portrait, a painting is a powerful energy structure. The painter not only paints a canvas on a particular subject - he conveys his feelings, thoughts, worldview, and most importantly - the mood that forms the energy of the artistic canvas. It is also called "catharsis". If the plot of the picture is undisguisedly aggressive, then this causes aggression in the viewer. It should be noted that paintings, portraits carry different energy. Sometimes the artist, without realizing it, "loads" the contemplator of his paintings with that catharsis, from which he himself is freed in the process of creating the canvas.

Everyone knows the fact of vandalism associated with the painting by Ilya Repin "Ivan the Terrible kills his son." But few people know that Repin for a long time failed to write the "living" blood oozing through the fingers of his murderous father. And then the artist saw it with his own eyes on the face of a woman who fell under the carriage, rushed home and with a few strokes "revived" her on the canvas.
When the blood of people or animals flows out of the body, then in the first minutes of this process it emits radiation of a special force.
The outflow of blood, the insane look of the killer influenced the psyche of the student Balashov: in a fit of rage, he shredded the famous painting by Repin. The offender was later declared insane. The poet Maximillian Voloshin, in a speech at the trial about the incident, accused Repin of subconsciously putting aggression into the picture. It was she who shook the sick and vulnerable imagination of Balashov. Then they did not listen to Voloshin, accusing his theory of lack of evidence, but history repeated itself in the 80s - this time with Rembrandt's painting "Danae". It was almost completely destroyed with sulfuric acid by a crazy fanatic from the Baltics.

Alexandre Benois, who preached freedom of creativity, was a cosmopolitan by conviction, suddenly spoke out sharply against Malevich's cosmopolitanism, calling it "Black Square" the icon that was offered instead of the Madonna. Malevich woke up famous in 1915, when he exhibited at the exhibition "0.10" - "Black Square" - the last painting in the world, as he himself called it. This is where the art ends. Malevich died in 1935 from cancer. The urn with the ashes was placed in an open field near a dacha in Nemchinovka. On the grave - they put a cube with a black square.

Added after 17 hours 50 minutes 27 seconds
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel and his Demon

After this picture, they started talking about him all over the world. From an unknown student, he turned into a cult artist, an icon of his time.
We are talking about Mikhail Vrubel. He decided on an unheard-of defiant and daring act - he challenged the long-standing ban not to portray the Demon.
He made the Demon the main character of his paintings, but punishment awaited him for this. Vrubel could not even imagine that the curses would come true and the Demon would take over the consciousness of its creator.
The painting "The Demon Who Sits" will be seen by the Moscow public and the next morning Mikhail Vrubel will wake up famous. And after many years, the same newspapers that praised him will write: "The demon kills its author."
His picture hung at the exhibition, but the Demon was, as it were, inseparable from the soul of the artist, and when Vrubel tried to break and destroy him in himself, he found himself in crazy house where he died.
But did this mystical connection with the painting really exist? What did Mikhail Vrubel really pay for?

None of the devils previously created by artists had a living prototype. And the Demon of Mikhail Vrubel had, since it was written with real person, besides the beloved woman.
Drawing his Demon, the artist pursued a specific goal - to take revenge on this woman. One single painting made Vrubel a world-famous artist.
Every student knows his Demon today Art Academy. But few people guess - the picture had a specific prototype.
It was a woman, a Kyivan, and meeting with her made Vrubel a brilliant artist and a deeply unhappy person. Vrubel, when he arrived in Kyiv, was, figuratively speaking, nobody.
He was yesterday's student of the Academy, and it can be said without exaggeration that all three turning point his character: as a person, as a sick person and as a great artist, were formed in Kyiv. This fatal woman and the fatal love that flared up in his soul for this woman played a significant role in this.

Incredible luck brought an unknown artist Mikhail Vrubel to Kyiv. In 1860, a miraculous phenomenon happened in one of the churches in Kyiv. In St. Cyril's Church, ancient paintings suddenly appeared to people.
The priest found these unique frescoes by chance. During the Great Day service, a piece of plaster fell off the wall and everyone saw that an angel was looking at the flock. Then the priest detached another piece of plaster from the wall and under it were ancient paintings, which, as it turned out, were over 700 years old.
These frescoes needed to be urgently restored. After all, being under the access of air, the unique murals could collapse. But finding a master for this was not so easy.
Artists one after another refused this work. And the main reason was that the St. Cyril's Church had a bad, very bad reputation.
St. Cyril's Church was located on the territory of a psychiatric hospital. In fact, the one who will work in this church will actually work in a mental hospital.
For a long time they could not find a restorer for St. Cyril's Church. Until Mikhail Vrubel, an unknown student of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, appeared in Kyiv.
A modest, thin young man in a dark suit, who was invited by the famous art historian Adrian Prakhov to restore the mysterious paintings found in St. Cyril's Church. And he was not wrong. Vrubel brilliantly coped with the task, but both Vrubel and Prakhov will have to pay too high a price.
The famous Pavlovka hospital, where people with mental illness, the blessed and holy fools, have long been brought and left. The people of Kiev have always bypassed this place. In those days, mentally ill people were not considered sick. They were equated with criminals and forever thrown out of society.
This place was like that during the reign of Catherine II. But in the 19th century, psychiatry became the subject of scientific research. Pavlovka's patients will be examined by doctors. When Vrubel arrived here, the terrible prison for insane people had already turned into a hospital.
But her bad reputation remained just as terrible. The people of Kiev saw that on the territory of Pavlovka, under the supervision of orderlies, strange people with crazy and terrible eyes were walking. They jump, cry and laugh terribly. When Vrubel first entered the territory of the hospital, he was struck by the eyes of the patients. For many years he will not be able to forget their expression and will again and again reproduce on canvases.
But first, Vrubel will not pay attention to prejudice. For him, this is a phenomenal opportunity. After all, he, a fourth-year student, is entrusted with valuable frescoes that were already 700 years old. He begins restoration work on the very first day, without even stopping by the apartment that Prakhov offered him, but only asks to send his things there.
Vrubel himself was taken to St. Cyril's Church. And when Vrubel climbed the rishtovka, he felt a mystical tremor - another world opened up before him: the faces of saints who were worshiped by people 700 years ago looked at him. Vrubel redraws the frescoes into an album, scrupulously writes out every feature of the face, every fold of clothing. In order not to waste time on food, he takes a jug of water and a piece of bread with him to rishtovki.

During the first weeks of his work, he almost never leaves St. Cyril's Church and reacts to other people only when they go up the ridge to give the artist a new pencil or knead paints. But one day an unusual visitor comes to the church - an elegantly dressed woman with a covered head. She stands downstairs for a long time and tries to attract attention to herself. And when in the end the artist is distracted from work, she imperiously asks him to come down.
Outwardly, she was far from beautiful. Short in stature, she had a stocky figure, but she had amazing huge eyes of incredible size and the surviving photographs confirm this. And the expression of those eyes, the look when she looked, could really enchant and bewitch. The woman called herself the wife of the customer Emilia Prakhova. She came to invite the master to an ordinary family dinner.
And Vrubel will forever remember her imperious tone and proud posture. Later he would write - he did not know then that she had come with a single invitation to change his life. That evening, a humble student finds himself in a fairy tale. The fact is that Vrubel grew up in a stern officer's family, in which, if there was a secular reception, then it was necessary according to all the rules of etiquette.
The House of the Prakhovs seems to him a fantastic place, a territory of freedom. Here everything was different than in the family of his parents and what he was used to in childhood. It was a bohemian family attended by many creative people. Most of all, Vrubel was struck by the hostess herself.
Emily is 32 years old and has three children. She could not be called a beauty, but Mikhail Vrubel had never seen a woman behave like that. Emilia Prakhova, with her manners, did not fit into any framework of that time.
From the first meeting, the image of this woman will forever remain in Vrubel's imagination. And it is this image that will lead the artist to unheard-of glory and to a lifelong curse. Emilia was natural in her manifestations and her actions did not always correspond to the rules of behavior of that society and that time.
She was an eccentric, extravagant woman who, on the one hand, knew several languages, and on the other hand, could afford to pour a jug of water on her guest's head simply because she did not like the remark of this guest.
Nothing special: she just kept up a conversation with him - witty and free. But after this acquaintance, Vrubel lost interest in the work of the restorer. Saints and angels of Kievan Rus will become indifferent to him.
In a few days, a modest and demanding master will turn into a scandalous dandy, start dressing provocatively and behaving strangely, and then commit an act for which he will pay for his whole life.
Apprentices and assistants do not recognize the artist. He appears less and less on the rishtovka. For the customer, Prakhova invents an excuse - he needs to think about the image of the Virgin, and he himself counts the money he has earned. Prakhov pays Vrubel a penny - after all, the city authorities allocated almost nothing for the restoration of frescoes.

But Vrubel doesn't care. He will leave all the money in a clothing store and ask the seller to offer him a shirt made of the finest silk, from Paris itself. The seller is surprised: why does Vrubel need such an expensive shirt that suits the governor more, there are many other cheaper shirts in the store.
But Vrubel insists on his own, and in the evening he dresses like a real dandy and goes to the Prakhovs. Emilia, instead of appreciating his elegance, unexpectedly chastises the artist for spending extra money. Vrubel hardly survives until the end of dinner, and then jumps out the door like a bullet and runs away.
After this incident, Vrubel did not appear in St. Cyril's Church for two days. And when, finally, he comes to work, he carries a package in his hands. On the corner he gives the package to a beggar and quickly moves on. When the beggar unfolds the package, he sees in it a beautiful silk shirt. This was Vrubel's first oddity.
Twenty years later, after his death, the Prakhovs will recall a whole chain of such oddities and say that, they say, then Vrubel's illness was already beginning. But were these really the first signs of insanity and mental illness, or just the emotions of a man in love?

Again and again, Vrubel tries to attract the attention of Prakhova. Once, going home after dinner, he gives her a watercolor. But Emilia does not accept the gift. She explains that this is too great an honor for her. Such beautiful things belong in a museum.
She wanted to praise his talent, but Vrubel flares up with resentment. He tears the watercolor into pieces and throws it at the feet of the hostess, and a few days later he returns to the Prakhovs, and this time with a nose painted with green paint.
When he is told that he accidentally got dirty, Vrubel only laughs in response and explains that from now on this is a new fashion - women wear makeup, and men draw noses. Someone likes red, and he likes green. The children laugh at the joke, and Emilia again does not understand the artist. She chastises him for childish play and demands that the paint be washed off immediately.
Vrubel obediently fulfills the order, and then makes a strange and unexpected offer to Emilia Prakhova - he asks permission to draw her in the image Holy Mother of God- and she agrees.
Sketches have been preserved, and on the first of them the face of Emilia Prakhova is completely - the eyes and nose are still human. The next sketch, as a result of the search, already shows the canonical incarnation of the Virgin Mary. True, the eyes are even larger and they have a different expression.
And on the final version and on the icon, the eyes are already half the face and longing in them. Sketches Vrubel draws in a strange state - having hastily sketched one drawing, erases it and sketches it with another drawing. The next sketch is shown to Emilia and, if she has any comments, redraws it again.
It was their only connection. Only in this way, drawing her, he could completely take possession of this woman. The sketches turned out to be so sensual that when Adrian Prakhov saw them, he could not stand it. In the face of the Virgin, he recognizes the face of his wife. Vrubel allowed himself too much and Prakhov decides to punish the impudent one.
But he cannot simply expel him, because the work in the St. Cyril's Church has not yet been completed, and the painting of the Vladimir Cathedral is next in line. Vrubel is the manager of the restoration work and bears full responsibility for everything. Therefore, Prakhov decides not to quarrel with the artist, but simply temporarily remove him from Emilia.
He must disappear from their house, for who knows what kind of relationship developed between his wife and the artist while working on the sketches. Therefore, Prakhov separates them. Under the pretext of studying the art of the great Italian masters and completing work on the icons of St. Cyril's Church, he sends Vrubel to Venice.

Mikhail Vrubel is having a hard time parting with Emilia. He is not comforted by the beauty of Italy, his heart is broken.
Every day he writes letters to his beloved and does not receive answers. The artist can express his desperate longing only in the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, on which he works every day.
Comparing the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos with the image of Emilia Prakhova in the photograph, it can be seen with the naked eye that these are one and the same person. In her hands she holds a little Christ, who, like two drops of water, looks like the youngest daughter of the Prakhovs.

The legend says that when the icon was installed in the iconostasis, a woman entered the St. Cyril's Church. She wanted to pray to the Most Holy Theotokos, but when she knelt before the icon, she suddenly cried out - Emilia Prakhova was looking at her from the iconostasis. Like this? Should she be praying for her neighbor?
When Adrian Prakhov saw the icon, he understood everything - in Venice, the artist did not forget the face of his wife. He was not tempted by the magical images of the canonical Madonnas of the Renaissance masters, but painted Emilia.
In anger, the customer for the restoration of the St. Cyril's Church and Vrubel's employer, Adrian Prakhov, breaks with him a new, already concluded contract for painting the next church - St. Vladimir's Cathedral and describes him as an "unreliable artist".
And right after that, the artistic council rejects all of Vrubel's sketches. For a week, the artist loses almost all orders. Galleries refuse his work. And Vrubel finds himself without a livelihood.

But none of this matters to him. The worst part is that Emilia doesn't want to see him anymore. Vrubel could not survive this. Contemporaries recall: "He seems to break free from the chain, drinks deeply, spends the night in brothels, gathers around him strange people- gypsies, homeless people, drunkards."
He borrows a huge amount of five thousand rubles and arranges a riotous banquet, but while the crowd drinks for the artist’s money, closes in his room and cruelly cuts his hands with a knife. With physical pain he wants to kill himself more severe pain- the pain of lost love.
In the morning, his acquaintances find Vrubel in his own apartment, bloodied and unconscious. And when they bring him to his senses, they report that with his banquets he has made huge debts and his creditors are suing him.
Friends try to help the artist. Only one unsold painting remains in his apartment - "Prayer for the Chalice". Contemporaries called her a brilliant creation. To save this picture from uncontrolled attack the wrath of the artist, friends find a buyer. A well-known Kiev philanthropist pays the artist 5,000 rubles in advance and wants to pick up the painting the next day.
But when he arrives the next day, he sees: "The Prayer for the Chalice" has been destroyed. Instead of a religious plot, a circus actress is depicted on the canvas. The day before, Vrubel saw this woman at the circus and decided to paint her immediately. He did not have a clean canvas, so he painted it on top of the sold painting.
Now, to pay off creditors, brilliant artist forced to take on any dirty work. He works as a cleaner in taverns, as a painter in construction. All earned money spends on booze and prostitutes. But even that doesn't ease his pain.
“I cut myself with a knife. Do you understand? I loved a woman - she didn’t love me. She even loved me, but a lot of things prevented her from understanding me. I suffered, and when I cut myself, the suffering decreased,” from Vrubel’s letters. In the end, the exhausted master decides to take revenge on the cruel woman.
Once he laughed at people who believed in the mystical power of the picture over the prototype. And now he decides to use his gift as a weapon and draw a Demon with the face of Emilia Prakhova.
The first Demon, who was seen only by Vrubel's father and who found his son in a terribly sick, feverish state while working on this picture, claimed that this Demon looked like a sensual evil woman. The demon turned out to be so terrible that Vrubel himself was frightened of his creation and destroyed the drawing - tore it to pieces, but it was too late.
Vrubel violated the ban never to draw, describe or play the devil. He drew a Demon with the features of a real person, and for this a terrible punishment awaited him.

Vrubel left for Moscow in a painful condition, but surprisingly calm. Here he is met by former classmates. They organized an art circle in the city. He is patronized by Savva Mamontov, a well-known Moscow philanthropist.
Mamontov heard about the Kirillov frescoes and gladly agrees to support the artist. It seems to Vrubel that everything he has experienced is behind him. He happily takes on a new job. But after a few months, the Kiev delusional nightmare returns to his life.
It was then that Lermontov's anniversary collection was being prepared for publication in Moscow, and an illustrator was needed. Vrubel is invited to illustrate the poem "Demon". The first thing that the artist sees is his Kiev drawing and the ban that he violated. This mistake cannot be repeated.
Then he was lucky, it seems that the punishment bypassed him, but the second time you can’t take such risks. But in fact, the choice has already been made. Vrubel refused the offer, but the image of the Demon begins to haunt him. The artist complains to his friends - he is disturbed by the same disturbing dream: every night he comes to beautiful angel with sad eyes.
The artist tries to remember where he saw those eyes. At Emilia Prakhova's or at the madmen near St. Cyril's Church. Savva Mamontov advises him: the easiest way to get rid of dreams is to draw an image. He should agree with the proposal of the publishers to illustrate Lermontov's poem and depict the Angel from his dreams in it.
So Vrubel created the painting "Seated Demon". This picture forever changed the idea of ​​painting. Demon will be considered a role model by the most famous artists of our time.

25 years have passed and Vrubel was again among the insane. Only once he looked at patients from the outside of this lattice, and now he himself has become one of them. Vrubel ceases to recognize his relatives, he does not even remember who he is. He is transferred from clinic to clinic. And in each of them he leaves whole piles of drawings. These drawings are not at all like the drawings of a madman - they are all light and peaceful.
Already after the death of the artist, the doctor who treated Vrubel wrote in his diary: "Vrubel died a seriously ill person. But, as an artist, he was healthy. Deeply healthy." How can this be? Modern psychologists they say that Vrubel was treated with his drawings, so he restrained the disease. He intuitively invented what, 30 years after his death, will be called art therapy, that is, treatment with art.
Such treatment cannot defeat the disease, but can significantly slow down its course and development. And some patients actually get better so much that they return home from the hospital practically healthy. At the time of Vrubel, art therapy did not yet exist.
In the clinic, Vrubel constantly draws landscapes outside the window, doctors, roommates, and the incredible happens - Vrubel manages to make the disease recede. He leaves the hospital and goes to where he first met his future wife - to the opera house.
As on the day they met, Natalia Zabela performed leading role. After the performance, Vrubel went to his wife in the dressing room, took her by the hands and thanked her. It was last time when he saw his wife. A few weeks later, Vrubel lost his sight.

Vrubel did not have time to finish his last painting, "Portrait of the Poet Bryusov".

Blind and touching, he tries to erase part of the background to correct it, but accidentally erases part of the figure. The orderlies will snatch valuable painting literally from under the hands of the author, and then they will regret their act: after that, Vrubel will never pick up a brush again.
He will live blind for another four years. The artist will never know: he was elected Academician of Arts in absentia. Exhibitions with his paintings travel all over Europe and receive worldwide fame and recognition. And publications will appear in the press that the Demon destroyed its author.
Already blind, Vrubel will try to put an end to the power of his Demon - to kill himself. But he died of acute pneumonia. Vrubel's demon didn't stop there. He took his sight and mind from him, and from his fatal love Emilia Prakhova - his family and peace of mind.
When Vrubel died, she, the Kyiv grand dame, the organizer of balls and magnificent receptions, was accused of being the one to blame for the madness of a genius. Emilia will not withstand such pressure. She will leave her husband and move to the provinces, and there, forgotten by everyone and alone, she will die.

The Dutchman Pieter Brueghel the Elder wrote The Adoration of the Magi over the course of two years.

The model for the Virgin Mary was his cousin, a barren woman who was beaten by her husband for this. It was she who caused the bad aura of the picture. The canvas was bought four times by collectors, and after that, no children were born in families for 10-12 years. In 1637 Jacob van Campen bought the painting. By that time, he already had three descendants, and therefore was not afraid of the curse.

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Evil spirit of the executed criminal

Evil spirit of the executed criminal
Paintings with deadly energy are always a lot of antique dealers. Dorothy Jenkins, a resident of London, once bought one of them in a Fulham antique shop.
It was a portrait of a young woman in a red velvet dress. The canvas was four feet square and showed signs of fire. Under the image was a short signature - "Antoine".

The picture immediately brought problems to the house. At first, Dorothy herself felt the attacks of a nervous breakdown. Being a quick-witted person, she suggested that her illness was somehow connected with the portrait hanging in her room. To finally be convinced of this, Dorothy offered her son Edward to hang the painting in his room for a couple of days. The result was not slow to affect:
Edward - a calm, melancholy young man, at times began to feel that waves of uncontrollable anger were rolling over him.
Dorothy turned to her acquaintance, the researcher of occult phenomena, Philip Paul, for advice. He came to a meeting with the famous London medium Anne Quigt. Paul didn't give her all the information about the problem he was investigating, just asked her to "psychometry" some subjects in one of the London districts.
Accompanying the parapsychologists at Dorothy Jenkins's home was Leslie Howard, deputy editor of the Parapsychology News, three newspaper reporters and a photographer to film the entire research process.
To make the results of the experiment more objective, Paul led the medium directly to the strange portrait, saying, naturally deceitful, that she would probably first like to examine the completely "neutral" objects in this house. However, Ann Twigg immediately felt unbearable horror next to the picture, fell into a trance and began to inarticulately talk about some mixed up events, among which were the sound of music, and a vision of blood, and a description of some kind of damp prison cell filled with rats. , as well as the gallows, a young woman with flowing hair, an executioner and a large crowd of people in the city square.
After the experiment, Ann claimed that as soon as she entered the room, she saw a bright flash of light moving from one place to another. The point at which this outbreak arose was Antoine's painting. By all appearances, the picture depicted a portrait of a woman, most likely of noble origin, who, in the distant 18th century, after being accused of some terrible crime, was publicly hung in the city square.
However, her spirit did not calm down after her death and forever settled in the portrait, negatively affecting the health of the owners of the picture from it. Naturally, Dorothy Jenkins wanted to get rid of the cursed portrait right away.
However, Ann Twig dissuaded her from such a rash step. “The spirit may be offended,” the medium said, “and the consequences of this will be unpredictable. Therefore, the most neutral option would be to move the picture somewhere in the attic or closet and leave it there forever.” Dorothy did just that, and since then, neither her nor her son Edward was disturbed by the evil spirit.

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The ghosts raged.

Anyone who watched the tale of Harry Potter probably remembers how the ghosts of long-dead people, constantly living in their portraits, regularly walked around the school for young wizards, and sometimes even played pranks without malice. According to the far from fabulous museum staff, such cases occur in real life. So, in 1996, in the Prado Museum in Madrid, in front of stunned tourists from Japan, an infanta descended from a painting by Velazquez and ... urinated on the floor! Then, of course, she returned to the picture.

And in the Musée d'Or-se in Paris, the Renoir beauty shocked a group of schoolchildren and their guide for ten minutes, spreading her legs ... It is noteworthy that in both cases the frills of the ghosts were seen only by those who were in the immediate vicinity of the paintings. The rest of the visitors did not notice anything special.
... As many media recently reported mass media, in one of the museums in New York, almost just before closing, when there were almost no people left in the hall, from the picture unknown artist 19th century ghost came out young man in a hunting suit and ... strangled a visitor who was standing nearby. The museum curators arrived at the scene of the crime when the ghost had already returned to its place in the portrait...

In my opinion, this is overkill.

Russian scientists, examining the "phantom" images of the paintings, came to the conclusion that Aivazovsky's "The Ninth Wave" and a number of other famous paintings also have a powerful negative aura. And while studying the energy of Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square", one of the scientists... lost consciousness. "This is one big clot of dark power and energy. As if they were painting a picture in the underworld," the scientist admitted when he was hardly brought to his senses. Malevich's painting "The Black Square" has been talked about before and is being talked about today. And not only to fill the price. Until now, no one knows what this square means, and what Malevich wanted to express with it. The "Black Square" is a "black hole" in painting that sucks in positive and ejects negative energy, which strongly affects the viewer's psyche. However, discussions around the "Black Square" do not subside.

It was said that the artist sold his soul to the devil - all the people depicted in the paintings died shortly after posing. The Higgins were the first. The artist does not give interviews, does not comment on the tragic fate of his models. He periodically calls this or that wealthy person, whose face often flickers in the newspapers: "You know, I plan to make your portrait ..." And the mortally frightened millionaire pays a tidy sum just so that he does not do this ...
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There are also mystical paintings: the young beauties depicted on them, who died after painting the paintings, have some power that can shorten the life of the owners of these paintings. Old collectors, observing the life of paintings for a long time, noticed that the painting seems to influence the space around and transfers the events depicted on it into real life.

A halo of mystery trails behind the paintings of the great Russian artist Kramskoy Ivan Nikolaevich (1837-1887). The famous painting "Unknown" is a portrait of a real beautiful woman. With its realism, the portrait has been exciting the delight of the audience for decades, her slightly contemptuous look, a slight blush on her cheeks, slightly twisted lips seem to express her inaccessibility to others who are captivated by her beauty. It seems that a lady is slowly passing along Nevsky Prospekt, surrounded by the exciting smell of mysticism, riddles.

Today's critics and ordinary contemplators believe that in front of them is a typical aristocrat to the tips of her nails, confident in herself and her beauty, but the audience, who are contemporaries of the depicted lady, immediately determined by her attire and tinted face that she was a representative of the so-called ladies of the demi-monde, that is just a content. She is given out by a combination of two fashionable things at the same time, which was an unacceptable bust in the attire of a decent lady of those times. In addition to clothes, makeup also betrays a woman: blush on her cheeks, lipstick on her lips and obviously summed up eyebrows, which was considered indecent in relation to secular ladies.

At that time, the artist was literally bombarded with questions: who is this beautiful stranger, does she really exist or is it a creation of the artist’s imagination? To which Kramskoy answered with a smile: “Of course she is real, real, existing on the canvas.” The audience, choking with overwhelming emotions, shared their impressions and wished to somehow get closer to unraveling the mystery of her beauty.

Only one person did not admire the image of the beauty, on the contrary, having carefully peered into the contemptuous look of the stranger, made a sharp turn and, without looking back, left the hall where the portrait of the “Stranger” was shown. This man was the famous collector Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov. The artist Kramskoy was greatly offended by this behavior of the collector and sold his painting to a small collector. And Mr. Tretyakov, having bitter experience behind him, knew that portraits of beautiful femme fatale will bring nothing good.

Among the collectors of paintings there is a belief that the beauties depicted on the canvases of famous artists take vitality people looking at them, because it is known that the painting by Leonardo “Gioconda” and the paintings with women by Titian and Botticelli are called vampire paintings, and fanatical spectators are constantly trying to spoil these paintings, cut them or even destroy them.

The painting "Unknown" also suffered a sad fate: at first it came to an unknown collector, then, as if not calming down, it passed from one hand to another for a long time. Getting to the next exhibition, the picture caused a heap of gossip that it had already brought a lot of misfortune to its owners. But a really terrible event happened at the very creator of the ill-fated picture: less than a year after the writing of "Unknown", Kramskoy's two sons died. The heartbroken artist expresses the depth of the tragedy in the writing of the following masterpiece - " Inconsolable grief”: the canvas depicts his weeping wife, standing in the middle of an empty room. Realizing that no one will want to buy a picture with such a frank expression of grief, Kramskoy donates it to Tretyakov Gallery. But Mr. Tretyakov, who was reputed to be a decent and sympathetic person, transferred a substantial fee for the canvas to the artist's family.

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The history of painting tells the story of the fate of the niece of the brilliant Italian composer N. Paccini, whose portrait he painted in 1832 fine artist Karl Pavlovich Bryullov (1799-1852).

The painting "Horsewoman" depicts a young Giovannina Paccini, gracefully prancing on a thin-legged horse. In Rome, they said that the young Giovannina was lucky, because after the death of her uncle, the rich Russian countess Yulia Samoilova took her to be raised, but the happiness did not last long - the girl was trampled to death by a horse.

allowed in the Catholic Church religious painting, in Orthodoxy, iconography with even more rigid image frames was recognized.

In Catholic art, the appearance of a woman was often the starting point for creating an image of the Virgin. The “Sistine Madonna” by Raphael was no exception here, in the features of which one recognizes not so much the image of the Mother of God revered by Christians as depicted on the canvas by Margaret Luti (Luti, Lucci).

Almost for the first time in history visual arts of the Renaissance, the Mother of God was not depicted in her divine form. A complete discrepancy with the generally accepted images of the Madonna is found - the emphasized simplicity of the pose, figure, face, clothes, hairstyle, lack of shoes.

It seems that even Pope Sixtus II, depicted next to the Madonna, at whose feet is the papal tiara, a symbol of spiritual power, and Saint Barbara, dressed much more elegant and luxurious than the Mother of God, are somewhat surprised by her human defenselessness, openness and completely earthly appearance of a peasant girl. There is no royal crown or luxurious clothes on the Sistine Madonna, she does not sit majestically on the throne; even the childishly wide eyes of the Madonna seem to be opposed to the wise look of the Christ Child.

The finished canvas gave rise to a lot of controversy in the church environment, customers refused to accept " Sistine Madonna”, finding the picture almost heretical. From the point of view of Catholic priests, such an image was inherently sinful, which, of course, did not detract from it. artistic value.

The information about Margaret Luti that has survived to this day is very scarce and more like legends. Her father was a baker who moved from Siena to Rome with his family. And in Rome, Rafael Santi met Margareta. During the acquaintance, Margareta agreed to pose for the artist to create the fresco "Cupid and Psyche". Young people fell in love with each other, but her father was against their meetings. Then Raphael bought Margareta from the baker, paying three thousand gold coins for his beautiful beloved.

For twelve years in a row (according to other sources - six years), Rafael and Margaret lived together, she accompanied him on all trips and was a model for many of the great painter's paintings, helping him create images of Madonnas, saints and mythical beauties. Contemporaries emphasized that Rafael did not part with her until his death, could not work if she was not around.

The opinions of researchers about the life of Margaret Luti are completely opposite. Some argue that she was not distinguished by fidelity and often paid attention to both the customers of Raphael's works and his students. One of the famous gossip also says that Rafael died in the bed of his unfaithful lover from a heart attack.

Others, including Pavel Muratov, indicate that these were sublime love relationship. The marriage of the artist and the daughter of a baker was banned by the Vatican and, in the hope of making Raphael a court painter, organized his marriage to the niece of one of the cardinals, but she was rejected by Raphael. It is also known that the sobbing Margaret was removed from the room of the dying Raphael when the papal envoy arrived.

The fate of Margaret Luti after the death of her lover and patron is also unclear. Evil tongues claim that she inherited from Raphael a large amount money and became known throughout Rome as a courtesan. Muratov claims that Margareta Luti left the monastery, as evidenced by the corresponding entry, which says that “the widow of Raphael” was tonsured a nun.

Almost the next day after the completion of work on their portraits, the composer Mussorgsky, the surgeon Pirogov, and the politician Stolypin died. Writer Vsevolod Garshin threw himself into a flight of stairs after Repin painted a sketch of the prince's head from him for the painting "Ivan the Terrible Kills His Son." Almost all the friends that he captured on another famous canvas - "The Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish Sultan", for various reasons, died immediately after the work was first exhibited. Frightened, the artist painted over the image of his own son on it.

Since ancient times, people have believed in the mystical power of paintings. Suffice it to recall the primitive tribes and their rock art depicting scenes of a successful hunt: drawing prey pierced by spears, ancient artists tried to visually show the patron spirits what they expect from the coming day.

However, there are many legends and traditions that tell about cursed paintings that bring misfortune and even death to their owners.

Demon defeated by Vrubel

Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel, one of the most famous artists Russia, he distinguished himself with two "damned" canvases at once. The first picture, a portrait of his beloved son Savva, was painted shortly before the death of the child. A bitter loss in the artist's family occurred unexpectedly: Savva fell ill and died suddenly.

In the same period, Mikhail Alexandrovich painted the painting "Demon Downtrodden". Its creation coincided with a serious deterioration in the artist's physical and mental health, including against the backdrop of the death of his little son. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, he could not tear himself away from painting the picture, each time adding more and more new strokes. Moreover, once in a dream a Demon appeared to him and demanded that the canvas be called an icon, since one should bow before a beautiful defeated evil as before other martyrs.

After the painting was sent to the exhibition, Vrubel went after her and continued to make changes to his work right in the exhibition hall. Realizing that he was becoming obsessed, Vrubel agreed to treatment in a psychiatric clinic. However, the artist's illness did not recede. By improving your state of mind and returning to former life, he began to lose his sight and spent the last years of his life in total darkness.

The Crying Boy Giovanni Bragolina

In 1985, a series of fires broke out in Northern England. Some of the victims claimed that of all their possessions, only a reproduction of the painting "The Crying Boy", painted by Giovanni Bragolina, an Italian artist of the 20th century, survived. IN a short time a rumor spread throughout the country that the painting was cursed. It even got to the point that one of the print media published information that all owners of reproductions of this canvas should immediately get rid of them, moreover, the purchase and storage of copies of the painting was prohibited by the authorities.

According to legend, Bragolin used his son as a sitter for this painting, and to get the right emotion, he burned matches in front of the baby's face. This was especially cruel, because the artist knew that his little son experiencing panic fear before the fire.

In the end, the exhausted child shouted to his father: “You yourself burn!”, And these words were soon fulfilled. A couple of weeks later, a boy died of pneumonia, and soon the house where his father was was burned down.

"Water Lilies" by Claude Monet

The canvas “Water Lilies” by the impressionist Claude Monet is also considered cursed: almost immediately after the painting was completed, a fire broke out in the artist’s studio. "Water lilies" survived.

In order to renovate his studio, Claude Monet sold the painting to the owner of a cabaret in Montmartre. Alas, the landscape did not adorn this entertainment establishment for long: in less than six months it turned into ashes. Has anything survived? Yes, the fire and this time spared the "Water Lilies".

Then the picture came to one of the Parisian patrons - Oscar Schmitz. And a year later, his house burned to the ground: they say that the fire started in the very room on the wall of which the picture hung. By the way, survived again.

Similar stories were repeated over and over again, and in 1955 "Water Lilies" ended up in the New York Museum of Modern Art. The picture did not please the eyes of visitors for a long time. Three years later, the second floor, on which the canvas was exhibited, was seriously damaged by a fire. This time, the ill-fated masterpiece also perished in the fire.

The Scream by Edvard Munch

The painting "The Scream" by the famous Norwegian artist Edvard Munch is one of the most recognizable and cited works of art. Its value is estimated at tens of millions of dollars, but many people would certainly refuse to hang it in their homes, even if they got it for free. The fact is that many accidents and coincidences are associated with this picture, which makes you think about the curse that this canvas carries.

Many people, whose activities were somehow connected with the picture, experienced its negative impact: the deepest depressions, sudden death and severing relationships with loved ones is just the beginning of the list.

Being located in the museum of the city of Oslo, the picture did not forgive anyone who in one way or another encroached on its safety. So, one of the museum employees once accidentally dropped a masterpiece. Soon he began to have severe headaches that drove him to suicide.

Another museum worker also accidentally dropped the painting while hanging it from one wall to another. A few days later, he was in a terrible car accident, receiving a concussion and serious fractures of the limbs.

As you know, museum exhibits cannot be touched. The violator of this rule, who touched the canvas with his fingers, burned to death in his house a couple of days after that.

Video - Cursed paintings TOP 5

Today they sent me a link to the work of one (in the process, he swung at the glory of the methods of Salvador-our-Dali) artist.

For the sake of curiosity, I estesssstno started watching, despite the hostile management towards all the fooling around. The pictures are disturbing. Which, in principle, was the author's intention. And my thought flowed in the direction of the mystical and mysterious (I love this topic, yeah). After all, many paintings (as, by the way, many musical works - I’m ready to write about this separately) evoke strange feelings or (not even better) strange incidents with those who were depicted on them at an unkind hour, or bought them / received them by accident / too stared for a long time. Before starting research on this topic, I knew only about two paintings with "bad" fame, but as soon as I rummaged, how ...

Painting by Claude Monet "Water Lilies"- one of the masterpieces of world culture. I wonder if the artist himself, when he painted the picture, that after decades it would have such a bad reputation? And the thing is that a whole train of fires stretches behind the picture. Moreover, the first one took place at Monet's house, literally immediately after finishing work on the painting. The fire in the workshop, where the "Water Lilies" were located, was quickly extinguished, the painting itself was not damaged.
Soon the owners of the entertainment establishment in Montmartre became the owners of the picture, and a month later the owners were packing their bags, leaving the burned-out cabaret building. By the way, the picture itself was in the suitcase - one of the few things that managed to be taken out of the building engulfed in flames. After that, the painting was acquired by Oscar Schmitz, a philanthropist who lived in Paris. He was more fortunate than the previous owners - his house stood untouched for a whole year ... A year later, only ashes remained from the house, and the fire, according to eyewitnesses, started in the very room where Monet's painting hung. By the way, the canvas was again among the fraction of things that managed to be saved. And again the picture migrated to a new owner. This time not to the sole owner, but to the museum - New York Museum contemporary arts. And the fire did not bypass him - it happened after 4 months, this time the canvas was quite seriously damaged.

Another canvas that constantly accompanies trouble is Venus with a Mirror by Diego Velázquez.

The first owner of the picture - a Spanish merchant - went bankrupt, his trade worsened every day, until most of his goods were captured by pirates at sea, and several more ships sank. Selling everything he had under the hammer, the merchant also sold the painting. It was acquired by another Spaniard, also a merchant, who owned rich warehouses in the port. As soon as the money for the canvas was transferred, the merchant's warehouses caught fire from a sudden lightning strike. The owner was broke. And again the auction, and again the painting is sold among other things, and again it is bought by a wealthy Spaniard ... Three days later he was stabbed to death in his own house during a robbery. After that, the picture could not find its new owner for a long time, it had a reputation that was too damaged, and the canvas traveled around different museums, until in one of them a mentally ill tourist with a knife rushed to the picture and ruined it.

The misfortunes that are associated with different canvases are completely different. For example, many owners of The Adoration of the Magi by Pieter Brueghel the Elder got rid of the painting, believing that infertility in the family was associated with it.

Interestingly, the artist's cousin, with whom he painted this canvas, also suffered from infertility, which seemed to be transmitted through the painting to those families where it was kept. Children did not appear even where before women gave birth without problems.

Known, of course, and the glory of the famous La Gioconda by Leonardo da Vinci and: the picture allegedly incomprehensibly affects those who look at it for a long time.

This was noted by the 19th century writer Stendhal, who, after a long admiration of the canvas, fainted. The caretakers of the Louvre note: such fainting is not uncommon, they happen to visitors quite often, and it is in front of the portrait of Mona Lisa. Yes, and da Vinci himself, according to the recollections of his relatives, was as if obsessed with the picture, constantly trying to correct details, redraw, etc. And during work, he often had a breakdown, depression set in.

Mysterious events also happened to those who inadvertently “offended” the famous painting. Edvard Munch "The Scream".

The cost of this canvas reaches 70 million dollars. And, perhaps, collectors would be immensely happy to have this picture in their private collection: if not for one thing: they say that the picture seems to take revenge on all its offenders.

For example, a museum employee who accidentally dropped a canvas then suffered from unbearable headaches for a long time, which eventually led him to commit suicide. Another museum employee, who also dropped the painting, ended up in intensive care a few days later after a terrible car accident: almost everything was broken - his arms, legs, ribs, pelvic bones ... One of the museum visitors, who touched the painting, soon burned alive at home during fire time. Perhaps much of what is said about this painting is fiction, but there are dozens of stories that people who somehow came into contact with the painting, then became very ill, fell into severe depression and even died. Many associate such an impact of the canvas with the life of the artist himself. Munch survived the death of almost all loved ones: his mother died of tuberculosis - Munch was 5 years old; his beloved sister died suddenly when he was 14; a brother soon died, and another sister fell ill with schizophrenia. The artist himself experienced both depression and severe nervous breakdowns.

During the time of Pushkin, the portrait of Maria Lopukhina was one of the main "horror stories". The girl lived a short and unhappy life, and after painting the portrait she died of consumption. Her father Ivan Lopukhin was a famous mystic and master of the Masonic lodge. Therefore, rumors spread that he managed to lure the spirit dead daughter to this portrait. And that if young girls look at the picture, they will soon die. According to the version of salon gossips, the portrait of Mary killed at least ten noblewomen of marriageable age ...

The philanthropist Tretyakov put an end to the rumors, who in 1880 bought the portrait for his gallery. There was no significant mortality among the visitors. The conversations subsided. But the sediment remained!

The Dutch artist Pieter Brueghel the Elder painted The Adoration of the Magi for two years. He "copied" the Virgin Mary from his cousin. She was a barren woman, for which she received constant cuffs from her husband. It was she who, as simple medieval Dutch gossiped, "infected" the picture. Four times "Magi" were bought by private collectors. And each time the same story was repeated: in a family for 10-12 years no children were born ...
Finally, in 1637, the painting was bought by the architect Jacob van Campen. By that time, he already had three children, so the curse did not really scare him.

Probably the most famous bad picture of the Internet space with the following story: A certain schoolgirl (often mentioned Japanese) before opening her veins (jumping out of the window, eating pills, hanging herself, drowning herself in the bathroom) painted this picture. If you look at her for 5 minutes in a row, the girl will change (eyes will turn red, hair will turn black, fangs will appear).
In fact, it is clear that the picture is clearly not drawn by hand, as many like to claim. Although no one gives clear answers how this picture appeared.

Now it hangs modestly without a frame in one of the shops in Vinnitsa. "Rain Woman" is the most expensive of all works: it costs $500. According to the sellers, the painting has already been bought three times, and then returned. Clients explain that they are dreaming about her. And someone even says that he knows this lady, but does not remember where. And everyone who has ever looked into her white eyes will forever remember the feeling of a rainy day, silence, anxiety and fear.
Where did unusual picture, said its author, Vinnitsa artist Svetlana Telets. “In 1996 I graduated from the Odessa art university them. Grekova, - Svetlana recalls. - And six months before the birth of "Woman" it always seemed to me that someone was constantly watching me. I drove away such thoughts from myself, and then one day, by the way, not at all rainy, I sat in front of a blank canvas and thought what to draw. And suddenly she clearly saw the contours of a woman, her face, colors, shades. In an instant, I noticed all the details of the image. I wrote the main thing quickly - I managed it in five hours. It felt like someone was holding my hand. And then I painted for another month.”
Arriving in Vinnitsa, Svetlana exhibited the painting in a local art salon. Art connoisseurs approached her every now and then and shared the same thoughts that she herself had during her work.
“It was interesting to observe,” says the artist, “how subtly a thing can materialize a thought and inspire it in other people.”
A few years ago, the first customer appeared. A lonely businesswoman walked around the halls for a long time, looking closely. Having bought "Woman", she hung it in her bedroom.
Two weeks later, a night call rang out in Svetlana's apartment: “Please pick her up. I can not sleep. It seems that there is someone in the apartment besides me. I even took it off the wall, hid it behind the closet, but I can’t do it all early. ”
Then a second buyer appeared. Then a young man bought the painting. And he didn't last long either. He brought it to the artist himself. And he didn't even take the money back.

About the rest - including my "favorites" - next time.