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Secrets of famous paintings

Works of art often become especially popular if they are legendary or if they suddenly turn out to be not what they seem at first glance. "Culture.RF" reveals the secrets of famous - and not very - Russian paintings.

The Nun by Ilya Repin

Ilya Repin. Nun. 1878. State Tretyakov Gallery / Portrait under X-ray

A young girl in strict monastic clothes looks thoughtfully at the viewer from the portrait. The image is classic and familiar - it probably would not have aroused interest among art critics if it were not for the memoirs of Lyudmila Shevtsova-Spore, the niece of Repin's wife. They have an interesting history.

This did not prevent the artist from repeatedly painting portraits of Sophia. For one of them, the girl posed in a ceremonial ballroom: a light elegant dress, lace sleeves, high hair. While working on the painting, Repin seriously quarreled with the model. As you know, everyone can offend an artist, but few can take revenge as inventively as Repin did. The offended artist "dressed" Sophia in the portrait in monastic clothes.

The story, similar to a joke, was confirmed by an x-ray. The researchers were lucky: Repin did not clean off the original paint layer, which made it possible to examine in detail the heroine's original outfit.

"Park Alley" by Isaac Brodsky

Isaac Brodsky. Park alley. 1930. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow / Isaac Brodsky. Park alley in Rome. 1911

Repin's student Isaac Brodsky left an equally interesting mystery for researchers. The Tretyakov Gallery holds his painting “Park Alley”, which at first glance is unremarkable: Brodsky had a lot of works on the “park” theme. However, the further into the park - the more colorful layers.

One of the researchers noticed that the composition of the painting was suspiciously reminiscent of another work by the artist - "Park Alley in Rome" (Brodsky was stingy with the original titles). This painting was considered lost for a long time, and its reproduction was published only in a rather rare edition of 1929. With the help of a radiograph, a Roman alley that had mysteriously disappeared was found - right under the Soviet one. The artist did not clean off the already finished image and simply made a number of simple changes to it: he changed the clothes of passers-by in the fashion of the 30s of the XX century, “took away” the serso from the children, removed the marble statues and slightly modified the trees. So the sunny Italian park with a couple of light hand movements turned into an exemplary Soviet one.

When asked why Brodsky decided to hide his Roman alley, they did not find an answer. But it can be assumed that the depiction of the "modest charm of the bourgeoisie" in 1930 was already inappropriate from an ideological point of view. Nevertheless, of all Brodsky's post-revolutionary landscape works, "Park Alley" is the most interesting: despite the changes, the picture retained the charming elegance of modernity, which, alas, was no longer in Soviet realism.

"Morning in a Pine Forest" by Ivan Shishkin

Ivan Shishkin and Konstantin Savitsky. Morning in a pine forest. 1889. State Tretyakov Gallery

A forest landscape with cubs playing on a fallen tree is perhaps the most famous work of the artist. That's just the idea of ​​the landscape Ivan Shishkin prompted another artist - Konstantin Savitsky. He also painted a she-bear with three cubs: bears, an expert on the forest, Shishkin, did not succeed in any way.

Shishkin impeccably understood the forest flora, noticed the slightest mistakes in the drawings of his students - either the birch bark is not depicted in the same way, or the pine looks like a fake one. However, people and animals in his work have always been a rarity. This is where Savitsky came to the rescue. By the way, he left several preparatory drawings and sketches with cubs - he was looking for suitable poses. “Morning in a Pine Forest” was not originally “Morning”: the painting was called “Bear Family in the Forest”, and there were only two bears on it. As a co-author, Savitsky put his signature on the canvas.

When the canvas was delivered to the merchant Pavel Tretyakov, he was indignant: he paid for Shishkin (ordered the author's work), but received Shishkin and Savitsky. Shishkin, as an honest man, did not attribute authorship to himself. But Tretyakov went on principle and blasphemously erased Savitsky's signature from the picture with turpentine. Savitsky later nobly refused copyright, and the bears were attributed to Shishkin for a long time.

"Portrait of a Chorus Girl" by Konstantin Korovin

Konstantin Korovin. Portrait of a chorus girl. 1887. State Tretyakov Gallery / Reverse side of the portrait

On the back of the canvas, the researchers found a message from Konstantin Korovin on cardboard, which turned out to be almost more interesting than the painting itself:

“In 1883 in Kharkov, a portrait of a chorus girl. Written on a balcony in a commercial public garden. Repin said, when this sketch was shown to him by Mamontov S.I., that he, Korovin, writes and is looking for something else, but what is it for - this is painting for painting only. Serov had not yet painted portraits at that time. And the painting of this sketch was found incomprehensible??!! So Polenov asked me to remove this sketch from the exhibition, since neither the artists nor the members - Mr. Mosolov and some others like it. The model was an ugly woman, even somewhat ugly.

Konstantin Korovin

The "letter" disarmed with its directness and bold challenge to the entire artistic community: "Serov had not yet painted portraits at that time" - but they were painted by him, Konstantin Korovin. And he was allegedly the first to use techniques characteristic of the style that would later be called Russian impressionism. But all this turned out to be a myth that the artist created intentionally.

The harmonious theory "Korovin - the forerunner of Russian impressionism" was mercilessly destroyed by objective technical and technological research. On the front side of the portrait, they found the artist's signature in paint, a little lower - in ink: "1883, Kharkov." In Kharkov, the artist worked in May - June 1887: he painted scenery for the performances of the Russian Private Mamontov Opera. In addition, art critics found out that the "Portrait of a chorus girl" was made in a certain artistic manner - a la prima. This technique of oil painting made it possible to paint a picture in one session. Korovin began to use this technique only in the late 1880s.

After analyzing these two inconsistencies, the employees of the Tretyakov Gallery came to the conclusion that the portrait was painted only in 1887, and Korovin added an earlier date to emphasize his own innovation.

"Man and Cradle" by Ivan Yakimov

Ivan Yakimov. Man and cradle.1770. State Tretyakov Gallery / Full version of the work

For a long time, Ivan Yakimov's painting "A Man and a Cradle" puzzled art critics. And the point was not even that such everyday sketches were absolutely uncharacteristic of 18th-century painting - the rocking horse in the lower right corner of the picture had a rope stretched too unnaturally, which logically should have been lying on the floor. Yes, and it was too early for a child from the cradle to play such toys. Also, the fireplace did not even fit halfway on the canvas, which looked very strange.

"Enlightened" the situation - in the literal sense - x-ray. She showed that the canvas was cut on the right and top.

The painting came to the Tretyakov Gallery after the sale of the collection of Pavel Petrovich Tugogoi-Svinin. He owned the so-called "Russian Museum" - a collection of paintings, sculptures and antiques. But in 1834, due to financial problems, the collection had to be sold - and the painting "A Man and a Cradle" ended up in the Tretyakov Gallery: not all, but only its left half. The right one, unfortunately, was lost, but you can still see the work in its entirety, thanks to another unique exhibit of the Tretyakov Gallery. The full version of Yakimov's work was found in the album "Collection of excellent works of Russian artists and curious domestic antiquities", which contains drawings from most of the paintings that were part of the Svinin collection.

The evolution of painting in Russia from the 10th to the middle of the 20th century

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, The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1500-1510.

Fragment of a triptych

Disputes about the meanings and hidden meanings of the most famous work of the Dutch artist have not subsided since its appearance. On the right wing of the triptych called "Musical Hell" sinners are depicted 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 the 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 revealed 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 seemed like an 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, Breakfast 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 The 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, 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 painted perhaps the best bears in the history of Russian painting, and Tretyakov ordered his name to be washed off the canvas, since everything in the picture “beginning 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 the history of 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 the Gothic style and decided to depict 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 Rembrandt's most famous paintings 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 a love affair with Zeus, 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 whole 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 was discharged by her merchant parents into an evening ball gown, although it was daytime (all the lamps in the room were 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 name of the playful painting by the French journalist, writer and artist Alphonse Allais “Battle of the Negroes in a Dark Cave in the Dead of Night”, which was an absolutely 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 from Klimt and force him to make hundreds of sketches until the artist starts to turn away from 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 a 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

One day, Zinaida Serebryakova received a tempting offer - to go on a creative journey to portray the naked 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 king. 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 depiction of the 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." Obviously a well-to-do family, winter holidays, a joyful 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". Rural house, summer, everyone is walking, one malicious ignoramus who failed the annual exam is forced to sit within four walls and cramming. 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 couple 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 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 scream 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 across the globe, reaching even as far as 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 the images of 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.

The researcher Margaret Livingston studied all Rembrandt's self-portraits and found that the artist suffered from strabismus: in the images his eyes look in different directions, 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 are sure that the pagan goddess of love symbolizes the Christian image on the fresco: her 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.

Even those masterpieces of painting that seem familiar to us have their secrets. By and large, in almost every significant work of art there is a mystery, a "double bottom" or a secret story that you want to uncover.

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 in 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 painting "A young virgin indulging in Sodomy 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

Many secrets of one of Rembrandt's most famous paintings 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 a love affair with Zeus, 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

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 whole surrounding reality is painted in green-yellow tones.

Toothless perfection

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 is so" smiling "precisely because of what happened to her," the expert believes. "The expression on her face is typical of people who have lost their front teeth."

Major on face control

The audience, who first saw the painting "Major's Matchmaking", laughed heartily: 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 was discharged by her merchant parents into an evening ball gown, although it was daytime (all the lamps in the room were 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

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

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.

Melodrama of the Austrian Mona Lisa

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 from Klimt and force him to make hundreds of sketches until the artist starts to turn away from 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

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.

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 revealed 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).

Art is not only a way to express your inspiration, but also a great mystery. Artists often add curious little things to their paintings or leave "messages" that are hard to see at first glance. We have compiled a list of famous painting masterpieces that hide unexpected secrets.

1. Wrong ear

Vincent van Gogh's self-portrait depicts the artist with a traumatized right ear. But he actually cut off his left ear, not his right. This discrepancy is explained by the fact that Van Gogh used a mirror to create his own portrait.

2. Painting under the painting

If you look closely at Pablo Picasso's The Old Guitarist, you can see a faint female silhouette behind the man's head. Researchers at the Art Institute of Chicago took infrared and X-ray images of this famous painting and found that several other drawings were hidden underneath. Most likely, the artist did not have enough money to buy new canvases, and he had to paint on old ones.

3. "Night watch" depicts the day, not the night

In 1947, Rembrandt's painting "The Performance of a Rifle Company..." (better known as "The Night Watch") was restored. After the painting was cleared of a thick layer of soot, it became obvious that the scene depicted on it does not take place at night, but in daylight.

4. Sistine Chapel

The image of the human brain is noticeable not only in the "Creation of Adam" by Michelangelo, but also in another fresco called "The Separation of Light and Darkness", which can be seen in the Sistine Chapel. Look at the neck of God: it matches perfectly with a photograph of the human brain.

5. Symbol of strength

The figures of David and Goliath in the fresco created by Michelangelo form the Hebrew letter gimel, which symbolizes power in the mystical cabalistic tradition.

6. Rembrandt's strabismus

After studying Rembrandt's self-portraits, some scientists decided that the artist suffered from strabismus. This feature made him perceive the world a little differently: he saw reality in 2D instead of 3D. However, perhaps it was the squint that helped Rembrandt create his immortal masterpieces.

7. Revenge on lovers

The most famous painting by Gustav Klimt depicts Adele Bloch-Bauer. This portrait was commissioned by Adele's husband, sugar baron Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. He learned that Adele and Klimt were lovers, and decided that after hundreds of sketches the artist would hate his model. And the deceived husband was right. Working together really cooled the feelings between Adele and Gustav.

8. World in yellow

For almost all of his paintings, Vincent van Gogh chose yellow. Scientists believe that this is a side effect of an epilepsy drug that changes the perception of color. Perhaps the artist really saw the world as he depicted it on his canvases.

9. Prediction of the end of the world

Italian researcher Sabrina Sforza Galizia offers a very unusual interpretation of the "Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci. She says that the prophecy of the end of the world is hidden in this picture, which will happen on March 21, 4006. The researcher made such a conclusion by deciphering the mathematical and astrological codes of the picture.

But this is not the only secret of the Last Supper. The hands of Christ and the apostles, together with the bread on the table, form something similar to the designation of notes. Turns out it really sounds like a tune.

10. Mozart and Freemasons

There is strong evidence that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a Freemason. Even in the child's portrait, which was painted by Pietro Antonio Lorenzoni, we see a Masonic symbol: a hidden hand, indicating a hierarchical rank in a secret society.

11. Toothless Mona Lisa

Dentist and art critic Joseph Borkowski, having studied the painting by Leonardo da Vinci, is sure that he was able to reveal the secret of the Mona Lisa smile. He believes that she did not have front teeth, and this is what influenced her expression.

There are many masterpieces of fine art known throughout the world. But not everyone knows that some of them keep secrets that were discovered after the death of the creators of the works. Although there are such secrets that were learned during the lifetime of artists, which makes the paintings even more mysterious and attractive.

1. Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1500-1510.

2. Since the appearance of this masterpiece by the Dutch artist, disputes have flared up more than once about the meanings hidden in it. Of particular interest has always been the sinner depicted on the right wing of the triptych, who has notes imprinted on his buttocks. One of the students of Oklahoma Christian University named Amelia Hamrick, decided to shift the notation of the 16th century to a modern twist, and the “500-year-old song from hell from hell” that appeared on the Internet became a real sensation.

3. "Mona Lisa"
Few people know that there are two versions of the well-known picture. One of them is called "Monna Vanna", and its author is a student and sitter of Leonardo da Vinci, a little-known artist Salai. Art critics are sure that it was this young artist who was the model for the great Leonardo when painting such paintings as John the Baptist and Bacchus. Some even suspect that it was Salai who posed for the painting "Mona Lisa", dressed in a woman's dress.

4. "Old Rybak"

5. This seemingly unremarkable painting was painted by the Hungarian artist Tivadar Kostka Chontvari in 1902. That's just the subtext inherent in the picture, was revealed only after the death of the author. If you put a mirror in the middle of the picture, then on the one hand you can see God, and on the other - the Devil. So the artist tried to reflect the dual nature of each of us.

6. "The Last Supper"
When writing his picture, Leonardo da Vinci paid special attention to the figures of Christ and Judas. One of the young singers was chosen as the sitter for the image of Christ, but the artist spent three whole years searching for a sitter for Judas. Once on the street, Leonardo stumbled upon a drunkard who liked him so much that he decided to write Judas from him. What was the surprise of the artist when the drunkard who came to his senses said that he had already posed for the master several years ago and it was from him that Leonardo painted Christ.

7. "American Gothic"
Many consider Grant Wood's work to be strange and depressing, although there is absolutely no subtext in it. The artist made this painting during a trip to Iowa when he saw a small house in the Gothic style. Grant's sister and his dentist posed as characters in front of the house.

8. Night Watch
This painting by Rembrandt "The performance of the rifle company of Captain Frans Banning Cock and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburg" was discovered by art historians only in the 19th century. This work entered the treasury of world art under the name "Night Watch", which she received due to the dark background against which the figures act. In 1947, the painting was restored, and it was then that a layer of soot was discovered that covered it. Having cleared the original, it was revealed that the artist meant a daytime scene, judging by the position of the shadow from the left hand of the center figure at about 14 hours.

9. "Boat"
In 1961, Henri Matisse's The Boat hung upside down in the New York Museum of Modern Art for 47 days. The painting shows 10 purple lines and two blue sails on a white background. When it was discovered that the second sail was just a reflection of the first on the surface of the water, it became clear that the picture was hung incorrectly. The top of the picture should be a large sail.

10. "Self-portrait with a pipe"
Although many believe that Van Gogh cut off his own ear, art historians are sure that the artist injured his ear in a fight with the artist Paul Gauguin. Considering that the self-portrait reflects a distorted reality due to the fact that it was painted using a mirror, in fact, the artist suffered from his left ear.

11. "Breakfast on the grass." The two French artists Edouard Manet and Claude Monet are often confused. This is not surprising, because even the name of Manet's painting "Breakfast on the Grass" Monet borrowed and wrote his "Breakfast on the Grass".

12. Claude Monet, Breakfast on the Grass.

13. "Morning in a pine forest"
As it turned out, not only Shishkin worked on this well-known painting. Since the artist, who specialized in painting landscapes, did not get bears, he turned to the animal painter Konstantin Savitsky for help.