"Cursed" pictures. The most mysterious paintings in history
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. There is no need to look far for examples: let us turn to Russian painting of the 19th - early 20th centuries.
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 full of vitality. However, the true fate of beautiful models is not always as enviable as it might seem at first glance. It is very easy to see this in the example of the famous portrait of Maria Lopukhina, which came out from under the brush of Vladimir Borovikovsky.
Maria Lopukhina, descended from the count family of Tolstoy, immediately after her 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 a long and happy life awaited the charming model. 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 died soon after. 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 terrible 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 with a blow of a 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 to a 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."
During exhumation, remains of poisons were found in the bones of the prince. 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
The picture miraculously survived two periods of mass interest in itself, and in 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 a fashionable velvet coat trimmed with fur and blue satin ribbons and a stylish beret hat, coupled with darkened eyebrows, lipstick and 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?
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, 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 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 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 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.
One of the most famous "cursed" paintings is "The Crying Boy" - a reproduction of a painting by the Spanish artist Giovanni Bragolin. The history 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 matches in front of his face.
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: “You yourself burn!” This curse did not take long to come true - two weeks later the boy died of pneumonia, and soon his father was burned alive in his own house ... 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 untouched.
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 fictions ... 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.
To this day, The Crying Boy is notorious, 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.
Another well-known "fiery masterpiece" is Monet's "Water Lilies". The artist himself was the first to suffer from it - his workshop almost burned down for unknown reasons.
Then the new owners of the Water Lilies burned down - a cabaret in Montmartre, the home of a French patron of the arts, and even the New York Museum of Modern Art. Currently, the painting is in the Mormoton Museum, France, and does not show its "fire hazardous" properties. Bye.
Another, less well-known and outwardly unremarkable painting - "arsonist" hangs in the Royal Museum of Edinburgh. This is a portrait of an elderly man with outstretched hand. According to legend, sometimes the fingers on the hand of an old man painted in oil begin to move. And the one who saw this unusual phenomenon will surely die from fire in the very near future.
Two famous victims of the portrait are Lord Seymour and sea captain Belfast. Both of them claimed to have seen the old man move his fingers, and both subsequently died in the fire. Superstitious townspeople even demanded that the director of the museum remove the dangerous painting from harm's way, but he, of course, did not agree - it is this unprepossessing and not particularly valuable portrait that attracts most visitors.
The famous "La Gioconda" by Leonardo da Vinci not only delights, but also frightens people. In addition to assumptions, fictions, legends about the work itself and about Mona Lisa's smile, there is a theory that this most famous portrait in the world has an extremely negative effect on the contemplator. For example, more than a hundred cases are officially registered when visitors, after seeing a picture for a long time, lost consciousness.
The most famous case occurred with the French writer Stendhal, who fainted while admiring a masterpiece. It is known that the Mona Lisa herself, who posed for the artist, died young, at the age of 28. And the great master Leonardo himself did not work on any of his creations so long and carefully as on the Gioconda. For six years - until his death, Leonardo rewrote and corrected the picture, but he did not achieve what he wanted to the end.
Velazquez's painting "Venus with a Mirror" also enjoyed deservedly notoriety. Everyone who bought it either went bankrupt or died a violent death. Even museums did not really want to include its main composition, and the picture constantly changed its "registration". The case ended with the fact that one day a crazy visitor attacked the canvas and cut it with a knife.
Another "cursed" painting that is widely known is the work of the Californian surrealist artist "Hands Resist Him" ("Hands resist him") Bill Stoneham. The artist painted it in 1972 from a photograph in which he and his younger sister stand in front of their home.
In the picture, a boy with indistinct features and a doll the size of a living girl are frozen in front of a glass door, to which the small hands of children are pressed from the inside. There are many horror stories associated with this painting. It all started with the fact that the first art critic who saw and appreciated the work suddenly died.
Then the picture was acquired by an American actor, who also did not heal for long. After his death, the work disappeared for a short time, but then it was accidentally found in the garbage heap. The family that picked up the nightmarish masterpiece thought of hanging it in the nursery. As a result, the little daughter began to run into her parents' bedroom every night and scream that the children in the picture were fighting and changing their location. My father installed a motion-sensing camera in the room, and it went off several times during the night.
Of course, the family hurried to get rid of such a gift of fate, and soon Hands Resist Him was put up for an online auction. And then numerous letters rained down on the address of the organizers complaining that when viewing the picture, people became ill, and some even had heart attacks. It was bought by the owner of a private art gallery, and now complaints began to come to his address. He was even approached by two American exorcists offering their services. And psychics who saw the picture unanimously claim that evil emanates from it.
Photo - a prototype of the painting "Hands resist him":
There are several masterpieces of Russian painting that also have sad stories. For example, the painting “Troika” by Perov, known to everyone since school. This touching and sad picture depicts three peasant children from poor families who are pulling a heavy burden, harnessed to it in the manner of draft horses.
In the center is a blond-haired little boy. Perov was looking for a child for a painting until he met a woman with a 12-year-old son named Vasya, who were walking through Moscow on a pilgrimage.
Vasya remained the only consolation to the mother, who buried her husband and other children. At first she did not want her son to pose for the painter, but then she agreed. However, shortly after the completion of the picture, the boy died ... It is known that after the death of her son, a poor woman came to Perov, begging him to sell her a portrait of her beloved child, but the picture was already hanging in the Tretyakov Gallery. True, Perov responded to his mother's grief and painted a portrait of Vasya separately for her.
One of the brightest and most extraordinary geniuses of Russian painting, Mikhail Vrubel, has works that are also associated with the personal tragedies of the artist himself. So, the portrait of his adored son Savva was painted by him shortly before the death of the child. Moreover, the boy fell ill unexpectedly and died suddenly. And the Demon Downcast had a detrimental effect on the psyche and health of Vrubel himself.
The artist could not tear himself away from the picture, he continued to finish the face of the defeated Spirit, and also change the color. The "Defeated Demon" was already hanging at the exhibition, and Vrubel kept coming into the hall, not paying attention to the visitors, sat down in front of the picture and continued to work, as if possessed.
Relatives were worried about his condition, and he was examined by the famous Russian psychiatrist Bekhterev. The diagnosis was terrible - a tabes of the spinal cord, near insanity and death. Vrubel was admitted to the hospital, but the treatment did not help much, and he soon died.
An interesting story is connected with the painting “Maslenitsa”, which for a long time adorned the lobby of the Ukraine Hotel. She hung and hung, no one really looked at her, until it suddenly became clear that the author of this work was a mentally ill person named Kuplin, who copied the canvas of the artist Antonov in his own way. Actually, there is nothing particularly terrible or outstanding in the picture of the mentally ill, but for six months it stirred up the expanses of Runet.
Painting by Antonov
Kuplin painting
One student wrote a blog post about her in 2006. Its essence boiled down to the fact that, according to a professor at one of the Moscow universities, there is one hundred percent, but non-obvious sign in the picture, by which it is immediately clear that the artist is crazy. And even allegedly on this basis, you can immediately make the correct diagnosis.
But, as the student wrote, the cunning professor did not discover the sign, but only gave vague hints. And so, they say, people, help, whoever can, because I can’t find it myself, I’m all exhausted and tired. What started here is easy to imagine.
The post was distributed throughout the network, many users rushed to look for an answer and scold the professor. The painting became wildly popular, as did the student's blog and the professor's name. No one was able to solve the riddle, and in the end, when everyone was tired of this story, they decided:
1. There is no sign, and the professor deliberately “divorced” the students so that they would not skip lectures.
2. The professor is a psycho himself (there were even facts that he was really treated abroad).
3. Kuplin associated himself with the snowman that looms in the background of the picture, and this is the main clue to the mystery.
4. There was no professor, and the whole story is a brilliant flash mob.
By the way, many original guesses of this sign were also given, but none of them was found to be true. History gradually faded away, although even now you can sometimes come across its echoes in RuNet. As for the picture, for some it really makes an eerie impression and causes discomfort.
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.
That is why rumors spread that he managed to lure the spirit of his dead daughter into 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.
Dozens of people who, one way or another, came into contact with Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream", the cost of which experts estimate at 70 million dollars, were exposed to evil fate: they fell ill, quarreled with loved ones, fell into severe depression, or even died suddenly. All this created a bad reputation for the picture, so museum visitors looked at it with apprehension, remembering the terrible stories that were told about the masterpiece.
One day a museum clerk accidentally dropped a painting. After some time, he began to have terrible headaches. I must say that before this incident, he had no idea what a headache was. The migraine attacks became more frequent and more acute, and the case ended with the fact that the poor fellow committed suicide.
On another occasion, a museum worker dropped a painting while it was being hung from one wall to another. A week later, he was in a horrendous car accident that left him with broken legs, arms, several ribs, a fractured pelvis, and a severe concussion.
One of the museum visitors tried to touch the painting with his finger. A few days later, a fire broke out at his house, in which this man was burned alive.
The life of Edvard Munch himself, born in 1863, was a series of endless tragedies and upheavals. Illness, death of relatives, madness. His mother died of tuberculosis when the child was 5 years old. After 9 years, Edward's beloved sister Sophia died of a serious illness. Then brother Andreas died, and doctors diagnosed his younger sister with schizophrenia.
In the early 1990s, Munch suffered a severe nervous breakdown and underwent electroshock treatment for a long time. He never married because the thought of sex terrified him. He died at the age of 81, leaving a huge creative heritage as a gift to the city of Oslo: 1200 paintings, 4500 sketches and 18 thousand graphic works. But the pinnacle of his work remains, of course, "The Scream".
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: no children were born in a family for 10-12 years ...
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 mention Japanese) before opening her veins (jumping out of a window, eating pills, hanging herself, drowning herself in a bathtub) 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 say. Although no one gives clear answers how this picture appeared.
The next picture 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 the unusual picture come from, said its author, Vinnitsa artist Svetlana Telets. “In 1996, I graduated from the Odessa Art University. 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 the 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 still can’t.”
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. “I dream about her,” he complained. “He appears every night and walks like a shadow around me. I'm starting to go crazy. I'm afraid of this picture!
The third buyer, having learned about the notoriety of "Women", only brushed it off. He even said that the face of the sinister lady seemed sweet to him. And she will surely get along with him. Didn't get along.
“At first I didn’t notice how white her eyes were,” he recalled. “And then they started showing up everywhere. Headaches began, unreasonable unrest. And do I need it?
So "Rain Woman" returned to the artist again. A rumor spread around the city that this picture was cursed. One night can drive you crazy. The artist herself is not happy that she wrote such horror.
However, Sveta has not yet lost optimism:
- Each picture is born for a particular person. I believe that there will be someone for whom "Woman" was written. Someone is looking for her - just like she is looking for him.
Mystical stories and mysteries are associated with many works of painting. 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. Too often amazing facts and inexplicable events happened to these fatal masterpieces - fires, deaths, madness of the authors ... One of the most famous "cursed" paintings is "Crying Boy" - a reproduction of a painting by the Spanish artist Giovanni Bragolin. The history 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 matches in front of his face.
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 say. Although no one gives clear answers how this picture appeared. The next picture 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.
2005) it was about works in which, in addition to the main plot, there is one more - hidden. It manifests itself when you approach the picture, move away from it, or look at a certain angle. Now you will learn about the most truthful paintings, which are nevertheless called "tricks", about ghostly silhouettes, "double-viewers", "triple-viewers", and also about a rare kind of icons.
G. Teplov. Still life is a trick. 1737. State Hermitage, St. Petersburg.
P. Drozhdin. "Portrait of the artist A. P. Antropov with his son in front of a portrait of his wife." 1776. Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
R. Magritte. "The Destiny of Man". 1933 National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Unknown artist. "Lilies of France" (six silhouettes of the Bourbon family). 1815.
O. Kanyu. "Corporal violets (silhouettes of Bonaparte, his wife and son)". 1815. The title of the picture contains a reminder that Napoleon began his military service with the rank of corporal.
S. Del Prete. "The Secret Between Autumn Leaves" 1991 Gallery in Bern, Switzerland.
V. Bregeda. "Prophecy". 1994
N. Zamyatina. "Dreams of Greece". 2004
Words - "double-eyed": sharks - crooks, murmur - do not hum, peace - Moscow State University, durable - accurate. The authors are Olga and Sergey Fedin.
Post card. "My wife and my mother-in-law." Beginning of the XX century. Russia.
I. Botvinik. "My husband and my father-in-law." First half of the twentieth century. USA.
G. Fisher. "Mom, dad and daughter." 1968 USA.
S. Orlov. "Rose for two". 2004 Moscow.
S. Dali. "Disappearing bust of Voltaire". 1940 Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, USA.
Two paintings by Salvador Dali: on the left - "The head of a woman in the form of a battle." 1936; on the right - "Spain". 1938
V. Koval. "Kovalland (self-portrait of the artist)". 1994
The Trinity Icon "The Deesis Order". XIX century. Russia.
Science and life // Illustrations
Icon with faces of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. First half of the 17th century. Melheim, Germany.
Portrait of Alexander III with his wife and son. End of the 19th century. Church Museum at the Church of St. Mitrofan of Voronezh, Moscow.
Gabriel von Max. "Handkerchief of Saint Veronica". 1870s. Germany.
"Savior Not Made by Hands". 1970s photograph from a painting by an unknown artist, Russia.
TRUE DECEIT
Two artists argued - Zeuxis and Parrhasius: which of them is better. Zeuxis drew a bunch of grapes and placed the picture near the open window. Birds flying by saw the grapes, sat down and tried to peck at the painted berries. It was Parrhasius's turn. "Well, where is your job?" - "There, behind the curtain." Zeuxis went to the curtain and tried to pull it back. And she was painted. The legend was born in ancient Greece, about 500 years before our era.
It is more true than it might seem at first glance. The fact is that many birds do not have stereoscopic vision, since their eyes are located on both sides of the head. What one eye sees, the other does not see. Due to the lack of a common field of view, the brain cannot form a three-dimensional image. And experienced hunters know that a primitive, unpainted model of a duck attracts a flying drake no worse than a live decoy bird.
What is important to us in the Greek legend is that the picture did not deceive the birds, but the eye of the master painter. The 19th-century Russian artist Fyodor Tolstoy has paintings that echo the plot of an ancient Greek legend. On one of them - a still life, "covered" with a sheet of tracing paper. One of its corners is bent. And this part of the still life looks so authentic that you involuntarily feel the desire to move the tracing paper lower in order to see the image in full. Paintings of this type are called "deceptions", although we are talking about perhaps the most truthful of all genres of painting.
The appearance of this kind of paintings became possible only after the invention of perspective, chiaroscuro and ... oil paints. Recipes for their preparation are found in the books of the XIII century. But only at the beginning of the 15th century, the Dutch artist Jan van Eyck (1390-1441) improved the technology of preparing paints so much that he is often called the inventor of the oil painting technique. He was the first to apply it in a new way, applying thin transparent layers of paint one on top of the other, achieving exceptional depth and richness of color, as well as subtlety of light and shade and color transitions. After Jan van Eyck, artists were able to achieve such an image, which was easy to confuse with the original.
The founder of the snag genre in Russia is Grigory Teplov, artist, poet, musician, philosopher, statesman of the 18th century. One of his works is on the previous page. It is a pity that reproductions of decoys in magazines and books are unable to convey the feeling that appears when looking at the original. By the way, this is why tricks are rarely seen in art books. This is largely due to the difference in the size of the painting and its printed reproduction, as well as the fact that the desired effect usually occurs depending on the distance between the image and the viewer.
There is another type of deceit. In the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, for example, there is a painting by Pyotr Drozhdin, an 18th-century artist. On it, the author depicted the family of his teacher, the artist Antropov. Looking closely, you notice that the father and son are not standing next to their wife and mother, but with her portrait. The edge of the easel, which at first seemed like a light opening in the wall, separates those standing from the image.
The Belgian artist of the 20th century, Rene Magritte, also used the "easel" technique. Their edges are almost invisible, and the drawings imperceptibly merge into the main plot of the picture, merging with it. On one landscape - the forest, starting outside the window, continues on the painted easel, on the other - the sea from the easel flows into the "real" sea.
Magritte is a master of paradox paintings. On one canvas, he connected objects and phenomena that are incompatible in life; for example, the daytime sky and a house immersed in night darkness, or a person looking in a mirror in front of him sees only the back of his head in it. He also used the principle of paradox in the titles of his paintings. When, by the artist's own admission, he lacked imagination, he gathered friends and asked for help in finding a name. A landscape with an easel, for example, is called "The Destiny of Man".
GHOST SILHOUETTES
There is a special technique for creating a hidden image: when artists use the contours of the drawn objects. For the first time, paintings with "hidden silhouettes" appeared, apparently, in medieval France. Their main heroes were, of course, the kings. The fact that the lily is a symbol of the Bourbon dynasty is already well known to us, at least from the costumes of the main characters from the films based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas "The Three Musketeers". Two hundred years ago, drawing bouquets of royal lilies, artists turned the curves of the stems, the contours of the leaves and the petals into human faces. When you guess the secret, the bouquet turns into a portrait of the royal family. After the Bourbon dynasty was overthrown, artists began to paint Emperor Napoleon with his wife and son. But Josephine loved violets, so they replaced lilies.
Over the past centuries, artists, of course, have expanded the subject matter of such works. One example is a painting where you first see some dry leaves flying through the air. And on the canvas is a piece of paper with an inscription in French: "A dream carried away by wind and time." Usually, artists do not write its name on the front side of the picture. Here, in the lower left corner of the canvas, it is written in German: "The secret between the autumn leaves." This is not only the name of the painting, but also the key that reveals the intention of the artist - Sandro Del Prete. His name is known all over the world today. And he started as an amateur (I report this especially for the participants in the contest of mysterious paintings). In his youth, Del Prete studied drawing for only six months, until the age of 44 he did not consider himself a professional artist and worked in an insurance company in his native Swiss city of Bern, where he still lives.
In a painting by the Taganrog-based artist Viktor Bregeda, who was also attracted by this technique, figures kneeling in prayer against the backdrop of a desert mountain landscape. This is only part of the plot that you see right away, but the title - "Prophecy" - suggests that the main content is not so obvious and has not yet been revealed. Invisible at the first moment, the picture contains those before whom the pilgrims bowed: God the Father, God the Son and the winged horseman - an angel descended from heaven.
The painting "Dreams of Greece" by Muscovite Natalya Zamyatina looks like an ordinary still life with a porcelain vase and fruit. The title doesn't seem to match the image very well. But take a closer look at the drapery. What do the folds of the fabric and the contours of the vase hide (or reveal)?
DOUBLE EYES
The term that gave the name to the section of the article was invented by the writer and author of many publications in the journal "Science and Life" Sergei Fedin. He called double-eyed texts that can be read in two ways. Let's take the word "sharks" as an example. The first two letters "ak" can be written as one letter "zh". And "s" is easy to portray similar to "e". Let's leave the letters in the middle unchanged and get a word that is easy to read in two ways: "sharks" and "rogues". Several examples of such inscriptions are given here.
The word "double-eyed" corresponds to the English "ambigram" - dual. We talk about verbal double-views here because, using their example, it is easier to understand the perception of dual images in painting.
What are we looking for, moving our gaze along the lines of double vision? Some familiar letter. The same thing happens in pictures. The brain searches for familiar images already in memory, which is quite unlike the storage of photographic images. Memory is a kind of "coder" that captures the properties of the image, such as the presence of straight and curved sections of lines, the boundaries of changing brightness, color, and the like.
Looking at the two-eyes more closely, we find the letters that we did not notice initially, and we add the second word from them. The same thing happens with the hidden image.
So far, no one has come up with the word "three-eyes", that is, the image of three words of different meanings in one entry. If you succeed, be sure to submit your work to the mystery painting competition. But the picturesque triplets have already been created, and we will now talk about them.
TWO-FACED AND THREE-FACED PAINTING
In the previous issue of the magazine, in the article "Invisible-Visible" you met the image of a female head, which looks either young or old, depending on the position of the picture. Now let's get acquainted with a portrait that does not need to be turned over. To the question: "Does it depict a young or old woman?" Different people give different answers. Some say - a girl, others - an old woman. The picture has long become a classic. But for those who see her for the first time, each time they have to explain how to see the second image: "The lady's eye is the girl's ear, and the nose is the oval of a young face." According to physiologists, the viewer, looking at the portrait, pays the most attention to the eyes and nose. Therefore, the first impression usually depends on which part of the picture your eyes fell on in the first moment. After a little training, you can learn to order yourself who you want to see.
In terms of the number of publications in books and magazines, the plot with a young and old woman is far ahead of all other illusory pictures. The author is sometimes called the American cartoonist W. Hill, who published the work in 1915 in the magazine "Pak" (translated into Russian "Puck" - an elf, a fairy-tale spirit). Sometimes the image is attributed to the psychiatrist E. Boring, who used the portrait in the 1930s as an illustration for his work. In the scientific community, "Two Ladies" is still called the "Boring figure". In fact, back in the early years of the 20th century, a postcard was put into circulation in Russia with the same picture and the inscription: "My wife and my mother-in-law." The German postcard of 1880 served as a prototype for it (the author is unknown).
The picture with two ladies is regularly reproduced in books on psychology. But it is still largely unknown how the human mind perceives dualistic images. Artists just continue to develop an already well-known technique. In the first half of the 20th century, a similar portrait of an elderly and young man appeared. Then, in 1968, the artist G. Fischer made a new hairstyle for both ladies and got a third character. In fact, he added just one element, and the picture became known as "Mom, Dad and Daughter." The woman's hair turned into the profile of a man, thanks to which there were three people in the portrait.
In a modern painting by the Moscow artist Sergei Orlov (see p. 132), there are not only two different faces, but also two female figures that belong to both the girl and the old woman. The old lady is looking at the flower she is holding in her hand. The young one is sitting with her back to us, straightening her hair and turning her head to the left.
The works of Sergei Orlov, Victor Bregeda and other artists working in this manner can be seen on the Internet. There is a special project "Dualities" http://hiero.ru/project/Dubl of the site "Hieroglyph", where the authors exhibit their works for discussion.
Not a single book about illusory paintings is complete without a story about the work of the Spaniard Salvador Dali. 300 years after Arcimboldo, he revived the direction of illusory paintings.
In the first picture, the viewer sees two richly dressed women. The man in the turban leads them into the gallery. The artist transforms this scene into a second plot. The contour of a human head is formed from the arch of the gallery - an image of a sculptural portrait of the French philosopher Voltaire by Houdon.
The plot with Voltaire is found in the works of Dali repeatedly. Twice he also used the plot of the painting "The head of a woman in the form of a battle" (top left), where the figures of galloping horsemen and people rushing across a yellow field add up to a woman's face. But then "The head of a woman in the form of a battle" entered as a detail of another canvas: "Spain". This fact shows how difficult it is to find a new, original solution for a two-faced picture.
If I became the organizer of an exhibition of the best dualistic paintings, then next to the works of Dali I would place paintings by the contemporary Volgograd artist Vladislav Koval. And certainly - the "Stalingrad Madonna", in which the image of a woman with a baby in her arms is woven from birch branches. In the canvas "Decommissioning to Shore", the distant coastal cliffs visible on the horizon turn into a lonely, drooping figure of a sailor. In the painting "Icarus" her hero is seen either flying or falling. On the next canvas, a soldier wrapped in a raincoat, freezing, turns into a Madonna with a child. In the work "Pyramid" V. Koval for the first time in the history of art combined several dual images into an integral work of art. And he used almost all the painting techniques that I talked about. Here and the construction of new images from the details of the landscape, and paintings, the content of which depends on the angle of view or distance. Today Koval is one of the most famous Russian artists. His fame has a curious beginning. While studying in Moscow, he sent letters to his relatives in Volgograd and did not stick stamps on envelopes, but drew. All sent letters reached the recipients without additional payment. When the press ministry announced a competition among artists, student Vladislav Koval brought a pack of envelopes to the organizers. And he became the winner, the youngest among the participants.
UNUSUAL ICONS
Examples of mysterious paintings are found even in such a strict and canonical form of art as icons. The icon "Jesus in the dungeon" was once brought to the Museum of Old Russian Art in Moscow. On the front of it, Jesus is depicted with shackles on his feet, and around are the instruments of the Passion, that is, torture. Each has a name next to it. Based on the peculiarities of writing words, art critics determined that the author was an Old Believer. The uniqueness of the icon was that the image was crossed by narrow vertical stripes. It has been suggested that these are traces of a lattice that once covered the image of Christ. However, the clue to the dark stripes turned out to be much more interesting, and it belongs to the head of the Canon icon-painting workshop, art historian and artist Alexander Renzhin.
It turns out that the icon once contained not one, but three images. The stripes are nothing more than traces of vertical plates that were attached to the frame (setting) of the icon. They adhered closely to its surface and therefore left traces. On both sides of each plate were drawn (it is customary to say - written) parts of two more icons. Standing in front of the icon, you could see one image, moving to the left - another, to the right - the third. The plates of the icon were lost, but Renzhin managed to find exactly the same whole icon. It turned out that parts of the images of the Mother of God and John the Baptist were written on both sides of 12 plates. When you look at the icon from the side, the parts of the image are combined into a single whole.
The storerooms of the Museum of the History of Religions in St. Petersburg contain icons of this type, but with a different plot. On one of them in the foreground is a dove, a symbol of the Holy Spirit. But as soon as you move to the right, the image of God the Father will appear, to the left - the face of God the Son. It is difficult for a modern viewer, spoiled by light effects, to imagine the power of the impression of the tripartite icons on the faithful of past centuries, and even in the twilight of a church lit only by candles. In addition, in the 20th century, a similar technique was used in advertising, and therefore it lost its unusualness.
There are icons whose surface is not flat, but profiled, with vertical triangular grooves. On one side of each groove, an image is written, visible on the left, and on the other, visible on the right. When you look from the front, you see a "mixture" of the two images. Therefore, in the church, a large candlestick was placed in front of such an icon so that it could be seen only from two sides.
At the church of St. Mitrofan of Voronezh in Moscow on 2nd Khutorskaya Street there is a church museum. There, among other interesting exhibits, you can see a tripartite image. This is not an icon, but a portrait of the royal family. Standing in front of the portrait, you see Emperor Alexander III. Move to the right - the image of Empress Maria Feodorovna appears. The spectators, standing on the left, see the young heir, the future Emperor Nicholas II. A curious feature of the image helped establish the time of its creation. On the right temple of Nikolai, a bloody stain is visible. This is the footprint of a Japanese sword. In 1890-1891, the heir traveled around the world, and an assassination attempt was made in Japan. A Japanese policeman struck Nikolai with a sword, but the young heir swerved and received only a minor wound. The second time the attacker did not have time to strike, he was knocked down, but not by the hosts who received the distinguished guest, but by the Greek prince George accompanying Nicholas.
THE LEGEND OF SAINT VERONICA
In 1879, an exhibition of German artists was held in St. Petersburg. One of them, Gabriel von Max, presented the painting "The Handkerchief of St. Veronica" with the image of a piece of rough canvas nailed to the wall with the face of Christ in the center. The peculiarity of the picture was that the audience could see the eyes of the Savior either closed or open. Newspapers of that time wrote that the organizers had to put chairs in the hall, as some of the ladies fainted, exclaiming: "Look! Look!"
Of course, the mysterious picture attracted the attention of the capital's artists who tried to unravel the secret, and the artist Ivan Kramskoy wrote an article about it for the Novoe Vremya magazine, where he revealed the technique by which the German author achieved the desired effect.
The legend of Saint Veronica spread throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. Later, it became the official Church Tradition, that is, it was recognized as true as those recorded in the Gospel. When Jesus Christ was led to Mount Calvary to be crucified there, a compassionate woman named Veronica wiped the sweat from his face with a handkerchief that had covered her eyes. At the same time, the face of the Savior in the crown of thorns was miraculously imprinted on the scarf. Tradition formed the basis of the Orthodox icon "Savior Not Made by Hands". It is easiest for us, non-specialists, to recognize this icon by the image of a scarf on which the face of Jesus is written, although the scarf itself (more often they say "plats") is drawn differently and rather conventionally. Among Western Christians, a similar image is called the "Scarf of St. Veronica."
From a connoisseur of Russian art, priest Valentin Dronov, I heard a story that I quote here verbatim: “Two or three times in my life I had to see the icon of the Savior Not Made by Hands, which showed a miraculous property. The eyes of Jesus on it seemed either open or closed. It depended on the spiritual state of the praying person. If he was calm, the Savior seemed to be sleeping. If he was in agitation, his eyes opened." At home, Father Valentin kept a photograph of this image, which is given here.
I have not yet been able to find anything similar in our museums. In a guide to Bethlehem, the city where, according to legend, Christ was born, it is said that one of the frescoes on the column in the Church of the Nativity has the same property: "the face on the icon opens and closes its eyes."
The icon that is described is very rare, so any evidence of people who have seen or at least heard of such images is important. We ask readers to inform the editors of the journal about this.
