[Amazing] 25 Crazy Insights That Will Change The Way You Look At Paintings
Even if you’re not a great painter or an art lover, there is a lot to be gained by studying a little bit of art history or painting. At the very least it will make some of your trips a bit more fun. Like when you visit Europe and your girlfriend ends up dragging you to all of those art museums. If you don’t know what’s going on, you’re going to hate life for the next few hours. All you’ll be able to think about is how on Earth did that painting of some random woman become so famous? It isn’t even a very good painting! And yes, we are talking about the Mona Lisa. If you go see it without knowing the history, you’re almost guaranteed to be disappointed. The fact is, it didn’t really even become famous until it was stolen, and only then did the public become aware of this rather unimpressive painting that is much smaller than you would initially expect. Okay, there is one interesting thing about it. While Leonardo DaVinci is normally very attentive to details, the Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. That’s right, she’s brow-less. Well, anyway, read on to gain 25 crazy insights that will change the way you look at paintings!
Featured Image: pixabay
When the Museum of Modern Art in New York City accidentally hung Le Bateau by Henri Matisse upside down it stayed that way for over a month until a visitor notified the museum.
Source: wikipedia
In the 1950s there was a chimpanzee in the London Zoo named Congo that painted more than 400 paintings.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
Jackson Pollock often uses cigarettes to create his paintings
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
Salvador Dali never explained his works but he said that his inspiration for The Persistence of Memory came from seeing chunks of Camembert cheese melting in the sun (he may have been joking)
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
Franklin D. Roosevelt collapsed and died while a still unfinished portrait was being painted
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
The painting The Starry Night by Van Gogh is of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in southern France. He painted it while he was in a mental institution there.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
Dutch painter Rembrandt was such a well known miser that his students would paint coins onto the floor and laugh as he tried to pick them up
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
Mr. Tatsuo Horiuchi is an elderly gentleman living in Japan that creates artwork using nothing but Microsoft Excel
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
Although he is one of the most well known painters ever, there are only 15 known paintings by Leonardo da Vinci
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
Picasso's famous picture Guernica is about the German bombing of the small town. While he was living in Paris, a Nazi officer allegedly asked him about his painting, "Did you do that?" and Picasso replied, "No, you did".
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
Thanks to nuclear explosions during the 20th century, scientists can now tell if a piece of artwork is a forgery. Prior to 1945 the isotopes caesium-137 and strontium-90 didn't exist in nature so older paintings wouldn't contain them.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
Although many people think the American Gothic painting by Grant Wood is of a husband and wife, it is actually of a father and his daughter
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
Some German cities have art libraries where you can borrow art work from local artists
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
Leonardo DiCaprio's mother first felt him kick while standing in front of a portrait of Leonardo DaVinci in Italy. And that's how he got his name.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
In 1883, after the eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia, there were bright red sunsets all around the world for several months. The famous painting "Scream" is a depiction of one of these sunsets over Oslo, Norway
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
In 2010 a man in Munich, Germany was investigated for being jobless but having large sums of cash. It was found that his apartment was full of artwork believed to have been stolen by the Nazis
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
Early in his acting career, Billy Murray was going to commit suicide by drowning in Lake Michigan but he first made a stop in the art institute in Chicago where he saw the painting "The Song Of The Lark" that changed his mind.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
For a long time, smiling in a painting or a photograph was considered foolish and silly. Mark Twain once even wrote that "there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever."
Source: wikipedia, Image: pixabay
Mona Lisa doesn't have any visible eyebrows or eyelashes. There is some evidence that they may have faded over time
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
One of the largest property thefts ever recorded was of some paintings from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. It was worth 500 million dollars and the museum never removed the empty frames of the paintings that were stolen.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
By comparing the relative length of finger prints, researchers have found that nearly 3/4 of cave paintings were done by women
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
Tim Knowles, a British artist, attaches pens to trees and lets the wind do the painting
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
Antiques Roadshow UK, a British TV show, once examined a painting that a priest bought for 400 pounds. It turned out to be by Sir Anthony Van Dyck and was worth nearly half a million pounds.
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
In 2007, a couple in Bristol had trouble selling their house because of graffiti on the outside. They then found out the graffiti was by the famous artist Banksy and decided to sell the graffiti with the house thrown in for free. It was sold almost immediately!
Source: independent.co.uk, Image: wikipedia
Salvador Dali left a portrait or silhouette of himself in all of his paintings
Source: wikipedia, Image: wikipedia
