Even with the advent of the modern era and the advent of photography, cinema and digital technology, painting remains a popular way of expressing one's feelings. And it leaves open the question of what combination of talent, genius and circumstance leads to the creation of a masterpiece that can claim to be an eternal classic.
We will not be able to answer this question, but we will be able to name you the most famous paintings in the world, which were created by famous artists, and are objects of world cultural heritage.
10. Monks. We stopped in the wrong place, Lev Soloviev
“Yes, this is Repin’s painting‘ Have sailed ”!’, The reader may be indignant. Moreover, this is no longer just the name of a masterpiece and its author (in fact, not), but an established expression denoting an unpleasant, stalemate situation.
And if the artist Lev Grigorievich Soloviev knew about him, he would probably be funny and offended. It's funny that this expression could be applied to him and his creation. And it's a shame - because he actually painted the picture.
The "birth" of the canvas took place in the 1870s, and in the 1930s the painting appeared at a museum exhibition, and hung next to Ilya Repin's canvases. Therefore, the visitors decided that it also belongs to the brush of the great master. And they gave the canvas a short and capacious popular name - "Swam".
9. The girls of Avignon, Pablo Picasso
This painting ushered in the modern era of Cubism, decisively breaking with the representative tradition of Western painting and incorporating allusions to the African masks that Picasso saw in the Ethnographic Museum in Paris.
The women in the painting are actually prostitutes from a brothel in Barcelona. Hence the original name of the painting - "Philosophical Brothel".
8. Scream, Edvard Munch
One of the earliest exponents of Expressionism used only oil and pastels to paint his most famous figure. The artist wanted to show the "cry of nature", which causes the agony of a person primitized to such an extent that it looks more like a sperm or embryo than a representative of Homo sapiens.
One of the most famous paintings of our time is the result of the anxiety and fear that Edvard Munch experienced one afternoon when walking with two friends. Then the glowing clouds reminded him of blood and "flames over a bluish-black fjord and city."
Since the end of the 20th century, The Scream has been widely imitated and parodied in culture. This painting has appeared in advertisements, films, Internet memes, etc. Some art critics consider it "an icon of contemporary art" and "Mona Lisa of our time."
7. Night Watch, Rembrandt
This famous painting was painted by the Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn and is now considered the pinnacle of the Dutch Golden Age.
This oil on canvas painting depicts the riflemen of Captain Frans Banning Cock's company. The image is famous for its amazing play of light and shadow and movement, which is full of a traditionally static military portrait.
Initially, "Night Watch" had a much longer title - "Speech by the rifle company of Captain Frans Banning Kok and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburg" ". And the name that is now known appeared only in the 18th century.
6. Garden of earthly delights, Hieronymus Bosch
The most famous paintings in the world mostly depict one or two people. But this triptych canvas is really crowded. It was created by an artist of the late Middle Ages who believed that God and the Devil, Heaven and Hell, were real.
There are three scenes in the painting:
- the left wing shows Christ representing Eve to Adam,
- on the right - the outlines of hell;
- it is not entirely clear if the central panel represents Heaven. On the one hand, it is an idyll: people indulge in amorous pleasures, carelessly splash in the water, and several figures soar in the skies. On the other hand, during the days when Bosch lived, copulation was either an inevitable evil or a terrible sin, demonstrating the base nature of man.
By the way, the name "Garden of Earthly Delights" was given to his creation not by Bosch, but by researchers. And so far they have not agreed on what the author of this masterpiece wanted to show people.
5. Portrait of the Arnolfini couple, Jan van Eyck
This composition is considered one of the most important works done during the Northern Renaissance and is one of the first oil paintings. The full-length double portrait reputedly depicts the Italian merchant Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and a woman who may be his fiancée or wife.
In 1934, the famous historian and art theorist Erwin Panofsky suggested that the painting actually depicts the ceremony of marriage. This is indicated by the connection of the hands of the characters in the picture, as well as the posture of a man, typical for taking an oath.
What can be reliably said is that the "Portrait of the Arnolfini Couple" is one of the first images of an interior with an orthogonal perspective. This is done to create a sense of space that appears to be adjacent to the viewer's own space. It seems that one can get up and enter the picture.
Someone joked that the face of the merchant Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini is very similar to the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin. You, dear readers, decide for yourself whether this is so or not.
4. The Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli
Here is the first full-length painting with a nude non-biblical character since antiquity. It was created for Lorenzo Medici.
The figure of the Goddess of Love was probably modeled after Simonetta Vespucci, the first beauty of the Florentine Renaissance.
This frivolous portrayal sparked the ire of Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican monk who led fundamentalist actions against the secular tastes of the Florentines. His campaign included the infamous 1497 Bonfire of Vanity, in which "secular" items - cosmetics, art, books - were burned at the stake.
The Birth of Venus was also supposed to be burned, but by some miracle the painting escaped destruction. Botticelli was so excited by this incident that he gave up painting for a while.
3. Starry Night, Vincent Van Gogh
Van Gogh's most popular painting was created at an asylum for the mentally ill in Saint-Remy-de-Provence. Starry Night seems to reflect his turbulent state of mind at the time. It is believed that thanks to the power of imagination (and also under the influence of mental disorder), he saw the starry sky in a way that no one else saw him.
2. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Jan Vermeer
One of the most popular paintings is called the Northern or Dutch Mona Lisa. The image looks strikingly real and modern, almost as if it were a photograph.
This gave rise to the theory that Vermeer used a pre-photographic device called a camera obscura to create his painting. Leaving this assumption aside, there remains one more question related to the image. Who posed for the artist? Many art historians believe that this girl could have been Vermeer's servant.
Technically speaking, Girl is not a portrait, but an example of a Dutch genre called Troni. The artists who worked in this genre did not paint the whole person, but only his head.
1. Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci
One of the most famous paintings by da Vinci for a long time already excites the minds of art critics and lovers of the mysteries of painting. Who is depicted on the canvas, and why is this woman smiling?
In recent years, several theories have been put forward on the first issue. The most famous of them:
- This is the wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo (the alternative name of the work is La Gioconda).
- This is Leonardo's mother, Caterina.
- And finally, this is a self-portrait in female form.
As for this famous smile, its mysteriousness has driven people crazy for centuries.
Also, notice the Mona Lisa's supernaturally calm gaze that blends perfectly with the landscape behind her. It seems to dissolve into the distance thanks to the use of atmospheric perspectives.