Art Trivia

Did you know........???

Leonardo da Vinci spent 12 years painting the Mona Lisa's lips.

On 3rd December 1961 Henri Matisse's painting Le Bateau was put the right way up after hanging upside-down for 46 days without anyone noticing at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, America.

During his entire life, artist Vincent Van Gogh sold just one painting; Red Vineyard at Arles.

Picasso could draw before he could walk, and his first word was the Spanish word for pencil.

Impressionism was given its name from one of Monet's pictures, Impression: Sunrise.

In 1961 Georges Braque was the first living artist to have his work exhibited in the Louvre. In addition to painting, Braque also designed stage sets, costumes and illustrated books.

Paul Klee once described his drawing technique as "taking a line for a walk."

American artist, Andy Warhol, was a fashion illustrator for Seventeen Glamor magazines.

Leonardo Da Vinci invented high heels.

Frederic Auguste Bartholdi use his mother as the source of inspiration for modelling the face of his most famous work, the "Statue of Liberty."

People have been painting things for the past 20,000 years, but it wasn't until 1880 that you could purchase ready mixed paints.

The invention of collapsible tin tubes of paint in 1841 allowed the Impressionists to paint outdoors all day. Before that, an artist had to squeeze paints stored in sacks made from pig's bladders. According to Renior, "Without tubes of paint, there would have been no Impressionism."