Art Trivia

Did you know.......


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

2. In ancient times, it was believed that certain colours could combat the evil spirits that lingered over nurseries. Because blue was associated with the heavenly spirits, boys were clothed in that colour, boys then being considered the most valuable resource to parents. Although baby girls did not have a colour associated with them, they were mostly clothed in black. It was only in the Middle Ages when pink became associated with baby girls.

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

4. Mental illness may be profoundly responsible for the creation and enduring popularity of Expressionism. Van Gogh's well-documented mental instability, and Edvard Munch's traumatic childhood and enduring neuroses helped to churn out some of the Expressionists' most important works. Munch accepted that his mental illness was part of his genius, "I would not cast off my illness, for there is much in my art that I owe to it."

5.The large canvases Jackson Pollock used for his Abstract Expressionist action paintings were usually laid flat on the floor while he painted. Pollock was a chain smoker and would frequently paint with a cigarette hanging from his lips. This led to the intriguing incorporation of cigarette ashes into the surface of some of his greatest works.

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

7. Left-handed painter, Michelangelo, painted his famous David and Goliath with David holding his sling in his left hand.

8. Another famous left-hander, Leonardo da Vinci, wrote all of his personal notes from right to left, forcing those who read them to use a mirror.

9. Pablo Picasso loved animals. Through his adult life he owned a pet monkey, an owl, a goat, a turtle and packs of dogs and cats. He was known to leave his studio windows open and to paint the pigeons that flew through.

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

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

12. In all of Dali's paintings you can find a self-portrait. That is, if you look hard you will see at-least a silhouette of Dali himself.

13. Leonardo Da Vinci invented high heels

14. In the late nineteenth century the Impressionist movement was initially not received very well by the establishment. Reviews were at times abusive: La Figaro, 1876, "Five or six lunatics, one of them a woman, have met here to exhibit their works. Someone should tell Mr. Pissarro forcibly that trees are never violet, the sky is never the colour of fresh butter, that nowhere on earth are things to be seen as he paints them." Maybe not, but the popularity of this movement cannot be disputed