Interesting Facts You Didn't Know About Art

 Alexandra Duhlinska

Who doesn't know about Mona Lisa? So many facts hidden behind this little portrait. Many people claim it is Leonardo da Vinci self-portrait. But research has been made and revealed that it is likely to be a portrait of a woman called Lisa Gherardini, wife of a wealthy merchant. The artist's father must have known the wife's merchant who obviously ordered the famous art work. Leonardo had drawn 'Mona Lisa' for 14 years! Long time for a master as he is!

Michelangelo's David. The story is about the marble slab the famous sculptor used to create his masterpiece in 1504. It was cut 43 years earlier for another sculptor - Agostino Di Duccio. He had plans to turn it into a statue of Hercules. He abandoned the marble piece and for another ten years another man of art - Antonio Rossellino tried to work on it. He also abandoned his piece of work because he found the marble too hard to work with and sculpt it. In addition there was a huge crack in the slab for which nobody wanted to use it. Eventually Michelangelo began work on his David and turn the useless marble slab into one of the most famous and beautiful sculptures in the world.

'The starry night' by Van Gogh. The worldwide known artist Vincent Van Gogh painted the artwork while he was in a psychiatric hospital in Saint-Remy. He was a patient there. In this period of his time he used to draw three or four painting a day. The mind tension was so strong he usually had seizures and faints. For all his life the talented artist sold only one painting - 'The Red Vineyard'.

The Thinker by Auguste Rodin. There are dozens of casts of the famous Rodin's sculpture around the world. But the very first sculpture was much smaller in origin. The sculptor created a 70 cm version of it in 1880. It was supposed to be a central part of a bigger composition called 'The Gates of Hell'. The master was inspired by Dante's Inferno. Later the masterpiece was enlarged in the size we know it today.

Girl with a pearl earring - one of the most intriguing piece of art. Exactly as with Mona Lisa there are a whole bunch of mystery facts around the model of Johannes Vermeer's painting. People says the model was a servant in the artist's home. But the truth is it was actually his daughter, Maria who sit as a model for this amazing portrait.

The abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and his painting 'Autumn Rhythm'. The artist was very well-known for his specific style of drawing. He used to lay the painting horizontally on the floor of his backyard studio and drip layers of paint onto it. He used different fabrics and materials, non-traditional items such as sticks and knives, not only the usual brushes. He is not professional artist. He was a patient in a psychiatric hospital. His doctor recommended him start drawing so to release the tension inside. Thanks to his expressionism and vividly drawn lines and spots Pollock become worldwide known artists. Even nowadays his painting are one of the most expensive masterpieces in the world.