highest strata of society
The mystery is revealed why Mona Lisa does not smile at everyone
Mona Lisa smiles? Smirks? Or just twisted her mouth? Maybe even contemptuously curled? Dr. Erika Siegel (Dr Erika Siegel) and colleagues from the University of California (University of California, San Diego) believe that there can be no exact answer to such questions – everyone sees their own. Because the facial expression of the woman depicted in the picture varies depending on the emotional state of people who came to her in the Louvre. Mona Lisa is sure to smile to the cheerful, joyful, spiritual and happy visitors. Grim and evil – make a face. Indifferent – do not express anything at all.
Erika Siegel told the British newspaper Daily Mail that she drew conclusions from experiments. 43 volunteers took part in them – people are not quite ordinary, but with a pronounced dominance of one eye over the other. A person who has a dominant or leading eye, as it is also called, is the one that relies first and foremost in receiving visual information. Continue reading
“Unequal marriage” almost destroyed the friendship
“She exchanged me for a rich manufacturer!” – sobbing, explaining the reason for parting with her beloved Sophia Rybnikova, friend of the young artist Vasily Pukirev, merchant Sergey Varentsov. And while the abandoned bridegroom tried to understand that the 24-year-old favorite found this “old man” (although his rival named Karzinkin was only 37 years old), the artist took and used this plot for the picture “Unequal Marriage”. True, the difference in the age of the newlyweds in the picture seems to be much larger, and the manufacturer was drawn generals shoulder straps.
There was a place on the canvas and the retired bridegroom – he is looking out from behind the bride’s shoulder with a mute reproach. He, by the way, at the time was 30 years old.
Seeing the picture at the presentation, it was the Academic Exhibition of 1863, – Varentsov threw a scandal to a friend. Pukirev had to change the image of Varentsov in the picture. Continue reading
Oddities of pictures
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). As experts in the field of painting admit, the famous Italian Renaissance artist perfectly mastered the techniques of building a linear perspective. In fact, the sketch of the background is verified with mathematical precision — the glance glides along straight lines rushing to the central vanishing point * and is fixed on it. But look at the columns at the left edge of the picture. Don’t you notice anything strange? The columns are depicted in violation of the very perspective, which is so admired in the drawing of Leonardo. The column, which rests on the step, is depicted on two planes at once: the front (at the base) and the rear (at the level of the capital). And the second column is clearly out of place. Continue reading
