Contemporary mystical artists. This is interesting

There is a superstition that painting a portrait can bring bad luck to the model. In the history of Russian painting there have been several famous paintings that have developed a mystical reputation.

"Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan November 16, 1581." Ilya Repin

Ilya Repin had a reputation as a “fatal painter”: many of those whose portraits he painted died suddenly. Among them are Mussorgsky, Pisemsky, Pirogov, Italian actor Mercy d'Argenteau and Fyodor Tyutchev.

Repin's darkest painting is "Ivan the Terrible Kills His Son." An interesting fact: it is still unknown whether Ivan IV killed his son or whether this legend was actually invented by the Vatican envoy Antonio Possevino.

The picture made a depressing impression on visitors to the exhibition. Cases of hysteria were recorded, and in 1913, icon painter Abram Balashov ripped open the painting with a knife. He was later declared insane.

A strange coincidence: the artist Myasoedov, from whom Repin painted the image of the Tsar, soon almost killed his son Ivan in a fit of anger, and the writer Vsevolod Garshin, who became sitter for Tsarevich Ivan, he went crazy and committed suicide.

"Portrait of M. I. Lopukhina." Vladimir Borovikovsky

Maria Lopukhina, descended from the Tolstoy count family, became the artist’s model at the age of 18, shortly after her own wedding. The amazingly beautiful girl was healthy and full of strength, but died 5 years later. Years later, the poet Polonsky would write “Borovikovsky saved her beauty...”.

There were rumors about the connection of the painting with the death of Lopukhina. An urban legend was born that you cannot look at a portrait for long - the “model” will suffer the sad fate.

Some claimed that the girl's father, a Master of the Masonic Lodge, captured his daughter's spirit in the portrait.

80 years later, the painting was acquired by Tretyakov, who was not afraid of the portrait’s reputation. Today the painting is in the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery.

"Unknown." Ivan Kramskoy

The painting “Unknown” (1883) aroused great interest among the St. Petersburg public. But Tretyakov flatly refused to purchase the painting for his collection. Thus, “The Stranger” began its journey through private collections. Soon strange things began to happen: the first owner’s wife left him, the second’s house burned down, the third went bankrupt. All misfortunes were attributed to the fatal picture.

The artist himself did not escape trouble; soon after painting the picture, Kramskoy’s two sons died.

The painting was sold abroad, where it continued to bring nothing but misfortune to its owners, until the painting returned to Russia in 1925. When the portrait ended up in the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery, the misfortunes stopped.

"Troika". Vasily Perov

Perov could not find a model for the central boy for a long time, until he met a woman who was traveling through Moscow on a pilgrimage with her 12-year-old son Vasya. The artist managed to persuade the woman to let Vasily pose for the picture.

A few years later, Perov met with this woman again. It turned out that a year after painting Vasenka died, and his mother specially came to the artist to buy the painting with her last money.

But the canvas had already been purchased and exhibited at the Tretyakov Gallery. When the woman saw Troika, she fell to her knees and began to pray. Touched, the artist painted a portrait of her son for the woman.

"Demon defeated." Mikhail Vrubel

Vrubel's son, Savva, died suddenly shortly after the artist completed the portrait of the boy. The death of his son was a blow for Vrubel, so he concentrated on his last painting, “The Defeated Demon.”

The desire to finish the painting grew into obsession. Vrubel continued to finish the painting even when it was sent to the exhibition.

Not paying attention to the visitors, the artist came to the gallery, took out his brushes and continued to work. Concerned relatives contacted the doctor, but it was too late - tabes spinal cord brought Vrubel to the grave, despite treatment.

"Mermaids". Ivan Kramskoy

Ivan Kramskoy decided to paint a picture based on the story by N.V. Gogol's "May Night, or the Drowned Woman". At the first exhibition at the Association of Itinerants, the painting was hung next to the pastoral “The Rooks Have Arrived” by Alexei Savrasov. On the very first night, the painting “Rooks” fell from the wall.

Soon Tretyakov bought both paintings, “The Rooks Have Arrived” took a place in the office, and “Mermaids” was exhibited in the hall. From that moment on, the servants and members of Tretyakov’s household began to complain about the mournful singing coming from the hall at night.

Moreover, people began to note that next to the painting they experienced a breakdown.

The mysticism continued until the old nanny advised to remove the mermaids from the light to the far end of the hall. Tretyakov followed the advice, and the strangeness stopped.

"On the death of Alexander III." Ivan Aivazovsky

When the artist learned about the death of Emperor Alexander III, he was shocked and painted the picture without any order. According to Aivazovsky, the painting was supposed to symbolize the triumph of life over death. But, having finished the painting, Aivazovsky hid it and did not show it to anyone. The painting was first put on public display only 100 years later.

The painting is broken into fragments; the canvas depicts a cross, the Peter and Paul Fortress and the figure of a woman in black.

The strange effect is that, from a certain angle, the female figure turns into a laughing man. Some see this silhouette as Nicholas II, while others see Pakhom Andreyushkin, one of those terrorists who failed in the assassination attempt on the emperor in 1887.

The history of some paintings.

Over time, many works of art acquire a whole trail of stories. Good or not, completely different, unusual, often creepy, they add a certain aura to the most unassuming picture. By the way, such auras are perfectly visible to bioenergetics specialists and psychics. Events are also associated with the paintings. Whether they occur as a result or simply coincide in time - we will not argue. Here is a short overview of similar works.

The creation of the impressionist Monet “Water Lilies”.

One after another, for an unknown reason, the creator's workshop burned, then the owners' houses - a cabaret in Montmartre in Paris, the house of a French philanthropist, the New York Museum of Modern Arts. At the moment, the painting is behaving quietly, hanging calmly in the Mormoton Museum (France).

Another bad painting, “Venus with a Mirror,” is by Velazquez. It is believed that everyone who acquired it either died a violent death or went bankrupt...

Even museums were very reluctant to include it in their exhibitions and the picture constantly migrated. Until one day a visitor attacked her, cutting the canvas with a knife.

Russian painting also has its oddities. Ever since school, everyone knows Perov’s Troika. The root of this trio is a little fair boy. Perov found a model for this image in Moscow. A woman with her 12-year-old son was walking down the street on a pilgrimage.

The woman lost all her other children and her husband, and Vasya became her last consolation. She really didn’t want the boy to pose, but later she agreed anyway. But after the painting was completed, very quickly, Vasya died... The woman asks to give her the picture, but the artist can no longer do it, the picture at that time is already in the Tretyakov Gallery. But Perov still paints a portrait of the boy and gives it to his mother.

Vrubel also has such hard work. The portrait of his son Savva was painted shortly before the boy’s unexpected death.
But “The Demon Defeated”…. Vrubel constantly rewrote it, changed the coloring, and it turned out that the work had a very serious impact on the artist’s psyche.

He never stopped working, even after the work was placed at the exhibition... Vrubel even came to the exhibition and worked on the canvas. Bekhterev himself examined him. As a result, the relatives call the psychiatrist Bekhterev and he makes a terrible diagnosis. Vrubel is placed in a hospital, where he soon dies.

Another interesting couple of paintings.
One of them is “Maslenitsa”

The second belongs to Antonov.

The paintings gained particular fame in 2006, when a recording appeared on the Internet, allegedly on behalf of one teacher. Who stated that the copy belongs to the pen of a madman, but there is a feature in the picture that immediately indicates the author’s mental disorder. Many people start looking for this difference, but of course they don’t find it... or rather, there are many options offered, but it’s not possible to check for correctness... yet)

Another example was a portrait of Maria Lopukhina, painted during the time of Pushkin.
Her life was very short and almost immediately after creating the picture she died of tuberculosis.

Her father, rumored to be a Master Mason, managed to capture his daughter's spirit in a painting. And now every girl who looks at the portrait risks dying. She already has more than a dozen then young girls on her account. In 1880, the painting was bought by philanthropist Tretyakov. After this, the rumors die down.

The next “dark” painting is “The Scream” by Munch. His life was one big black streak of tragedy - the death of his mother at an early age, the death of his sister and brother, then the “schizophrenia” of another sister. In the 90s, after a nervous breakdown, he was treated with electric shock. He is afraid of sex and therefore not to marry. Munch dies at the age of 81, having handed over his paintings (1200), sketches (4500) and 18,000 photographs.
Munch's main painting was his "The Scream".

Many who had to come into contact with the painting receive a blow of fate - they get sick, quarrel with loved ones, fall into severe depression or die. There are also several very scary stories. One employee, a completely healthy person, accidentally dropped it and as a result received attacks of headache with increasing severity, this lasted until the employee committed suicide. Another person who dropped the painting was in a car accident and received severe fractures of his arms, legs, ribs, pelvis and a concussion. And here we can include a curious visitor who poked the picture with his finger. A few days later he burns alive in his own house.

The Dutchman Pieter Bruegel the Elder wrote “The Adoration of the Magi” within two years.
The model for the Virgin Mary was his cousin, a barren woman who was beaten by her husband for this. It was she who caused the bad aura of the picture. The canvas was bought by collectors four times and after that, no children were born in the families for 10-12 years. In 1637, Jacob van Kampen bought the painting. By that time, he already had three descendants, so he was not afraid of the curse.

This is already a modern creation. Its author, a Japanese schoolgirl, drew it shortly before her suicide.
If you look at this image for about five minutes in a row, the girl in the picture changes - her eyes turn red, her hair turns black, and fangs grow.

“The Rain Woman” was written by Svetlana Taurus in 1996. Half a year before, she began to feel some kind of attention, observation. Then one day Svetlana approached the canvas and saw this woman there, her whole image, colors, textures. She painted the picture very quickly, it felt like someone was moving the artist’s hand.
After this, Svetlana tried to sell the painting. But the first buyer quickly returned the painting, because it seemed to her that there was someone in the apartment, she dreamed of this woman. There was a feeling of silence, a feeling of fear and anxiety. Rain. The same thing was repeated several more times. Now the painting hangs in one of the stores, but there are no more buyers for it. Although the artist thinks that the painting is simply waiting for its viewer, the one for whom it is intended.

And this picture was painted by Bill Stoneham. The scandal began after one of the exhibitions.

Mentally unbalanced people viewing this picture became ill, they lost consciousness, began to cry, etc. All in 1972, when the picture was painted...

It all started in 1972, when the picture was drawn by Bill Stoneham from an old photograph of him at age five found in the Chicago house where he lived at the time (first photograph).

The painting was first shown to the owner and art critic of the Los Angeles Times, who later died. Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe not. The painting was then acquired by actor John Marley (died 1984). Then the fun begins. The painting was found in a landfill among a pile of garbage. The family who found her brought her home and already on the first night the little four-year-old daughter ran into her parents’ bedroom screaming that the children in the picture were fighting. The next night, the head of the family set the video camera to be activated by movement in the room where the painting hung. The video camera went off several times.

The painting was put up for auction on eBay. Soon, eBay administrators began receiving alarming letters with complaints about deteriorating health, loss of consciousness, and even heart attacks. There was a warning on eBay (as well as in this post), but people are notoriously curious and many ignored the warning.

The painting was sold for 1025 USD, the starting price was 199 USD. The page with the painting was visited over 30,000 times, but mostly just for fun. It was bought by Kim Smith, who lived in a small town near Chicago. He was just looking for something for his newly renovated art gallery on the Internet. When he came across "Hands Resist Him" he initially thought that it was painted in the forties and would be perfect for him as an exhibit.

This would have been the end of the story, but letters now began to arrive at Smith's address. Many of them were, as before, with stories about feeling unwell after viewing the film, but there were also those who wrote about the evil emanating from it. Others demanded that it simply be burned. Even Ed and Lorraine Warren, famous for exorcizing demons at the Amityville House in 1979, offered his services. Some even recalled the famous Satillo murder in the forested hills of California. The ghosts of two children are said to haunt the house in the hills. Psychics claimed: “We saw a boy. He wore a light T-shirt and shorts. His sister was always in the shadows. He seemed to protect her. Their names were Tom and Laura and they looked exactly like the children depicted in the picture.

Another picture from the same "opera"

The mysterious events associated with the painting “The Crying Boy,” which began to occur in 1985 in Great Britain, still excite the imagination and baffle researchers of this phenomenon.

The artist and author of the painting “The Crying Boy,” the father of the child depicted in it, mocked his son by lighting matches in front of the baby’s face. The fact is that the boy was deathly afraid of fire. And the man tried in this way to achieve the brightness, vitality and naturalness of the canvas. The boy cried - the artist painted. One day the kid shouted at his father: “Burn yourself!” A month later the child died of pneumonia. And a couple of weeks later, the artist’s charred body was found in his own house next to a painting of a crying boy that had survived the fire.

The unusual nature of this picture went unnoticed until Yorkshire fireman Peter Hall gave an interview to one of the major newspapers in England, in which he spoke about the unusual phenomenon that had accompanied him almost the entire year. While fighting fires that broke out throughout Northern England, firefighters discovered that in all cases the fire started in the room where the painting "The Crying Boy" hung, but the most interesting thing was that no matter how strong the fire was, the painting always remained intact and untouched by fire.

"Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan November 16, 1581." Ilya Repin

"Portrait of M. I. Lopukhina." Vladimir Borovikovsky

There were rumors about the connection of the painting with the death of Lopukhina. An urban legend was born that you cannot look at a portrait for long - the “model” will suffer the sad fate.

Some claimed that the girl's father, a Master of the Masonic Lodge, captured his daughter's spirit in the portrait.

80 years later, the painting was acquired by Tretyakov, who was not afraid of the portrait’s reputation. Today the painting is in the collection of the Tretyakov Gallery.

"Unknown." Ivan Kramskoy

The artist himself did not escape trouble; soon after painting the picture, Kramskoy’s two sons died.

"Troika". Vasily Perov

A few years later, Perov met with this woman again. It turned out that a year after painting Vasenka died, and his mother specially came to the artist to buy the painting with her last money.

"Demon defeated." Mikhail Vrubel

The desire to finish the painting grew into obsession. Vrubel continued to finish the painting even when it was sent to the exhibition.

"Mermaids". Ivan Kramskoy

Moreover, people began to note that next to the painting they experienced a breakdown.

The mysticism continued until the old nanny advised to remove the mermaids from the light to the far end of the hall. Tretyakov followed the advice, and the strangeness stopped.

"On the death of Alexander III." Ivan Aivazovsky

The painting is broken into fragments; the canvas depicts a cross, the Peter and Paul Fortress and the figure of a woman in black.

Today I was sent a link to the work of one artist (in the process, who took great advantage of the methods of Salvador-our-Dali) artist.

For the sake of curiosity, I naturally went to look, despite the management, which was unfriendly to everyone playing the fool. The pictures evoke an unsettling feeling. Which is basically what the author intended. And my thoughts flowed in the direction of the mystical and mysterious (I love this topic, yeah). After all, many paintings (as, by the way, many musical works - I’m ready to write about this separately) evoke strange feelings or (even better) strange incidents with those who were depicted in them at an unkind hour, or bought/received them by accident/too much stared for a long time. Before starting research on this topic, I only knew about two paintings with an “evil” reputation, but once I dug around, I...

Painting by Claude Monet “Water Lilies”- one of the masterpieces of world culture. I wonder if the artist himself thought when he painted the picture that decades later it would have such a bad reputation? But the thing is that behind the picture there is a whole trail of fires. Moreover, the first happened at Monet’s own home, literally immediately after finishing work on the painting. The fire in the workshop where “Water Lilies” was located was quickly put out, and the painting itself was not damaged.
Soon the owners of an entertainment establishment in Montmartre became the owners of the painting, and a month later the owners were packing their bags, leaving the burnt cabaret building. By the way, the suitcase also contained the painting itself - one of several things that were taken out of the building engulfed in flames. After this, the painting was acquired by Oscar Schmitz, a philanthropist who lived in Paris. He was luckier than the previous owners - his house stood untouched for a whole year... A year later, only ashes remained from the house, and the fire, according to eyewitnesses, started in the very room where the Monet painting hung. By the way, the canvas was again among the few things that were saved. And again the painting moved to a new owner. This time not to the sole owner, but to a museum - the New York Museum of Modern Art. And the fire did not bypass it - it happened 4 months later, this time the canvas was quite seriously damaged.

Another canvas that constantly accompanies trouble is "Venus with a Mirror" by Diego Velazquez.

The painting's first owner, a Spanish merchant, went bankrupt, his trade deteriorating every day until most of his goods were captured by pirates at sea and several more ships sank. Selling everything he had by auction, the merchant also sold the painting. It was acquired by another Spaniard, also a merchant who owned rich warehouses in the port. The money for the canvas had barely been transferred when the merchant's warehouses caught fire from a sudden lightning strike. The owner was ruined. And again there is an auction, and again the painting is sold along with other things, and again a wealthy Spaniard buys it... Three days later he was stabbed to death in his own house during a robbery. After that, the painting could not find its new owner for a long time, its reputation was too damaged, and the canvas traveled to different museums, until in one of them a mentally ill tourist rushed at the painting with a knife and ruined it.

The misfortunes that are associated with different paintings are completely different. For example, many owners of “The Adoration of the Magi” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder got rid of the painting, believing that it was associated with infertility in the family.

It is interesting that the artist’s cousin, with whom he painted this canvas, also suffered from infertility, which seemed to be transmitted through the painting to the families where it was kept. Children did not appear even where women had previously given birth without problems.

Known, of course, is the fame of the famous "La Gioconda" by Leonardo da Vinci and: the painting supposedly has an incomprehensible effect on those who look at it for a long time.

This was noted by the 19th century writer Stendhal, who, after admiring the canvas for a long time, fainted. The caretakers of the Louvre note that such fainting spells are not uncommon; they happen to visitors quite often, especially in front of the portrait of the Mona Lisa. And da Vinci himself, according to the recollections of his loved ones, was as if obsessed with the painting, constantly trying to correct details, redraw, etc. And while working, he often experienced a breakdown and became depressed.

Mysterious events also happened to those who inadvertently “offended” the famous painting Edvard Munch "The Scream".

The cost of this painting reaches 70 million dollars. And, perhaps, collectors would be immensely happy to have this painting in their private collection: if not for one thing: they say that the painting seems to be taking revenge on all its offenders.

For example, a museum employee who accidentally dropped a canvas then suffered from unbearable headaches for a long time, which ultimately led him to commit suicide. Another museum employee, who also dropped the painting, ended up in intensive care a few days later after a terrible car accident: almost everything was broken - his arms, legs, ribs, pelvic bones... One of the museum visitors who touched the painting was soon burned alive at home in fire time. Perhaps much of what is said about this painting is fiction, but there are dozens of stories about people who somehow came into contact with the painting, then became very ill, fell into severe depression and even died. Many people associate this impact of the canvas with the life of the artist himself. Munch survived the death of almost all his loved ones: his mother died of tuberculosis - Munch was 5 years old; his beloved sister died suddenly when he was 14; a brother soon died, and another sister fell ill with schizophrenia. The artist himself experienced depression and severe nervous breakdowns.

During Pushkin’s time, the portrait of Maria Lopukhina was one of the main “horror stories”. The girl lived a short and unhappy life, and after painting the portrait she died of consumption. Her father Ivan Lopukhin was a famous mystic and master of the Masonic lodge. That is why rumors spread that he had managed to lure the spirit of his deceased daughter into this portrait. And that if young girls look at the picture, they will soon die. According to the salon gossips, the portrait of Maria destroyed at least ten noblewomen of marriageable age...

The rumors were put to rest by the philanthropist Tretyakov, who in 1880 bought the portrait for his gallery. There was no significant mortality among female visitors. The conversations died down. But the sediment remained!

Dutch artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted “The Adoration of the Magi” over two years. He “copied” the Virgin Mary from his cousin. She was a barren woman, for which she received constant blows from her husband. It was she who, as simple medieval Dutch gossiped, “infected” the picture. “The Magi” was bought by private collectors four times. And each time the same story was repeated: no children were born in a family for 10-12 years...
Finally, in 1637, the architect Jacob van Kampen bought the painting. By that time he already had three children, so the curse did not particularly frighten him.

Probably the most famous bad picture of the Internet space with the following story: A certain schoolgirl (Japanese is often mentioned) before opening her veins (throwing herself out of a window, taking pills, hanging herself, drowning herself in the bathtub) drew this picture. If you look at her for 5 minutes in a row, the girl will change (her eyes turn red, her hair turns black, fangs appear).
In fact, it is clear that the picture was clearly not drawn by hand, as many people like to claim. Although no one gives clear answers to how this picture appeared.

Now it hangs modestly without a frame in one of the Vinnitsa stores. “Rain Woman” is the most expensive of all works: it costs $500. According to the sellers, the painting has already been bought three times and then returned. Clients explain that they dream about her. And someone even says that they know this lady, but they don’t remember where. And everyone who has ever looked into her white eyes will forever remember the feeling of a rainy day, silence, anxiety and fear.
Its author, Vinnytsia artist Svetlana Telets, told where the unusual painting came from. “In 1996, I graduated from Odessa Art University. Grekova,” recalls Svetlana. “And six months before the birth of “Woman,” it always seemed to me that someone was constantly watching me. I drove such thoughts away from myself, and then one day, by the way, not at all rainy, I sat in front of a blank canvas and thought about what to draw. And suddenly I clearly saw the contours of a woman, her face, colors, shades. In an instant I noticed all the details of the image. I wrote the main part quickly - I finished it in about five hours. It seemed as if someone was guiding my hand. And then I finished painting for another month.”
Arriving in Vinnitsa, Svetlana exhibited the painting in a local art salon. Art connoisseurs came up to her every now and then and shared the same thoughts that she herself had during her work.
“It was interesting to observe,” says the artist, “how subtly a thing can materialize a thought and inspire it in other people.”
A few years ago the first customer appeared. A lonely businesswoman walked around the halls for a long time, looking closely. Having bought “Woman”, I hung it in my bedroom.
Two weeks later, a night call rang in Svetlana’s apartment: “Please pick her up. I can not sleep. It seems that there is someone in the apartment besides me. I even took it off the wall and hid it behind the closet, but I still can’t do it.”
Then a second buyer appeared. Then a young man bought the painting. And I also couldn’t stand it for long. He brought it to the artist himself. And he didn’t even take the money back.

About the rest - including my “favorites” - next time.

Curses of killer paintings

Mystical stories and mysteries are associated with many works of painting. Moreover, some experts believe that dark and secret forces are involved in the creation of a number of paintings. There are grounds for such a statement. Too often, amazing facts and inexplicable events happened to these fatal masterpieces - fires, deaths, the madness of the authors...

One of the most famous “cursed” paintings is “The Crying Boy” - a reproduction of a painting by the Spanish artist Giovanni Bragolin. The story of its creation is as follows: the artist wanted to paint a portrait of a crying child and took his little son as a sitter. But, since the baby could not cry on demand, the father deliberately brought him to tears by lighting matches in front of his face. The artist knew that his son was terrified of fire, but art was dearer to him than the nerves of his own child, and he continued to mock him.
One day, driven to the point of hysteria, the baby could not stand it and shouted, shedding tears: “Burn yourself!” This curse did not take long to come true - two weeks later the boy died of pneumonia, and soon his father also burned alive in his own house... This is the background story. The painting, or rather its reproduction, gained its ominous fame in 1985 in England.
This happened thanks to a series of strange coincidences - fires in residential buildings began to occur one after another in Northern England. There were human casualties. Some victims mentioned that of all the property, only a cheap reproduction depicting a crying child miraculously survived. And such reports became more and more numerous, until, finally, one of the fire inspectors publicly announced that in all the burned houses, without exception, the “Crying Boy” was found intact.
Immediately, the newspapers were overwhelmed by a wave of letters reporting various accidents, deaths and fires that occurred after the owners bought this painting. Of course, “The Crying Boy” immediately began to be considered cursed, the story of its creation surfaced and became overgrown with rumors and fiction... As a result, one of the newspapers published an official statement that everyone who has this reproduction must immediately get rid of it, and the authorities From now on it is forbidden to purchase and keep it at home.
To this day, “The Crying Boy” is haunted by notoriety, especially in Northern England. By the way, the original has not yet been found. True, some doubters (especially here in Russia) deliberately hung this portrait on their wall, and, it seems, no one was burned. But still there are very few people who want to test the legend in practice.

Assumption

American astronomers have solved the mystery of the painting “The Scream” by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. They found the answer to a question that has long tormented art historians - why the sky in Munch’s famous painting of 1893 has such a strange and unique flaming red color.

As it turned out, the color scheme of the painting is by no means a figment of the imagination, but a completely realistic depiction of sunsets in Europe at that time. They acquired a completely unexpected color after the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia in August 1883, when a huge amount of ash was thrown into the planet’s atmosphere. This eruption is considered one of the most powerful and tragic in the history of mankind.

Scientists at the University of Texas conducted a detailed analysis of Munch's diaries, materials about the Krakatoa eruption, and studied reports from Norwegian newspapers in 1883. “Our research trip to Oslo reached its climax when we discovered a bend in the road and realized that we were in the exact place where Munch stood 120 years ago,” said study leader Donald Olson, professor of physics and astronomy at the university. “We realized , that he was looking southwest. Looking in this direction, one could see the sunsets associated with the Krakatoa eruption in the winter of 1883-84."
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Dutch artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted “The Adoration of the Magi” over two years. He “copied” the Virgin Mary from his cousin. She was a barren woman, for which she received constant blows from her husband. It was she who, as simple medieval Dutch gossiped, “infected” the picture. “The Magi” was bought by private collectors four times. And each time the same story was repeated: no children were born in a family for 10-12 years...

Finally, in 1637, the architect Jacob van Kampen bought the painting. By that time he already had three children, so the curse did not particularly frighten him.

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If you look at her for 5 minutes in a row, the girl will change (her eyes turn red, her hair turns black, fangs appear).
In fact, it is clear that the picture was clearly not drawn by hand, as many people like to claim. Although no one gives clear answers to how this picture appeared.

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8. Now it hangs modestly without a frame in one of the shops in Vinnitsa. “Rain Woman” is the most expensive of all works: it costs $500. According to the sellers, the painting has already been bought three times and then returned. Clients explain that they dream about her. And someone even says that they know this lady, but they don’t remember where. And everyone who has ever looked into her white eyes will forever remember the feeling of a rainy day, silence, anxiety and fear.

The exhibits were stolen from the museum, located in close proximity to the central Tahrir Square, where mass demonstrations against former Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak took place over the past three weeks.

Looters made their way into the museum on January 28, taking advantage of the chaos that reigned during mass unrest, AFP reported, citing Egypt's Minister of Antiquities Zahi Hawass.

Among the stolen objects of cultural value are a statue of the young ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun made of gilded wood and part of another statue of the same ruler.

Cursed treasure

In addition, the thieves stole limestone sculptures of Pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti, a bust of Princess Amarana, an amulet in the shape of a scarab beetle hanging on the mummy, and a number of other objects of ancient culture.

A criminal case has already been opened into the theft and local police are currently interrogating the suspects.

“Law enforcement officials and the military plan to interrogate the criminals who are already in custody,” Hawass assured.

The museum, founded in 1858 by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, was protected by military and civilian volunteers for three weeks after the protests began.

The building houses about 100 thousand exhibits, of which perhaps the most famous is the supposedly cursed treasure from the tomb of Tutankhamun.

The pictures appeared again.

Added after 42 minutes 59 seconds
Anna Akhmatova once said: “When a person dies, his portraits change.” A picturesque portrait or painting is a powerful energy structure. The painter not only paints a canvas on a particular subject - he conveys his feelings, thoughts, worldview, and most importantly - the mood, which forms the energy of the artistic canvas. It is also called "catharsis". If the plot of the picture is overtly aggressive, then this causes aggression in the viewer. It should be noted that paintings and portraits carry different energy. Sometimes the artist, without realizing it, “loads” the viewer of his paintings with the catharsis from which he himself is freed in the process of creating the canvas.

Everyone knows the fact of vandalism associated with Ilya Repin’s painting “Ivan the Terrible Kills His Son.” But few know that for a long time Repin was unable to paint the “living” blood oozing through the fingers of his murderous father. And then the artist saw it with his own eyes on the face of the woman who had fallen under the carriage, rushed home and “revitalized” her on the canvas with a few strokes.
When the blood of people or animals flows out of the body, in the first minutes of this process it emits radiation of special strength.
The flow of blood and the killer’s crazy gaze influenced the psyche of student Balashov: in a fit of rage, he tore up the famous painting by Repin. The criminal was later declared insane. The poet Maximillian Voloshin, in a speech at the trial about the incident, accused Repin of subconsciously putting aggression into the picture. It was she who shook Balashov’s sick and vulnerable imagination. Then they did not listen to Voloshin, accusing him of his theories being unproven, but history repeated itself in the 80s - this time with Rembrandt’s painting “Danae”. It was almost completely destroyed by a crazy fanatic from the Baltic states using sulfuric acid.

Alexander Benois, who preached freedom of creativity, a cosmopolitan by conviction, suddenly sharply opposed Malevich’s cosmopolitanism, calling him “Black Square” the icon that is offered in place of Madonna. Malevich woke up famous in 1915 when he exhibited at the exhibition “0.10” - “Black Square” - the last painting in the world, as he himself called it. This is where the art ends. Malevich died in 1935 from cancer. The urn with the ashes was placed in an open field near the dacha in Nemchinovka. On the grave they placed a cube with a black square.

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Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel and his Demon

After this picture they started talking about him all over the world. From an unknown student, he turned into a cult artist, an icon of his time.
We are talking about Mikhail Vrubel. He decided on an incredibly defiant and daring act - he challenged the long-standing ban on not portraying the Demon.
He made the Demon the main character of his paintings, but punishment awaited him for this. Vrubel could not even imagine that the curses would come true and the Demon would take over the consciousness of its creator.
The Moscow public will see the painting “The Demon Who Sits” and the next morning Mikhail Vrubel will wake up famous. And many years later the same newspapers that praised him will write: “The demon kills its author.”
His painting hung at the exhibition, but the Demon was, as it were, inseparable from the artist’s soul, and when Vrubel tried to break it and destroy it in himself, he ended up in a madhouse, where he died.
But did this mystical connection with the painting really exist? What did Mikhail Vrubel really pay for?

None of the devils previously created by artists had a living prototype. But Mikhail Vrubel’s Demon did, because it was written from a real person, and also a beloved woman.
When drawing his Demon, the artist pursued a specific goal - to take revenge on this woman. One single painting made Vrubel a world-famous artist.
His Demon is known today by every student of the Art Academy. But few people realize that the painting had a specific prototype.
It was a woman from Kiev, and meeting her made Vrubel a brilliant artist and a deeply unhappy person. Vrubel, when he arrived in Kyiv, was, figuratively speaking, a nobody.
He was yesterday's student at the Academy, and it can be said without exaggeration that all three turning points of his character: as a person, as a sick person and as a great artist, were formed in Kyiv. This femme fatale and the fatal love that flared up in his soul for this woman played a significant role in this.

Incredible luck brought the unknown artist Mikhail Vrubel to Kyiv. In 1860, a miraculous phenomenon occurred in one of the churches in Kyiv. In the St. Cyril Church, ancient paintings suddenly appeared to people.
The priest found these unique frescoes by accident. During the Great Service, a piece of plaster fell off the wall and everyone saw that an Angel was looking at the flock. Then the priest removed another piece of plaster from the wall and underneath it were ancient paintings, which, as it turned out, were over 700 years old.
These frescoes needed to be urgently restored. After all, if exposed to air, the unique paintings could collapse. But finding a master for this was not so easy.
One after another, artists abandoned this work. And the main reason was that the Cyril Church had a bad, very bad reputation.
Kirillovskaya Church was located on the territory of a psychiatric hospital. Essentially, whoever works in this church will actually be working in a mental hospital.
For a long time they could not find a restorer for the Cyril Church. Until an unknown student of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Mikhail Vrubel, appeared in Kyiv.
A modest, thin young man in a dark suit, who was invited by the famous art critic Adrian Prakhov to restore the mysterious paintings found in the St. Cyril Church. And he was not mistaken. Vrubel coped with the task brilliantly, but both Vrubel and Prakhov will have to pay too high a price.
The famous Pavlovka hospital, where people with mental illnesses, blessed and holy fools, have long been brought and left. Kievans always avoided this place. In those days, mentally ill people were not considered sick. They were equated with criminals and thrown out of society forever.
This was the place during the reign of Catherine II. But in the 19th century, psychiatry became the subject of scientific research. Doctors will begin studying Pavlovka patients. When Vrubel arrived here, the terrible prison for the insane had already turned into a hospital.
But her bad reputation remained just as terrible. The people of Kiev saw that strange people with crazy and scary eyes were walking around the territory of Pavlovka under the supervision of orderlies. They jump, cry and laugh terribly. When Vrubel first entered the hospital grounds, he was struck by the eyes of the patients. For many years he will not be able to forget their expression and will reproduce it on canvas again and again.
But at first Vrubel will not pay attention to prejudices. This is a phenomenal opportunity for him. After all, he, a fourth-year student, is entrusted with valuable frescoes that were already 700 years old. He begins restoration work on the very first day, without even visiting the apartment that Prahov offered him, but only asks to send his things there.
Vrubel himself was taken to the St. Cyril Church. And when Vrubel climbed to the rishtovka, he felt a mystical trembling - another world opened up before him: the faces of the saints who were worshiped by people 700 years ago were looking at him. Vrubel redraws the frescoes into an album, meticulously describing every facial feature, every fold of clothing. In order not to waste time on food, he takes a jug of water and a piece of bread with him to rishtov.

During the first weeks of work, he almost never leaves the St. Cyril Church and reacts to other people only when they go up to the drawing board to give the artist a new pencil or mix paints. But one day an unusual visitor comes to the church - an elegantly dressed woman with a covered head. She stands below for a long time and tries to attract attention to herself. And when in the end the artist is distracted from his work, she imperiously asks him to come down.
Outwardly, she was far from beautiful. She was short and had a stocky figure, but she had stunning huge eyes of incredible size and surviving photographs confirm this. And the expression of those eyes, the look when she looked, could really charm and bewitch. The woman identified herself as the customer’s wife, Emilia Prakhova. She came to invite the master to a regular family dinner.
And Vrubel will forever remember her imperious tone and proud posture. Later he would write - he did not know then that she had come to change his life with one single invitation. That evening, a modest student finds himself in a fairy tale. The fact is that Vrubel grew up in a stern officer’s family, in which, if there was a social reception, it was always according to all the rules of etiquette.
The Prakhovs' house seems to him a fantastic place, a territory of freedom. Here everything was different than in his parents’ family and what he was used to as a child. It was a bohemian family, attended by many creative people. Most of all, Vrubel was struck by the hostess herself.
Emilia is 32 years old and has three children. She could not be called a beauty, but Mikhail Vrubel had never seen a woman behave like that. Emilia Prahova, with her manners, did not fit into any framework of that time.
From the first meeting, the image of this woman will forever remain in Vrubel’s imagination. And it is this image that will lead the artist to unheard of fame and to lifelong damnation. Emilia was natural in her manifestations and her actions did not always correspond to the rules of conduct of that society and that time.
She was an eccentric, extravagant woman who, on the one hand, knew several languages, and on the other hand, could afford to pour a jug of water on her guest’s head simply because she did not like the guest’s remark.
Nothing special: she just kept up a conversation with him - witty and free. But after this acquaintance, Vrubel lost interest in the work of a restorer. The saints and angels of Kievan Rus will become indifferent to him.
In a few days, the modest and demanding master will turn into a scandalous dandy, begin to dress provocatively and behave strangely, and then commit an act for which he will pay for the rest of his life.
The apprentices and assistants do not recognize the artist. He appears less and less often on rishtovkas. Prahova comes up with an excuse for the customer - he needs to think about the image of the Virgin Mary, while he himself counts the money he has earned. Prakhov pays Vrubel pennies - after all, the city authorities allocated almost nothing for the restoration of the frescoes.

But Vrubel doesn’t care. He will leave all the money in a clothing store and ask the seller to offer him a shirt made of the finest silk, from Paris itself. The seller is surprised: they say why does Vrubel need such an expensive shirt that is more suitable for the governor; there are many other cheaper shirts in the store.
But Vrubel insists on his own, and in the evening he dresses like a real dandy and goes to the Prahovs. Emilia, instead of appreciating his elegance, unexpectedly reprimands the artist for spending extra money. Vrubel barely makes it to the end of dinner, and then rushes out the door like a bullet and runs away.
After this incident, Vrubel did not appear in the Cyril Church for two days. And when he finally comes to work, he carries a package in his hands. At the corner he gives the package to a beggar and quickly moves on. When the beggar unwraps the package, he sees a beautiful silk shirt in it. This was Vrubel's first strangeness.
Twenty years later, after his death, the Prakhovs will recall a whole chain of such oddities and say that Vrubel’s illness had already begun. But were these really the first signs of insanity and mental illness, or just the emotions of a man in love?

Over and over again, Vrubel tries to attract Prahova’s attention. One day, getting ready to go home after dinner, he gives her a watercolor. But Emilia does not accept the gift. She explains that this is too much of an honor for her. Such beautiful things belong in a museum.
She wanted to praise his talent, but Vrubel flares up with resentment. He tears the watercolor into pieces and throws it at the owner’s feet, and a few days later he returns to the Prahovs, and this time with his nose painted with green paint.
When they suggest to him that he accidentally got dirty, Vrubel only laughs in response and explains that from now on it is a new fashion - women wear makeup, and men draw on their noses. Red suits some people, green suits him. The children laugh at the joke, and Emilia again does not understand the artist. She scolds him for childish fun and demands that he wash off the paint immediately.
Vrubel obediently carries out the order, and then makes Emilia Prakhova a strange and unexpected proposal - he asks permission to paint her in the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary - and she agrees.
Sketches have been preserved, and in the first of them the face of Emilia Prakhova is completely complete - the eyes and nose are still human. The next sketch, as a result of the search, shows the canonical incarnation of the Virgin Mary. True, the eyes are even larger and have a different expression in them.
And in the final version and on the icon, the eyes are already half the size of the face and there is melancholy in them. Vrubel draws sketches in a strange state - having hastily sketched one drawing, he erases it and sketches it with another drawing. The next sketch is shown to Emilia and, if she has any comments, she redraws it again.
This was their only intimacy. Only in this way, by drawing her, could he completely take possession of this woman. The sketches turned out to be so sensual that when Adriyan Prakhov saw them, he could not stand it. In the face of the Mother of God he recognizes the face of his wife. Vrubel allowed himself too much and Prahov decides to punish the insolent man.
But he cannot simply kick him out, because the work in the St. Cyril Church has not yet been completed, and the painting of the Vladimir Cathedral is next. Vrubel is the manager of the restoration work and bears full responsibility for everything. Therefore, Prakhov decides not to quarrel with the artist, but simply to temporarily remove him from Emilia.
He must disappear from their house, because who knows what kind of relationship developed between his wife and the artist while working on the sketches. Therefore, Prahov separates them. Under the pretext of studying the art of the great Italian masters and completing work on the icons of the St. Cyril Church, he sends Vrubel to Venice.

Mikhail Vrubel is having a hard time breaking up with Emilia. He is not consoled by the beauty of Italy, his heart is broken.
Every day he writes letters to his beloved and receives no answers. The artist can express his desperate melancholy only in the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, which he works on every day.
Comparing the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos with the image of Emilia Prakhova in the photograph, the naked eye can see that this is one and the same person. In her hands she holds little Christ, who, like two peas in a pod, resembles the Prahovs’ youngest daughter.

Legend says that when the icon was being installed in the iconostasis, a woman entered the St. Cyril Church. She wanted to pray to the Most Holy Theotokos, but when she knelt before the icon, she suddenly screamed - Emilia Prakhova was looking at her from the iconostasis. Like this? Should she really be praying for her neighbor?
When Adrian Prakhov saw the icon, he understood everything - in Venice, the artist did not forget the face of his wife. He was not seduced by the magical images of the canonical Madonnas of the Renaissance masters, but painted Emilia.
In anger, the customer for the restoration of the St. Cyril Church and Vrubel’s employer, Adrian Prakhov, breaks off a new, already concluded contract with him for painting the next church - St. Vladimir Cathedral and gives him the description of “an unreliable artist.”
And immediately after this, the artistic council rejects all of Vrubel’s sketches. Within a week, the artist loses almost all of his orders. Galleries are refusing his work. And Vrubel finds himself without a livelihood.

But none of this matters to him. The worst thing is that Emilia doesn’t want to see him anymore. Vrubel could not survive this. Contemporaries recall: “It’s as if he breaks loose, drinks endlessly, spends the night in brothels, gathers strange people around him - gypsies, homeless people, drunkards.”
He borrows a huge sum of five thousand rubles and throws a riotous banquet, and while the crowd drinks from the artist’s money, he locks himself in his room and brutally cuts his hands with a knife. With physical pain, he wants to kill a stronger pain in himself - the pain of lost love.
In the morning, his friends find Vrubel in his own apartment, bloodied and unconscious. And when they bring him to his senses, they report that with his banquets he has incurred huge debts and his creditors are suing him.
Friends are trying to help the artist. There is only one unsold painting left in his apartment - “Prayer for the Cup”. Contemporaries called her a brilliant creation. To protect this painting from the artist's uncontrollable fit of anger, friends find a buyer. A well-known Kiev philanthropist pays the artist 5 thousand rubles in advance and wants to pick up the painting the next day.
But when he arrives the next day, he sees: “The Prayer for the Cup” has been destroyed. Instead of a religious plot, the canvas depicts a circus actress. The day before, Vrubel saw this woman at the circus and decided to immediately paint her. He didn’t have a blank canvas, so he painted it over the painting he sold.
Now, in order to pay off creditors, the brilliant artist is forced to take on any dirty work. He works as a cleaner in taverns and as a painter in construction. He spends all the money he earns on booze and prostitutes. But even this does not relieve his pain.
“I cut myself with a knife. Do you understand? I loved a woman - she didn’t love me. She even loved me, but many things prevented her from understanding me. I suffered, and when I cut myself, the suffering decreased,” from Vrubel’s letters. In the end, the exhausted master decides to take revenge on the cruel woman.
He once laughed at people who believed in the mystical power of a painting over its prototype. And now he decides to use his gift as a weapon and draw a Demon with the face of Emilia Prakhova.
The First Demon, whom only Vrubel's father saw and who found his son in a terribly ill, feverish state while working on this painting, claimed that this Demon was like a sensual, evil woman. The demon turned out to be so scary that Vrubel himself was afraid of his creation and destroyed the drawing - he tore it into pieces, but it was too late.
Vrubel violated the ban never to draw, describe or play the devil. He drew a Demon with the features of a real person, and for this a terrible punishment awaited him.

Vrubel left for Moscow in a painful condition, but surprisingly calm. Here he is met by his former classmates. They organized an art circle in the city. He is patronized by Savva Mamontov, a famous Moscow philanthropist.
Mamontov heard about Kirillov's frescoes and happily agrees to support the artist. It seems to Vrubel that everything he has experienced is already behind him. He happily takes on his new job. But after a few months, the Kiev delusional nightmare returns to his life.
In Moscow, it was then that Lermontov’s anniversary collection was being prepared for publication and an illustrator was needed. Vrubel is invited to illustrate the poem "Demon". The first thing the artist sees is his Kiev drawing and the ban that he violated. This mistake cannot be repeated.
Then he was lucky, it seems that punishment passed him by, but he couldn’t take that risk a second time. But in fact, the choice has already been made. Vrubel refused the offer, but the image of the Demon begins to haunt him. The artist complains to his friends - he is bothered by the same disturbing dream: every night a beautiful Angel with sad eyes comes to him.
The artist tries to remember where he saw these eyes. At Emilia Prahova's or at the crazy people near the St. Cyril Church. Savva Mamontov advises him: the easiest way to get rid of dreams is to draw an image. He should agree with the publishers’ proposal to illustrate Lermontov’s poem and depict the Angel from his dreams in it.
This is how Vrubel created the painting “Sitting Demon”. This painting forever changed the idea of painting. The Demon will be considered a role model by the most famous artists of our time.

25 years passed and Vrubel again found himself among the insane. Only once he looked at the patients from the outside of this lattice, and now he himself has become one of them. Vrubel stops recognizing his relatives and doesn’t even remember who he is. He is transferred from clinic to clinic. And in each of them he leaves whole piles of drawings. These drawings are not at all like the drawings of a madman - they are all light and peaceful.
After the artist’s death, the doctor who treated Vrubel wrote in his diary: “Vrubel died a seriously ill man. But, as an artist, he was healthy. Deeply healthy.” How can this be? Modern psychologists claim that Vrubel was treated with his drawings, this is how he controlled the disease. Intuitively invented what 30 years after his death would be called art therapy, that is, treatment with art.
Such treatment cannot defeat the disease, but can significantly slow down its course and development. And some patients actually get better so much that they return home from the hospital practically healthy. At the time of Vrubel, art therapy did not yet exist.
At the clinic, Vrubel constantly draws landscapes outside the window, doctors, roommates, and the incredible happens - Vrubel manages to make the disease recede. He leaves the hospital and goes to where he first met his future wife - to the opera house.
As on the day they met, Natalya Zabela played the main role. After the performance, Vrubel went to his wife’s dressing room, took her hands and thanked her. This was the last time he saw his wife. A few weeks later, Vrubel lost his sight.

Vrubel never had time to finish his last painting, “Portrait of the Poet Bryusov.”

Blind and by touch, he tries to erase part of the background to correct it, but accidentally erases part of the figure. The orderlies will snatch the valuable painting literally from under the hands of the author, and then regret their action: after that, Vrubel will never pick up a brush again.
He would live another four years blind. The artist never finds out: he was elected Academician of Arts in absentia. Exhibitions of his paintings travel throughout Europe and receive worldwide fame and recognition. And publications will appear in the press that the Demon destroyed its author.
Already blind, Vrubel will try to end the power of his Demon - to kill himself. But he died of acute pneumonia. Vrubel's demon did not stop there. He took away his sight and mind, and from his fatal love Emilia Prakhova - his family and peace of mind.
When Vrubel died, she, the Kyiv grande dame, organizer of balls and lavish receptions, was accused of being to blame for the madness of the genius. Emilia cannot withstand such pressure. She will leave her husband and move to the provinces, and there, forgotten by everyone and alone, she will die.

The Dutchman Pieter Bruegel the Elder wrote “The Adoration of the Magi” within two years.

The model for the Virgin Mary was his cousin, a barren woman who was beaten by her husband for this. It was she who caused the bad aura of the picture. The canvas was bought by collectors four times and after that, no children were born in the families for 10-12 years. In 1637, Jacob van Kampen bought the painting. By that time, he already had three descendants, so he was not afraid of the curse.

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Evil spirit of an executed criminal

Evil spirit of an executed criminal
Antique dealers always have a lot of paintings with deadly energy. One of them was once bought by London resident Dorothy Jenkins in a Fulham antique shop.
It was a portrait of a young woman in a red velvet dress. The canvas was four feet square and had visible marks from the fire. Under the image there was a short caption - “Antoine”.

The picture immediately brought problems to the house. At first, Dorothy herself felt the attacks of nervous breakdown. Being a smart person, she assumed that her illness was somehow connected with the portrait hanging in her room. To finally make sure of this, Dorothy invited her son Edward to hang the painting in his room for a couple of days. The results were immediate:
Edward, a calm, melancholic young man, at times began to feel that waves of uncontrollable anger were rolling over him.
Dorothy turned for advice to her friend, a researcher of occult phenomena, Philip Paul. He came to a meeting with the famous London medium Anne Quigt. Paul did not give her all the information regarding the problem under study, but simply asked her to "psychometrically" some objects in one of the areas of London.
Together with the parapsychologists, deputy editor of Parapsychology News Leslie Howard, three newspaper reporters and a photographer who was supposed to capture the entire research process came to Dorothy Jenkins's house.
To make the results of the experiment more objective, Paul led the medium directly to the strange portrait, saying, naturally disingenuously, that she would probably first like to examine completely “neutral” objects in this house. However, Anne Twigg immediately felt an unbearable horror next to the picture, fell into a trance and began to inarticulately talk about some confused events, among which were the sound of music, and a vision of blood, and a description of some damp, rat-filled prison cell , as well as a gallows, a young woman with flowing hair, an executioner and a large crowd of people in the city square.
After the experiment, Ann claimed that as soon as she entered the room, she saw a bright flash of light moving from one place to another. The point at which this outbreak arose was Antoine's painting. It appeared that the painting depicted a portrait of a woman, most likely of noble origin, who in the distant 18th century, after being accused of some terrible crime, was publicly hanged in the city square.
However, her spirit did not calm down after death and settled forever in the portrait, negatively affecting the health of the owners of the painting. Naturally, Dorothy Jenkins wanted to get rid of the damned portrait right away.
However, Ann Twig dissuaded her from such a rash step. “The spirit may be offended,” said the medium, “and the consequences of this will be unpredictable. Therefore, the most neutral option would be to move the painting somewhere to the attic or closet and leave it there forever.” Dorothy did just that, and from then on neither she nor her son Edward were bothered by the evil spirit.

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The ghosts went wild.

Anyone who watched the fairy tale about Harry Potter probably remembers how the ghosts of long-dead people, constantly living in their portraits, regularly walked around the school for young wizards, and sometimes even played pranks without malice. According to the far from fabulous museum employees, similar cases occur in real life. So, in 1996, at the Prado Museum in Madrid, in front of stunned tourists from Japan, an infanta stepped off a Velazquez painting and... urinated on the floor! Then, naturally, she returned back to the picture.

And at the Orsay Museum in Paris, Renoir's beauty shocked a group of schoolchildren and their guide for ten minutes, spreading her legs... It is noteworthy that in both cases, only those who were in close proximity to the paintings saw the ghosts' antics. The rest of the visitors did not notice anything special.
... As many media outlets recently reported, in one of the museums in New York, almost just before closing, when there were almost no people left in the hall, the ghost of a young man in a hunting suit emerged from a painting by an unknown artist of the 19th century and... strangled a visitor standing nearby. Museum caretakers arrived at the crime scene when the ghost had already returned to its place in the portrait...

In my opinion, this is already too much

Russian scientists, studying the “phantom” images of paintings, came to the conclusion that Aivazovsky’s “The Ninth Wave” and a number of other famous paintings also have a powerful negative aura. And while studying the energy of Kazimir Malevich’s “Black Square,” one of the scientists... lost consciousness. “This is one big clot of dark force and energy. It’s like they were painting a picture in the underworld,” the scientist admitted when he was hardly brought to his senses. Malevich's painting "Black Square" was talked about before and is still talked about today. And not just to increase the price. Until now, no one knows what this square means, and what Malevich wanted to express with it. “Black Square” is a “black hole” in painting, sucking in positive energy and throwing out negative energy, which has a strong effect on the viewer’s psyche. However, discussions around the "Black Square" do not subside.

They said that the artist sold his soul to the devil - all the people depicted in the paintings died soon after posing. The Higginses were the first. The artist does not give interviews or comment on the tragic fates of his models. He periodically calls one or another wealthy person, whose face often appears in the newspapers: “You know, I’m planning to take your portrait...” And the mortally frightened millionaire pays a tidy sum just so that he doesn’t do it...
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There are also mystical paintings: the young beauties depicted in them, who died after painting the paintings, have some power that can shorten the lives of the owners of these paintings. Old collectors, observing the life of paintings for a long time, noticed that the painting seemed to influence the space around and transfer the events depicted on it into real life.

An aura of mystery trails like a trail behind the paintings of the great Russian artist Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy (1837-1887). The famous painting “Unknown” is a portrait of a real beautiful woman. With its realism, the portrait has been causing excitement among viewers for decades; her slightly contemptuous gaze, light blush on her cheeks, slightly curved lips seem to express her inaccessibility to those around her who are captivated by her beauty. It seems that a lady is slowly driving along Nevsky Prospekt, surrounded by the exciting smell of mysticism and mystery.

Today's critics and simply contemplatives believe that in front of them is a typical aristocrat to the tips of her nails, confident in herself and her beauty, but the audience, who are contemporaries of the depicted lady, immediately determined by her attire and made-up face that she is a representative of the so-called ladies of the demimonde, that is simply a kept woman. She is given away by the combination of two fashionable things at the same time, which was an unacceptable excess in the attire of a decent lady of those times. In addition to clothes, a woman is also given away by her makeup: blush on her cheeks, lipstick on her lips and clearly drawn eyebrows, which was considered indecent for society ladies.

At that time, the artist was literally bombarded with questions: who is this beautiful stranger, does she really exist or is she a creation of the artist’s imagination? To which Kramskoy replied with a smile: “Of course she is real, genuine, existing on the canvas.” The spectators, choking from overwhelming emotions, shared their impressions and wanted to somehow get closer to solving the mystery of her beauty.

Only one person did not admire the image of the beauty; on the contrary, having carefully peered into the contemptuous gaze of the stranger, he made a sharp turn and, without looking back, left the hall where the portrait of the “Stranger” was displayed. This man was the famous collector Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov. The artist Kramskoy was greatly offended by this behavior of the collector and sold his painting to a small collector. And Mr. Tretyakov, having bitter experience behind him, knew that portraits of beautiful femme fatales would not bring anything good.

There is a belief among collectors of paintings that the beauties depicted in the paintings of famous artists take away the vitality of people looking at them, because it is known that people call Leonardo’s painting “La Gioconda” and paintings with women by Titian and Botticelli “vampire paintings,” and fanatical viewers They are constantly trying to spoil these paintings, cut them or even destroy them.

The painting “Unknown” also suffered a sad fate: first it went to an unknown collector, then, as if not calming down, it passed from one hand to another for a long time. Getting to the next exhibition, the painting caused a heap of gossip that it had already brought a lot of misfortune to its owners. But a truly terrible event happened to the creator of the ill-fated picture: less than a year after writing “The Unknown,” Kramskoy’s two sons died. The heartbroken artist expresses the depth of the tragedy in writing the next masterpiece, “Inconsolable Grief”: the canvas depicts his crying wife standing in the middle of an empty room. Realizing that no one would want to buy a painting with such a frank expression of grief, Kramskoy donates it to the Tretyakov Gallery free of charge. But Mr. Tretyakov, who was reputed to be a decent and sympathetic person, transferred a substantial fee for the painting to the artist’s family.

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The history of painting tells the story of the fate of the niece of the brilliant Italian composer N. Paccini, whose portrait was painted in 1832 by the wonderful artist Karl Pavlovich Bryullov (1799-1852).

The painting “Horsewoman” depicts a young Giovannina Paccini gracefully prancing on a thin-legged horse. In Rome they said that young Giovannina was lucky, because after the death of her uncle she was taken in by the rich Russian Countess Yulia Samoilova, but the happiness did not last long - the girl was trampled to death by a horse.

In the Catholic Church, religious painting was allowed; in Orthodoxy, icon painting with even more rigid image boundaries was recognized.

In Catholic art, the starting point for creating an image of the Virgin Mary was often the appearance of a woman. Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” was no exception here, in whose facial features one can recognize not so much the image of the Mother of God revered by Christians as Margareta Luti (Luti, Lucci) depicted on the canvas.

Almost for the first time in the history of fine art of the Renaissance, the Mother of God was not depicted in her divine form. A complete discrepancy with generally accepted images of Madonna is revealed - the emphasized simplicity of the pose, figure, face, clothes, hairstyle, lack of shoes.

It seems that even Pope Sixtus II, depicted next to the Madonna, at whose feet is the papal tiara, a symbol of spiritual power, and Saint Barbara, dressed much more elegantly and luxuriously than the Mother of God, are somewhat surprised by her human defenselessness, openness and completely earthly appearance of a peasant girl. The Sistine Madonna wears neither a royal crown nor luxurious clothes, she does not sit majestically on a throne; even the childishly wide eyes of the Madonna seem to be contrasted with the wise gaze of the Infant Christ.

The finished painting gave rise to a lot of controversy in the church community; customers refused to accept the “Sistine Madonna,” finding the painting almost heretical. From the point of view of Catholic priests, such an image was inherently sinful, which, of course, did not detract from its artistic value.

Information about Margaretha Luti that has survived to this day is very scarce and more like legends. Her father was a baker who moved from Siena to Rome with his family. And in Rome, Rafael Santi met Margareta. During their acquaintance, Margareta gave her consent to pose for the artist to create the fresco “Cupid and Psyche”. The young people fell in love with each other, but her father was against their meetings. Then Raphael bought Margareta from the baker, paying three thousand gold coins for his beautiful beloved.

For twelve years in a row (according to other sources - six years) Raphael and Margareta lived together, she accompanied him on all his trips and was a model for many of the great painter’s paintings, helping him create images of Madonnas, saints and mythical beauties. Contemporaries emphasized that Raphael did not part with her until his death, and could not work if she was not around.

The opinions of researchers regarding the biography of Margareta Luthi are completely opposite. Some argue that she was not faithful and often paid attention to both the customers of Raphael’s works and his students. One of the famous gossips also says that Raphael died in the bed of his unfaithful lover of a heart attack.

Others, including Pavel Muratov, indicate that these were sublime love relationships. The marriage of an artist and a baker's daughter was banned by the Vatican and, in the hope of making Raphael a court painter, organized his marriage with the niece of one of the cardinals, but she was rejected by Raphael. It is also known that the sobbing Margaret was removed from the room of the dying Raphael when the papal envoy arrived to him.

The fate of Margaretha Luthi after the death of her lover and patron is also unclear. Evil tongues claim that she inherited a large sum of money from Raphael and became a courtesan known throughout Rome. Muratov claims that Margareta Luti left the monastery, as evidenced by the corresponding entry stating that the “widow of Raphael” was tonsured a nun.

Almost the next day after the completion of work on their portraits, the composer Mussorgsky, the surgeon Pirogov, and the politician Stolypin died. Writer Vsevolod Garshin threw himself down a flight of stairs after Repin used it to paint a sketch of the prince’s head for the painting “Ivan the Terrible Kills His Son.” Almost all of the friends whom he depicted on another famous canvas, “Cossacks writing a letter to the Turkish Sultan,” died for various reasons immediately after the work was first exhibited. Frightened, the artist painted over the image of his own son.