Ordinary Magic Glass
The expression "Venetian glass" has become a household word. It is used in the appreciation of the artistic merit of glass. And it is not by chance that the largest…

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The Unknown by Ivan Kramskoy
At the end of the 1860s, in the period when the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions was born, a curious incident occurred in the workshop of Artel of artists. He…

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Artists of besieged Leningrad
In the city on the Neva, in the House of Artists, in front of the entrance to the exhibition halls hangs a large marble plaque. On it are carved the…

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Vincent van Gogh in Holland
In 1879, when the epidemic of typhoid fever and fever in a multitude mowed people, Borinage’s miners marveled at the young lord, who fearlessly avoided the infected shacks, nursing the…

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Luca della Robbia - devotional service to art
The whole long life of Luke della Robbia was dedicated to serving the arts. The sculptor was born in Florence in 1399 or 1400. He made many works that rightfully…

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communist party

Two portraits of the actress Strepetova

There are destinies that strike the imagination with unusualness and inner completeness — such is the life of Pelageya Antipevna Strepetova (1850–1903), difficult and bright, full of dramatic turns. At the age of seven she first appeared on the stage. She was not yet fifteen, when she became a professional artist. And after a while rumors about her brilliant game began to spread throughout Russia. The very first performances of the provincial actress on the stages of Moscow and St. Petersburg literally stunned the theater audience, gave rise to the sincere admiration of some and the same sincere hostility of others. Continue reading

Masterpieces of Venetian painting

It is enough to remember the names of Giorgione and Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto, and it becomes clear what a bright and beautiful page in the art of the Renaissance was the painting of Venice. In a politically fragmented Italy, each city was an independent state, and its artistic culture had a special character, its own unique features. Historical destinies, social structure, natural conditions, way of life, everyday and cultural traditions determined the originality of the art of a particular center.

Indeed, how could it be like any other art painting of Venice – a fabulous city that arose, as if by magic, among the waters of the Adriatic? Continue reading

Ernest Seton-Thompson - writer, artist, naturalist
Eighty-six years of life - a considerable time. Exactly so many wonderful Canadian writer, artist, naturalist Ernest Seton-Thompson lived. But who was he in the first place? A rare case…

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Two portraits of the actress Strepetova
There are destinies that strike the imagination with unusualness and inner completeness — such is the life of Pelageya Antipevna Strepetova (1850–1903), difficult and bright, full of dramatic turns. At…

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Syrian landscapes
Most of the landscape compositions by Syrian artists are devoted to old Damascus and the village of Maaloula, located in a picturesque mountain area near Damascus. She became a source…

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