Caravaggio - "an excellent rival of nature"
At the turn of the XVI – XVII centuries in Italy, famous for great painters, poets, scientists and humanists, a very peculiar artist appeared. His paintings caused a genuine sensation.…

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Diego Rivera - the great Mexican painter
When the Great October Socialist Revolution took place in Russia, a revolutionary struggle was going on in Mexico for seven years. Armed peasants opposed the dictatorship of the rich and…

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"Boris Godunov" and "Vasily Shuisky" by Ivan Shtenglin
In the middle of the 18th century, the interest of the Russian society in national history increased. Ivan Shtenglin, a master from Augsburg, Germany, who worked in Russia, completed from…

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Wooden sculpture of Prikamye
The discovery of this “completely unprecedented and absolutely amazing phenomenon” - the original folk art of the Kama region - belongs to N. N. Serebrennikov, an Ural art historian, collector…

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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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festivity and beauty

Mexican painting of the first half of the 20th century

In the 20th century, the art of Latin America, primarily Mexico, unexpectedly became one of the most significant phenomena of world culture. The dramatic history of this country is replete with brutal conquests, murders, merciless oppression of the masses – starting from the invasion of the Aztec warrior people, who later created a formidable state later in Central Mexico, in the XII century.

In the first half of the 16th century, Spanish conquerors conquered Mexico, seized the ancient civilization that had developed here, spread Christianity with fire and sword, and turned the Indians into slaves. Continue reading

Kanoplasta from Tanagra

The Greek words “tanagra”, “tanagryanka” about a hundred years ago entered the Russian language. They are now used to denote everything fragile, feminine and plastic. The artist V. Serov invented the term “tanagretika” on their basis, meaning beneath it artless, elegant, opposite to the cold and rational in art.

The ancient city of Tanagra in Boeotia, in the northeast of the Balkan Peninsula, has gained wide popularity in recent times thanks to an archaeological sensation – finds of Tanagrian figurines. Continue reading

Chinese classical painting

Painting of China, flourishing in the era of the Middle Ages – IV – XIX centuries of our era, it was not by chance that it took an honorable place in the world history of art. In this area of ​​artistic culture, Chinese masters managed to leave a particularly bright mark. With extraordinary conviction, they embodied the beauty of nature, the ideas of harmony and majesty of the universe. They invested in the picture-scrolls not only personal moods, but also wisdom understandable to subsequent generations. Continue reading

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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Hubert Robert - "Painter of Ruins"
Antique ruins, then reflected in the calm waters, then almost hidden by thickets of climbing plants, shrubs. Peaceful rural nature, almost always clear sky. Through the gaps of trees make…

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"The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis" by Rembrandt
A prominent place in Rembrandt’s painting is taken by the painting “The Claudius Civilis Conspiracy”, created in 1661. This creation was destined to play a very special role in all…

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