Mystery in ArtThe world of myth and mystery

“The Scream” is a world famous painting created by the Expressionist Edvard Munc between 1893 and 1910. This is the popular name given to each of four versions of a composition. Der Schrei der Natur (The Scream of Nature) is the title that Munch gave to these works, all of which show a figure with an agonized expression against a landscape with an orange sky. Arthur Lubow has described The Scream as “an icon of modern art, a Mona Lisa for our time.”

In Munc’s diary, he described his inspiration for the image:

One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became “The Scream”.

Of course this marvellous painting has been the target for many thieves through the years. In 1994, two men tried to steal the painting from the National Gallery in Oslo and in 2004 thieves tried to steal as many paintings as they could from the Munc’s Museum in Oslo.

Edvard Munc - The Scream

Edvard MuncEdvard Munc (12 December 1863 - 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. He

was an Expressionist of the late 19th century. He was the son of Christian Munc and Laura Cathrine Bjølstad. Munc lost his

mother when he was very young, so he and his siblings were raised by his father. In 1879, Munch enrolled in a technical college to study engineering, where he excelled in physics, chemistry, and maths. He learned scaled and perspective drawing, but frequent illnesses interrupted his studies. The following year, much to his father's disappointment, Munc left the college determined to become a painter. His father viewed art as an “unholy trade”. In contrast to his father's rabid pietism, Munc adopted an undogmatic stance toward art, writing in his diary his simple goal: “in my art I attempt to explain life and its meaning to myself.”

With “The Scream”, Munc met his stated goal of "the study of the soul, that is to say the study of my own self". He also described the personal anguish behind the painting, “for several years I was almost mad… You know my picture, “The Scream?” I was stretched to the limit—nature was screaming in my blood… After that I gave up hope ever of being able to love again.”

During 1930 and 1940, as the Nazi did not accept his paintings, they took away all of his paintings from the museums. He stayed in a studio in Oslo, where he died on 23 January 1944.

- Eleni Georgiou

In this painting Salvador Dali gives us a large egg-shaped globe of the world out of which a man is struggling to "hatch". This "new man" is coming out of North America - the United States. There is blood running out of the crack in the egg and the new man's hand has England firmly in its grasp. In the foreground two figures are watching; one an adult the other a small child. The adult, of indeterminate sex, is drawing the child's attention by pointing at the new man being birthed. The child is standing as if afraid - both hiding behind and holding on to the adult's knees.

“People love mystery, and that is why they love my

paintings.” Thats what the famous artist told ,this is why the

painting became so famous.

http://salvadordalipaintings.blogspot.com/2008/09/geopoliticus-child-watching-birth-of.html

Constantinos Patsalis

Salvador Dali - Geopoliticus child watching the birth of the New Man

Salvador DaliSalvador Felipe Jacinto Dali I Domenech was born at 8:45 on the morning of May 11, 1904 in the small agricultural town of Figueres, Spain. Figueres is located in the foothills of the Pyrenees, only sixteen miles from the French border in the principality of Catalonia. The son of a prosperous notary, Dali spent his boyhood in Figueres and at the family’s summer home in the coastal fishing village of Cadaques where his parents built his first studio. As an adult, he made his home with his wife Gala in nearby Port Lligat. Many of his paintings reflect his love of this area of Spain.In the history of art, most people could easily argue that Salvador Dalí is the father of surrealistic art. Surrealism is the art of writing or painting unreal or unpredictable works of art using the images or words from an imaginary world. Dali's art is the definition of surrealism. Throughout his art he clearly elaborates on juxtaposition (putting similar images near each other), the disposition (changing the shape of an object), and morphing of objects, ranging from melted objects dripping, to crutches holding distorted figures, to women with heads of bouquets of flowers .

http://www.salvadordali.com/biography/http://www.creativitypost.com/create/salvador_dalis_creative_thinking_technique

The painting displays a fact, of which both the human and the political dimension interested the painter: The shipwreck of the French frigate "Meduse" on the coast of Africa in 1816. Gericault investigated the history of the shipwreck wrote in depth: He read the brochure that two of the survivors of the shipwreck wrote, visited hospitals where survivors were getting healed and morgues which were the bodies of the dead buried, dropped a raft into the sea to determine how it acted in the waves and drew numerous sketches before reaching the final drawing.

Theodore Gericault- The raft of the medusa

Theodore GericaultTheodore Gericault was born in Rouen, France in 1791. In 1808 he was educated in the

tradition of English sporting art by Charles Vernetand and classical figure composition

by Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, a rigorous classicist who disapproved of his student's

impulsive temperament yet recognized his talent. When he left the classroom, he chose

to study at the Louvre, where from 1810 to 1815 he copied paintings by Rubens, Titian,

Velázquez and Rembrandt. The artist was fascinated with horses, which were his most

common theme, the conflict between man and animal. In 1812 he exposes the project

"The Charging Chausseur" at the Paris Salon and wins the gold medal . In two years,

Theodore exposes the "Wounded Cuirassiers" and gets treated with coldness . The next

year, he gets in relationship with Alexantrin - Modeste Cartel. The next year Gericault

participates in the competition for the prize of Rome, but fails. He returns in France in

September next year, and next August, Alexantrin gives him a son . To avoid scandal, his

father forces her to move to the countryside. In 1819, the painting "The Raft of Medusa

" goes almost unnoticed by the Salon. The next year, however, Theodore exposes it to

the Egyptian Hall of London, where it stays for about a year. He returns next year in

Paris with poor health. In 1823, after another accident with the horse, his health

worsens badly and quickly. He dies on January 26, 1824, at the age of 33 years old, and

now he is buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Gericault

https://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artist.php?artistid=199

-Theodoros Panayiotou

Guernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso which was created having in mind the bombing in Guernica,a village in (northern)Spain,by German&Italian war planes during the Spanish Civil War(1937).This painting shows the tragedies of war and the suffering that fetch in particularly to innocent civilians.Also,Guernica displayed as an anti-war symbol,an embodiment of peace and it has gained as a monumental status.Although it was painted in Paris,where firstly the exhibit was exhibited before being placed in the care of the Museum of Modern Art.Guernica is one of the reasons how the specific war was known.Now Guernica is at it’s current location at the Museum Reina Sofia in 1992.

Picasso - Guernica

Guernica-Antonia Kattouhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(painting)

● Mona lisa was painted by Leonardo da vinci an italian artist who lived in 1452-1519.Mona lisa is the most recognised painting in the world and you can find it at the louvre museum in france.

● It is believed that Leonardo painted Mona Lisa because he was requested by Francesco del Giocondo who was Mona Lisas husband.The painting is believed to have been done between 1503 and 1506.

George Efremen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa

Leonardo da Vinci - Mona Lisa

Pablo PicassoPablo Picasso was born on 25 October 1881 and he died on 8 April 1973 at the age of 91.He was a Spanish painter,a poet,a sculptor,a ceramist,a playwriting,a stage designer and a printmaker who spent most of his adult life in France.He belongs to the ‘family’ of the greatest and most influential artists in the world and he’s known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture and the co-invention of collage.Also,Picasso produced work in neoclassical and cubism style.Pablo is considered to be one of the most influential painter of his time because of his significant contribution to the formation and development of modern and contemporary art. -Antonia Kattou http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso

Leonardo da Vinci● Leonardo da vinci was a painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician,

engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist,cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal.

● Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous painting.

● Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the lower valley of the Arno River in the territory of the Medici-ruled Republic of Florence.

● Despite the recent awareness and admiration of Leonardo as a scientist and inventor, for the better part of four hundred years his fame rested on his achievements as a painter and on a handful of works, either authenticated or attributed to him that have been regarded as among the masterpieces.

George Efremen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci

Peter Paul Rubens - Massacre of the Innocents

Peter Paul Rubens

Edgar Degas - Woman in the bath

Edgar Degas

Raphael - The school of Athens

Raphael

By not painting the fingers of God and Adam touching and leaving a small space between the two, Michelangelo creates a tingling tension, an anticipation of that wonderous moment, as we all wait for God to complete his Creation of Adam.The figures on the Sistine ceiling reflect Michelangelo’s firmly held belief that the body should be celebrated as a reflection of both divine beauty and the beauty of the human soul.But if we take a closer look into the painting we’ll notice that the larger image encompassing God is compatible with a brain. Michelangelo portrays that what God is giving to Adam is the intellect, and thus man is able to "plan the best and highest" and to "try all things received". - Carolina Papademetriouhttp://www.wellcorps.com/Explaining-The-Hidden-Meaning-Of-Michelangelos-Creation-of-Adam.htmlhttp://www.rome.info/michelangelo/sistine-chapel/creation-of-adam/http://www.learner.org/courses/globalart/work/78/index.html

Michaelangelo - The creation of Adam

Completed by Michelangelo circa 1511, it depicts God the father creating Adam, the first man and was amongst the last panels to be completed, telling the story of Genesis. The focal point of the episode of the Creation of Adam painting is the contact between the fingers of God and those of Adam, through which the breath of life is transmitted.

Michelangelo Michelangelo was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer of the High Renaissance. He was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo, Tuscany.As a young boy Michelangelo was sent to Florence to study grammar under the Humanist Francesco da Urbino. The young artist, however, showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches and seek the company of painters.In 1488, at thirteen, Michelangelo was apprenticed to Ghirlandaio.When in 1489, Lorenzo de' Medici, de facto ruler of Florence, asked Ghirlandaio for his two best pupils, Ghirlandaio sent Michelangelo and Francesco Granacci. From 1490 to 1492, Michelangelo attended the Humanist academy which the Medici had founded along Neo Platonic lines. At the academy, both Michelangelo's outlook and his art were subject to the influence of many of the most prominent philosophers and writers of the day including Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano.In 1496 Michelangelo moves to Rome. One of his first major assignments is for the well-known Pietà in St. Peter's basilica. Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1499. He responded by completing his most famous work, the Statue of David, in 1504.Also during this period, Michelangelo was commissioned by Angelo Doni to paint a "Holy Family" as a present for his wife.

MichelangeloIn 1505, Michelangelo was invited back to Rome by the newly elected Pope Julius II. He was commissioned to build the Pope's tomb, which was to include forty statues and be finished in five years.During the same period, Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which took approximately four years to complete Michelangelo died in Rome in 1564, at the age of 88 (three weeks before his 89th birthday). His body was taken from Rome for interment at the Basilica of Santa Croce, fulfilling the maestro's last request to be buried in his beloved Florence. - Carolina Papademetriouhttp://www.artbible.info/art/biography/michelangelo-buonarrotihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo

The Execution of Emperor Maximilian is a series of paintings by Édouard Manet from 1867 to 1869, depicting the execution by firing squad of Emperor Maximilian I of the short-lived Second Mexican Empire. Manet produced three large oil paintings, a smaller oil sketch and a lithograph of the same subject. All five works were brought together for an exhibition in London and Mannheim in 1992-3, and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2006.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Execution_of_Emperor_Maximilian-Kyriaki Michael

Edouard Manet - The Execution of Emperor

Maximilian

Edouard MonetBorn into a bourgeois household in Paris, France, in 1832, Edouard Manet was fascinated by painting at a young age. His parents disapproved of his interest, but he eventually went to art school and studied the old masters in Europe.By the time of his death, in 1883, he was a respected revolutionary artist.One of the first nineteenth century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.His early masterworks The Luncheon on the Grass and Olympia engendered great controversy, and served as rallying points for the young painters who would create Impressionism-today these are considered watershed paintings that mark the genesis of modern art.http://www.manetedouard.org/http://www.biography.com/people/edouard-manet-9397188~Kyriaki Michael

Caravaggio got the idea of the painting in 1591 althought thepaintings were first reported around 10 years later.It repserents the lifecycle of saint mattew the apostol,one of the 12 folowers of JesusChrist.The 3 paintings are “Saint mattew and the Angel”,”The calling ofst.Matthew” and “The martydom of st.Matthew”.These 3 paintings arenow at the Contarelli Chapel.The Contarel Chapel is located within thechurch of San Luigi dei Franseci in Rome. These paintings,undersome lucky coincidences,suddently exploaded Caravaggio’sreputation from an unknown artist to one of the most influencial realistsof his time!one of his major influences to make the paintings wasMichaelangelo,undoubtly one of the greatest artists of all time.

Caravaggio - the Calling of Saint Matthew

Now lets take a closer look into the painting.Firstly you will noticethe fact that the masterpiece has a lot of details ,thats why it waspart of the realistic age(school of thought-realists) and thepositioning of the protagonists seems very natural.The paintingcan be split into two sides,right and left where on the right standsChrist and st.Peter( another one of Christ followers).The way thelight is saturated into the room,its like Jesus spears the roomwith a beam of light .On the left side,we can se a group of peoplearoud a small table counting taxes.We can see st.Peter pointingat someone,possibly the bearded man and we can also see theexpresion of suprise in his face.Now,thats the point when thecontroverses begin!

We can all see the bearded man pointing at someone but nobody can really tell at who.Somepeoplebelieve that he is pointing at himself,like asking st.Peter “Me?” but others think that he is actuallypointing at the young man counting the taxes saying suprised ”Him?”So we are still unsure of who st.Matthew really is,the bearded guy or the young one?What do you think?Also as you can see ,the young man seems to be counting the taxes with two hands but if you lookmore closely,the left hand isnt actually his!There are a lot of theories about that but one thing is sure!Caravaggio loved to put little details in his paintings that created mysteries and misunderstandings!And thats what makes him one of the most infuential and talented artists of his time!

Sources*SOURCES* ➔

http://www.artble.com/artists/caravaggio/paintings/the_calling_of_saint_matthew

➔http://northcathedral.wordpress.com/2013/09/21/107/

➔http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CaravaggioContarelli.jpg

➔http://duluxdreams.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/caravaggio-the-calling-of-st-matthew/4

➔ http://all-art.org/history252-4.htML ➔ http://wikipedia.com

photos from: ➔ http://google.com ➔ http://wikipedia.com

Thank you:Constantinos Vasiliou

CaravaggioMichelangelo Merisi o Amerighi da Caravaggio ( 1571 – 1610) was an Italian artist active in many italian cities between 1592 and 1610. His paintings, combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting.He belongs to the realistic school of art.He was a famous and respected artist when he was alive.Even thought,when he died he got forgotten but he was recognised for his talent some centuries after.

Caravaggio’s workCaravaggio is described as enigmatic, fascinating, rebellious and dangerous.And his character affected his work and thats what made him really different.In 1599, presumably through the influence of Del Monte, Caravaggio was contracted to decorate the Contarelli Chapel in the church of San luigiThe two works making up the commission, the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and Calling of Saint Matthew, delivered in 1600, were an immediate sensation.He is often described as the best Roman artist of his time.His greatest influence was Michelangelo and we can see the affect of him in some details of his paintings.He is the artist that made Medusa.

He is also known for St.Matthew’s cycle.He died out of fever.Caravaggio's epitaph was

composed by his friend Marzio Milesi. It reads:"Michelangelo Merisi, son of Fermo di

Caravaggio – in painting not equal to a painter, but to Nature itself

Sources

http://www.caravaggio-foundation.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravaggio

https://www.google.com.cy/search?q=medusa+caravaggio

Starry Night is a painting by the Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh. Starry night was painted in June 1889, it depicts the view outside of his sanitarium room window at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (located in southern France) at night, although it was painted from memory during the day. It has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, part of the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest, since 1941. The painting is among Van Gogh's most well-known works and marks a decisive turn towards greater imaginative freedom in his art.

Vincent Van Gogh - Starry night

In a letter written to Émile Bernard in April 1888, Van Gogh expressed his desire to paint the night sky, and questioned whether he could achieve his intention by painting from nature as the Impressionists did:

The imagination is certainly a faculty which we must develop and it alone can bring us to creation of a more exalting and consoling nature ... A star-spangled sky, for instance, that's a thing I would like to try to do ... But how can I manage unless I make up my mind to work ... from imagination?

In May 1889, Van Gogh decided to enter the asylum at Saint-Rémy, where he stayed for the next year. His time there was very productive, although interrupted by incapacitating nervous attacks. Inspired by the landscape surrounding the asylum, he painted Starry Night in June 1889. Unlike the earlier Starry Night Over the Rhone, the new night scene was painted in daylight, from memory. In mid-September 1889, following a heavy crisis which lasted from mid-July to the last days of August, he thought to include Starry NiIn September 1888, before his December breakdown that resulted in his hospitalisation in Arles, he painted Starry Night Over the Rhone. Working by night under a gas lamp, Van Gogh painted this work directly from nature. "It does me good to do what's difficult, "Van Gogh wrote, "That doesn’t stop me having a tremendous need for, shall I say the word—for religion—so I go outside at night to paint the stars."

Vincent Van GoghVincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a post-Impressionist painter of Dutch origin whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness, he died aged 37 from a gunshot wound, generally accepted to be self-inflicted (although no gun was ever found).His work was then known to only a handful of people and appreciated by fewer still.

Van Gogh began to draw as a child, and he continued to draw throughout the years that led up to his decision to become an artist. He did not begin painting until his late twenties, completing many of his best-known works during the last two years of his life. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,100 artworks, consisting of 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, sketches and prints. His work included self portraits, landscapes, still lifes, portraits and paintings of cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers.

Van Gogh spent his early adulthood working for a firm of art dealers, traveling between The Hague, London and Paris, after which he taught for a time in England at Isleworth and Ramsgate. One of his early aspirations was to become a pastor and from 1879 he worked as a missionary in a mining region in Belgium where he began to sketch people from the local community. In 1885, he painted his first major work The Potato Eaters. His palette at the time consisted mainly of somber earth tones and showed no sign of the vivid coloration that distinguished his later work. In March 1886, he moved to Paris and discovered the French Impressionists. Later, he moved to the south of France and was influenced by the strong sunlight he found there. His work grew brighter in color, and he developed the unique and highly recognizable style that became fully realized during his stay in Arles in 1888.

The extent to which his mental health affected his painting has been a subject of speculation since his death. Despite a widespread tendency to romanticize his ill health, modern critics see an artist deeply frustrated by the inactivity and incoherence brought about by his bouts of illness. According to art critic Robert Hughes, Van Gogh's late works show an artist at the height of his ability, completely in control and "longing for concision and grace."

Sources:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starry_night

Stefanos Hilides :)

Salvador Dali - The persistence of memory

Salvador Dali

Rembrandt van Rijn - The Night Watch

Rembrandt van Rijn