Portal:Visual arts/Did you know/Archive

Portal:Visual arts/Did you know/Archive/5

11 March 2007

• ...that chocolate box art (pictured) started in the late 19th century as box decorations, though the term 'chocolate box' is now used pejoratively to describe sentimental pictures?
• ...that the
  Bridgeport, Connecticut has architectural influences ranging from Byzantine to Romanesque architecture
  ?
• ...that Polish painter and critic Józef Czapski was twice sent to the Soviet Union to find missing Polish officers who had been executed by the Soviets?
• ...that
  Museum of Western and Oriental Art houses the largest collection of foreign art in Ukraine
  ?
• ...that prominent Russian sculptor Fyodor Kamensky worked as a farmer in Florida?

Portal:Visual arts/Did you know/Archive/6

4 March 2007

• ...that the National Art Museum of Ukraine's (pictured) collections were first exhibited outside the country after it reached independence in 1991?
• ...that Saturn Devouring His Son, by Spanish artist Francisco Goya, was painted directly onto the wall of his house and never intended for public exhibition?
• ...that Derek Gardner became a leading British painter of marine subjects after retiring from a civil engineering career due to deafness?
• ...that the archaeological cave of Juxtlahuaca contains Mesoamerica's earliest sophisticated painted art, as well as its only known example of non-Maya deep cave art?
• ...that the Evangelist portraits of early medieval Gospel Books used compositions taken

Portal:Visual arts/Did you know/Archive/7

24 December 2005

• …that the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, a 416-page illuminated manuscript and masterpiece of the International Gothic style, has 300 decorated Initial letters?
• …that in Chinese art the three Vinegar tasters are allegorical figures representing Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism?
• …that a genetic defect prevented Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec from growing more than 1.5 m (5 ft) tall?
• …that Giulio Romano, mentioned in The Winter's Tale, is the only Renaissance artist to feature in a play by William Shakespeare?
• …that the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti had an obsession with wombats?

Portal:Visual arts/Did you know/Archive/8

23 September 2005

• …that was the first professional
  African-American and Native American sculptor was Edmonia Lewis
  ?
• …that the
  sōsaku hanga (creative prints) art movement in early 20th century Japan, during the Taishō and Shōwa periods, was helped to revitalize ukiyo-e
  by applying Western concepts of art to the traditional Japanese style?
• …that Thomas Gainsborough painted The Blue Boy mainly to prove to his chief rival Joshua Reynolds that it was possible to use the color blue as the central color of a portrait?
• …that many culturally significant sites of
  Australian Aboriginal art
  have been gradually desecrated and destroyed by encroachment of early settlers and modern-day visitors?
• …that the original historical meaning of the word cartoon is a full-size drawing made on paper as a study for a further artwork?

Portal:Visual arts/Did you know/Archive/9

24 June 2005

• …that syncretism between the cultures of
  Buddha
  ?

• …that Vorticism, considered to be the only significant British artistic movement of the early twentieth century, lasted less than three years?
• …that cycloramas, a popular 19th century entertainment, were cylindrical paintings of picturesque views designed to provide a viewer, standing in the middle of the cylinder, with a 360° view of the painting?
• …that Irving Stone, author of the 1961 biographical novel about Michelangelo, The Agony and the Ecstasy, learned to carve marble in preparation for his book?

Portal:Visual arts/Did you know/Archive/10

9 June 2005

• …that the remaining panels of Duccio’s masterpiece, the Maestà, are divided between five cities?

• …that, because the lion is not native to China, many of the
  guardian lion sculptures outside Chinese imperial palaces are based on Pekingese
  dogs?
• …that the French art thief
  Stephane Breitwieser
  was able to recall every one of the 239 artworks he stole, even interrupting the reading of his collection during his trial several times to correct details?
• …that the media used by British artist Andy Goldsworthy include twigs, thorns, mud, snow, icicles and leaves?
• …that James McNeill Whistler’s death was prematurely reported by a Dutch newspaper, causing Whistler to remark that reading his own obituary gave him “a tender glow of health”?