Shooting at passers-by, laying stoves, spending the night on the balcony and other eccentric hobbies of great artists

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

A genius person is a genius in everything. And if we talk about great artists, then they, as a rule, are not only brilliant, but also eccentric. And even their hobbies and hobbies, according to the recollections of contemporaries, were, to put it mildly, strange. Although, who knows: maybe it is the crazy natures with an unusual outlook on the world and their lives that are capable of creating masterpieces of painting?

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso was a fan of weapons and he himself loved to shoot, and not just shoot, but to bring real terror to those around him. He often fired into the air, returning home from cafes and restaurants in the morning. The artist sometimes threatened buyers of paintings with a revolver in his workshop when he bargained with them about the price. In a fit of passion, he could even shoot at a passer-by on the street.

Fortunately, he always used blank cartridges, but, nevertheless, such behavior frightened and outraged many. Once for such a shooting, the artist was even arrested by the police.

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was very fond of playing with words and creating encrypted texts. For example, he often wrote from right to left, and it was possible to read his message only by holding it to the mirror. In approximately the same way, according to some researchers, he coded his famous paintings, leaving hidden messages on them for the audience. The clue could be the look of a person depicted on the canvas, hands, feet, or a certain object. Some picture, according to this theory, needs to be turned over, and some should be brought to the mirror in a certain part. The most encrypted painting is considered to be his "La Gioconda".

Leonardo was ambidextrous, that is, he had a good command of both right and left hands, so sometimes he could write with both hands at the same time.

And Leonardo was very fond of playing the lyre, and he did it great. Some contemporaries considered him mainly a good musician, and only then - an artist and scientist.

Henri Matisse

Matisse was a very peculiar person and suffered from various phobias. Most of all, he was afraid that someday he would remain a beggar and useless - for example, if he suddenly went blind and could not paint. Therefore, just in case, the artist learned to play the violin.

Once, during a feast in one of the eateries, he even took the instrument from a wandering violinist and began to play himself with inspiration. However, this art was given to him much worse than the skill of an artist. Apparently, guessing about this, Matisse, even in the depths of his soul, was ashamed of his game and was afraid that journalists would hear it and start making fun of him.

Nikolay Ge

Being in a respectable age, the eminent artist Nikolai Ge suddenly abandoned city life and left for a farm in the Chernigov province, where he took up simple rural economy. He grew vegetables, salted mushrooms, and also unexpectedly got carried away … making Russian ovens.

As a friend and colleague of the artist Grigory Myasoyedov recalled, one day he came to visit Ge at the Ivanovskoye farm and found the owner smeared with clay and scratched. He explained to him that he decided to become a follower of Tolstoy and do simple physical labor. He, they say, has already transferred all the stoves to the residents of Yasnaya Polyana, and now he is building a stove for his neighbors.

By the way, the customers generously presented the “stove-maker” with food, and he accepted them with gratitude, noting that additional bread is never superfluous.

Ilya Repin

Ilya Repin, like his wife, was a vegetarian. In his Penata estate, he introduced a rule to eat only modest and wholesome plant foods and demanded the same from his loved ones. Knowing the artist's rules, the guests who came to him brought meat products with them and ate them only in secret - when the owner did not see. Repin always slept in the fresh air, on the balcony - even in severe frosts.

He also had another quirk. In the artist's house, everyone, even guests, had to serve themselves. In the living room he had a round table, the central part of which rotated on its axis - thus, during the meal, everyone could impose any treat for themselves, without resorting to the help of others - it was enough just to turn the circle.

If someone broke the rule, Repin appointed him a "punishment": in the corner of the room there was a tribune from which the "offender" was obliged to make a speech. If the artist noticed a deviation from the rules for himself, then he also went to the podium. He was very fond of this funny game.

Mikhail Vrubel

As you know, Mikhail Vrubel had an obsessive habit of spoiling his paintings and redoing them. For example, when the artist once had a spontaneous desire to paint a lady he liked, he, without hesitation, took up a brush and began to paint it over an already finished portrait of a merchant, who had previously been posing for him for a long time.

But Vrubel's real hobby was polyglotism. The artist spoke eight languages and tried to practice whenever possible. It doesn't matter who was in front of him - the English-speaking head waiter of the restaurant, the tutor at the dacha of the merchant Savva Mamontov, or a random foreigner. Vrubel could practice conversations for hours, and then enthusiastically tell others what he had learned from his interlocutors.

By the way, despite the fact that painting is considered a masculine art, there are also women among the talented artists.