The world of art can be quite unpredictable. Things can be overpriced and also undervalued, adding to the excitement. But there’s also a fair amount of illegal money that’s being moved through art auctions and large sales. Since there’s hardly a fixed price to any artwork, the value is arbitrary, allowing for a lot of shady deals to go on behind the scenes.
The history of art, too, is riddled with a lot of interesting facts. The way some arts were created and the meanings the artists layered into their work border on the mysterious.
Vincent Van Gogh produced more than 2000 works during his lifetime. 900 paintings and 1100 drawings and sketches. But he only sold one painting in his lifetime: The Red Vineyard. It sold for 400 francs, roughly the equivalent of $20.
Although mostly known by his last name, Picasso’s, full name is a mouth full. 25 words long, to be exact. He was christened Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso.
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani, an Italian painter and sculptor, once spared his family from financial demise in an unconventional way. His arrival at birth helped his father activate some ancient laws that protected the beds of women and mothers with newborn children.
Willard Wigan, the British sculptor from Ashmore Park Estate, works between heartbeats so he doesn’t destroy the piece he’s creating. He uses rice or grains of sand and a surgical blade to create his “micro sculptures.”
St. Sabastian, a Christian saint, is often depicted in art with arrows impaling his body. Imitating the style, Michael Richards, an artist, has a piece where he cast a mold of himself and, instead of arrows, had planes flying into his body.