Playing Art History Quizzes, watching Botticelli and the Man of Sorrows, Searching for the Honest man with Diogenes, and Discovering Purple more Precious than Gold
Smart Art — Art History Escape Digest, January 2022
The new year brought lots of novelties into the world of art and its history. In this new Smart Art Digest series, I will share the most interesting art content and news that was brought to you this month under the welcoming roof of the Smart Art — Art History Escape app [download for free on your iPhone or iPad] and my articles.
Learn more about this and other interesting art history apps and websites in this article.
Botticelli’s Man of Sorrows and the story behind it
If you are into art history, then you’ve probably heard of the major sensational sale that happened in New York earlier this month.
The original Sandro Botticelli and his magnificent Man of Sorrows from the early 1500s hammered at $39.3m. Although that brought almost half of the revenue of the entire old master sale [‘Evening’ one, as they used to call it not long ago], it still failed to reach the rumoured ambitious price points in the 60–70m range.
Yet what made the picture so valuable [apart from the household name attached to it]?
“He is despised and rejected of men, a Man of Sorrows…”
In the Smart Art app, we have uncovered the origins of this magnificent composition and talked about the purpose of such iconography and its popularity in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Find our dedicated Collection Highlights showing 7 mesmerisingly touching and highly emotional meditative paintings, Medieval to Modern, in the app’s feed.
Art Quizzes are a blast!
We have launched art history quizzes in late 2021 and they have become our readers’ favourites right from the beginning.
Each week we release several new art quizzes that make you learn art history and artists in an engaging and entertaining way. We make our art quizzes fun and accessible to art lovers with even zero initial knowledge, so this is a perfect way to get inspired, learn something new, and have some fun along the way.
This month’s top quizzes will teach you to navigate in the world of Baroque — you will learn how to distinguish the followers of Caravaggio and Classicists, Flemish and Dutch schools and tell where is Rembrandt and where’s Rubens just like that!
We have also dived into fashion [with its highlights of Rococo and Belle Époque], travelled back in time to meet funny Medieval creatures, and tried to reconcile the rivalry of two great Paul’s of the French Post-Impressionism — Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin.
You can find and play these and many other art history quizzes in the app.
Speaking of Cézanne, don’t miss his grand solo exhibitions coming up this year on both sides of the Atlantics. You can learn more about the international schedule of the best art shows and museum exhibitions planned for 2022 in my dedicated article here.
The Royal Pigment was discovered by a playful dog?
Those of you who are following my blog didn’t miss the recent curious article dedicated to the most precious, toxic, and unusual art pigments in history [hi, mummy corpses and cows’ urine].
If you did, don’t hesitate to read it next [and you’re welcome to follow my publications that will bring you more interesting art history pieces this year and beyond].
This article might be interesting for those who never heard of why blue and purple were more expensive than gold and would like to learn more about the alchemy in art history.
Within the story inside the Smart Art app, we looked deep into the fabulous paintings illustrating this legend — the original sketch by Peter Paul Rubens and the final original oil by his collaborator Theodoor van Thulden.
Interestingly, the legendary version might well be the true story — just replace the dog of Hercules for a lovely pet of an ancient fisherman and here you go!
I won’t repeat the whole narrative here — you can always read about it in the pigments article or find a dedicated story in the Smart Art feed.
Diogenes and Grand Opéra — what do they have in common?
Not much, to be honest, albeit both of them were featured in two Collection Highlights in the app this January.
“A spy upon your insatiable greed” proficient “in ruling people”, the Greco-Latin philosopher Diogenes was quite an extravagant pal. He lived in a barrel [pithos — large ceramic jar] and begged for food, yet still felt superior above all others, even Alexander the Great.
The latter once addressed him with greetings and asked if he wanted anything, and Diogenes replied:
“Yes, stand a little out of my sunshine!”
An amusing and thought-provoking subject, it brought inspiration for many painters throughout the centuries. In the story, we share our selection of 7 totally different compositions dedicated to Diogenes.
Another notable Collection Highlight was dedicated to the famous opera house in Paris. There we’ve assembled 7 beautiful paintings — from its opening night ball on 5 January 1875 to its triumphant appearance, and from its charming visitors to those who are only dreaming of performing on its stage one day…
Smart Art and ArtCurious podcast go well together
And this month we’ve wrapped up our first fruitful collaboration with the crowd-favourite ArtCurious podcast.
Together, we gave another look at the madly genius Vincent van Gogh and dived deep into the secret symbols behind Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper. You could read our stories and then broaden your knowledge by listening to the dedicated episode of the podcast.
All in all, we’ve released 7 joint episodes this autumn and winter — plenty of art history content for you to explore while they’re planning their next season this spring.
Well, eventually, there were many more interesting stories, quizzes, and discoveries that we’ve shared with you within the Smart Art — Art History Escape. You’re welcome to become our reader if you still haven’t or review the pieces that you might’ve missed since tons of brand new curious art stories are on the way.
