This happened when Kandinsky was about 30 years old. After visiting Wagner's Opera Lohengrin in Moscow, he suddenly realized that he could "see" music. Later he wrote: "The violins, the deep tones of the basses, and especially the wind instruments at that time embodied for me all the power of that pre-nocturnal hour. I saw all my colours in my mind; they stood before my eyes. Wild, almost crazy lines were sketched in front of me." Shortly afterwards, Wassily Kandinsky decided to leave the legal profession and became an artist.

The Austrian Dieter Buchhart combined three generations of modernists in one exhibition "The Masters of Modernism: Edvard Munch, Peder Balke and Per Kirkeby", and showed their art quirks. Thus, the Norwegian artist Peder Balke (1804–1884), liked to draw not only with brushes but also with his fingers dipped in water and paint – he got special color transitions this way. And the famous Norwegian Edward Munch (1863–1944) often painted himself somewhere in the background of the picture, denoting his own presence on the canvases.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, an English portrait and history painter, a representative of the English school of portraiture of the XVIII century, was never married. He proposed to the German artist Angelica Kauffman, who moved to London. Having been rejected and craving for revenge, he introduced her to the gigolo Frederick Brandt. The man got her into such a big mess that it got the whole Europe intrigued and inspired Victor Hugo to write his drama Ruy Blas.

Yvette Guilbert, the Moulin Rouge cabaret singer, hugely impressed the artist Toulouse-Lautrec. He told all his friends about her, took them to concerts, and didn't miss her single performance himself. Once, Toulouse-Lautrec made a charcoal sketch for a poster and sent it to Guilbert with a proposal for collaboration. That sketch was cruel and striking, offensive and sensitive. Guilbert was ready to print the poster, but it turned out that she was the only one who wanted to do it. Her friends and family were offended by that ugly, grotesque caricature, and her entrepreneur threatened to break the contract. Soon Guilbert and Lautrec met in person. He conceived a 14-page album of lithographs dedicated to her – and she agreed to pose. The album appeared to be scandalous – this time the outraged friends recommended Yvette to sue Lautrec without hesitation. Instead, she put her signature on each copy of the album.

The 18th century French pastelist Jean-Étienne Liotard was remarkable by his extravagant look and long, curled beard, which he grew during his four-year stay in Constantinople. Noble and wealthy Europeans, having a weakness for oriental exotics, were very eager to have the "Turkish gentleman" make their portraits. But before marrying Marie Fargues, the artist shaved off his magnificent beard, and the story was widely told (on the initiative of the bride). Even Voltaire wrote to the Austrian Count Karl von Zinzendorf that the beard was deposited in a special box with due ceremony.

Amedeo Modigliani, the outstanding Italian expressionist artist, became interested in painting and drawing in a very early age. He made his final decision to become an artist at the age of eleven after a heavy pleurisy, when, lying delirious, Amedeo decided: if he survived, then he would devote himself to painting. And he kept his word.

Venus Verticordia, created in 1868, is the only nude painting by the Pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Because of it, he broke with John Ruskin, the leading English art critic of the Victorian era. Ruskin's hypocrisy and double attitude to the female body are well documented. He found sensuality in Rossetti's art disturbing. Unable to resist the true cause of his discomfort towards Venus herself, he unleashed harsh criticism on the roses, which the artist painted with great difficulty. But, most likely, Ruskin's reaction wasn't caused by the flowers. He was frightened by the woman looking from the canvas so seductively and powerfully that the critic found it menacing.

When Pierre-Auguste Renoir was only four years old, his family moved to Paris and settled near the royal palace. No, they were not rich – it's just Paris was completely different in 1845. Back then, next to the palace, there still were houses built in the 16th century for the royal guard. Now, three centuries later, these houses were pretty worn out and the paint was peeling off. These houses became homes of very simple families, who weren’t accustomed to luxury and comfort: those of artisans and small traders. Their children played all day in the royal garden.
When Queen Maria Amalia was tired of the noise, she opened her window and treated little rascals to sweets. Thus, the queen managed to calm them down for a while and had a little quiet time.

It was a time of the Paris Commune. Once the artist was mistaken for a spy drawing a plan of the Seine embankments and was nearly drowned there. Quickly gathered onlookers got excited and demanded immediate reprisal for spying. But a miracle happened: the guards decided to shoot Renoir instead of drowning him. The execution was decided to take place in the city hall, but on the way there Auguste suddenly saw a familiar face – it was Raoul Rigault, a fugitive Republican journalist, whom Renoir saved from starvation and capture a few years before. Now Rigault was a police commissioner and a big man; the guards who caught the artist cheerfully sang Marseillaise and let him free.

Henri Matisse gained fame quickly, but his financial situation remained precarious. And only his acquaintance with Russian patrons and collectors Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov helped him to get out of poverty once and for all.
In 1908, an art connoisseur Sergei Shchukin commissioned him two panels, which he intended to hung on the walls of his Moscow mansion. It was then when the first Dance appeared. Shchukin invited Matisse to Russia, where the artist was completely overwhelmed by Russian icons.

At 24, Diego Velázquez was in Madrid and for a long time created only portraits. He was appointed court painter of King Philip IV almost immediately – the king established the artist near himself, arranged him a workshop in The Royal Palace to watch the master at work, conferred him court ranks and didn't allow anyone but Velázquez to portray him. This caused great jealousy among other artists, who spun intrigues against Velázquez. Once the agitated king came to the artist's workshop and stated right off the bat: "They say, you are good only at painting faces! Is it really true?" In order to calm the king down, Velázquez created a painting The Triumph of Bacchus (The Drunkards, 1628-29), which is now in the Museo del Prado.

4 miles of red yarn, 200 pairs of shoes and handwritten notes were used by Chiharu Shiota for her performance "Perspective", which dramatically and emotionally conveys the personal memories of the Japanese artist. The new art object is intended for the Venice Biennale-2015. Chiharu Shiota is known throughout the world for her research into the phenomenon of memory, losses and totems, in which people can turn ordinary household items such as shoes and keys.

The famous American photo artist Richard Prince sold Instagram online pictures of Selena Mooney for 90 thousand dollars at the exhibition in the Gagosian gallery. Now she sells the same photos for 90 dollars. This is her Roland for an Oliver dor his plagiarism. Prince took her photo for his project without permission, and yet he steals other people's works in a broad manner since the 1970's – such a "pop art trick"! Sometimes it comes to trial, but without much shock for the "projector": one of the verdicts was simply canceled a couple of years ago.

Auguste Renoir liked painting pictures but didn't like talking about them. The connoisseurs of art, who grilled the artist about the sublime even on a train, would often hear his: "Sorry, I know nothing about high art, my works are pornographic". Yet, there's a grain of joke in every joke. The same Renoir was quite serious when saying: "I loved women even before I learned to walk... I never think I have finished a nude until I think I could pinch it.”

In 2015, a geologist and art historian Ann Pizzorusso questioned the attribution of the painting Virgin of the Rocks from National Gallery in London to Leonardo da Vinci. It was all about... flowers. The flora in the Louvre version of the piece is painted as perfectly as possible, while the British version contains some irregularly-shaped and unidentifiable flowers. It is unlikely that one and the same person could paint a grotto so neatly in one work and so unnaturally in another. Especially when taking into account Leonardo being immersed in the comprehension of nature and depicting it. By the way, the London painting had long been considered a work of the master’s students and da Vinci's authorship was asserted only in 2010. And the National Gallery refused to comment on a new research.

The phenomenal Erté (Roman Tyrtov), one of the icons of Art Deco, not only designed exquisite and extravagant clothes for fashionistas, but also wore them. Once, American costume designer Howard Greer met Erté wearing his pyjamas with a hem and collar, simulating ermine. In 1926, he appeared at Paris Opera ball wearing a brocade bullfighter costume of his own design. He decorated a huge cape with fresh roses, which he threw into the crowd, going down the stairs. Erté had this passion for bright clothes and extravagant accessories till the end of his life. He wore his costumes “with a unique grace with which wild cat wears its fur,” wrote one of the journalists.

Did you know that Auguste Renoir has the most organized and active opponents? In the past several years, Renoir Sucks At Painting movement has been demanding removal of the artist’s works from museums and staging demonstrations (not particularly crowded, but very reckless). They usually hold homemade signs reading "God Hates Renoir" and "Stop Aesthetic Terrorism". The community has an eponymously-named page on Instagram, where users post their own photos with Renoir's most awful (in their opinion) paintings in the background.
Admittedly, the activists have nothing against his Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette or La Grenouillère. All protests are focused mainly on the late works of the aging Renoir, when all his characters began to look the same, pursuing the artist's conceptual ideal.

Van Gogh's Sunflowers are fading. This was confirmed by experts who have studied the version of the painting from the artist’s museum in Amsterdam. The thing is that the artist used two differing yellow pigments in the work, one of which is extremely sensitive to light and is fading to a brownish colour over time as a result. It seems that the artist himself was all too aware that the colours in his work were transient. "Paintings fade like flowers," he wrote in a letter to his brother Theo. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has already lowered its galleries’ lighting in an attempt to slow the aging process of 200 paintings and 400 drawings by the artist.

Arkhip Kuindzhi adored birds. He considered himself a “birds' chosen one”, said that the birds understood his speech and let him pet them. Usually laconic Arkhip Kuindzhi became extremely talkative when it came to birds. He spent hours sitting on the roof of his house, "talking" with pigeons and crows. Every month he bought 60 French buns, up to 10 kg of meat and 6 sacks of oats to feed his feathered friends. Once the illustrator Pavel Scherbov published a caricature depicting Kuindzhi giving an enema to a bird. They say that Arkhip Kuindzhi, deprived of sense of humour, got terribly offended.

One of the finest and most famous works created by Alfons Mucha is a gold bracelet called Médée Snake. The snake wrapped around the ring wraps the wrist, and the snake's sting passes into the ring through a thin chain. For the first time the image of this bracelet appeared on the playbill for the Médée play. The actress liked it so much that she commissioned jeweller to create a snake bracelet and a ring embellished with gemstones for her to wear on stage. This bracelet shows that his creator was an artist, for the beautiful decoration has no practical application. After all, in the world, there is no such thin and elegant hand, on which it could be put on! The Médée Snake is called "jewelery of the century".