13-year-old Auguste felt like the church boys’ choir was where he belonged: large organ pipes hid him from the eyes of the worshippers, while he could see and feel everyone. Loaders, traders, workers and many others came to morning mass. "It was on a cold morning like that I understood Rembrandt," recalled Renoir later. He had a beautiful baritone, learned musical notation and performed complex passages. At that time, the regent of the choir and the church organist was Charles Gounod, still young and unknown (the opera Faust would appear only in 10 years). The regent was sure that Renoir stood a pretty good chance of becoming a famous opera singer. He gave the boy private lessons and persuaded his parents to choose a musical education for their son

By the age of 20, Matisse had studied to be a lawyer and got the right to start his own practice, which caused his return to his native wilderness in the north of France. But suddenly he was overtaken by an attack of appendicitis, and Matisse had to undergo several surgical interventions (it was 1889, and the patient had complications). To entertain his son and cheer him up, his mother brought paints to the hospital, he enthusiastically began to copy the old postcards. The mood improved so much that after the hospital Matisse headed straight for Paris, having decided to become an artist. His father, the shopkeeper was very upset: he hoped that the son would become a decent person.

The third place on the list of the most expensive living female artists is taken by Yayoi Kusama with her polka dots obsession. There are polka dots on her canvases, objects and even people... Actually, "obsession" here is far from being a metaphor: the Japanese artist admitted herself into a psychiatric hospital and confessed: "I am deeply terrified by the obsessions crawling over my body, whether they come from within me or from outside. I fluctuate between feelings of reality and unreality. My artwork is an expression of my life, particularly of my mental disease. If it wasn't for art, I would have killed myself long ago." Indeed, the saving art is polka-dotted.

In his last years, Salvador Dalí suffered from parkinsonism, which precluded him from painting. And then his wife, incomparable and extraordinary Gala, found a Spanish artist Manuel Pujol of Baladas. In 1979–1981, he created about 400 works: oil paintings (about 200!), drawings, watercolors, lithographs, and he signed each of them with the famous signature of Salvador Dalí. These "unpleasant" details became known to the public, but the surrealist did not lose his head. He said that fakes are excellent, and they could well be his works!

A well-known story: having seen The Bathers by Gustave Courbet at the Paris Salon of 1853, Napoleon III stroke it with his whip. But why did he do that?

Common version: the emperor was outraged by the rough naturalism: instead of the goddess there was a dumpy peasant with dirty feet.

Alternative version: It wasn't about Courbet at all – that’s how Napoleon responded to his wife’s brilliant joke. The Empress Eugénie accompanied him at the exhibition. After she had been struck by the way Rosa Bonheur endowed her horses with large rumps, it had to be explained to her that these were sturdy percherons and not slim-built chargers. When she reached The Bathers, Eugénie indicated the one who was removing her chemise and revealing her buttocks, and asked with a smile if she was a percheron too. Napoleon III was delighted with the joke and took advantage of it, apparently, by cracking his whip over the painting.

Artist Domenico Beccafumi wanted to please his customer, collecting all the Roman attractions, including the Colosseum, in one picture. He also took care of an entertaining story. "The Story of Papirius" is the story of a boy who was drawn to debate and vote in the Senate and had to keep a secret about what he had heard. But at home, his mother came up with questions, so he had to invent on the go, and he said that a very delicate matter was discussed: what is better to allow - men have two wives or women to have two husbands? Mom immediately spread the rumour around the city, and a women's rebellion began (they didn’t really like the first option)!

In 1832, the paintings of two famous artists, who had a quarrel a year before because their paintings had been hung side-by-side, ended up on the same wall of the hall at the Royal Academy of arts. Constable's Opening of Waterloo Bridge was a complex work which had been in progress for ten years. Turner's Helvoetsluys seemed to be a simpler seascape. Shortly before the opening, Constable was adding final touches to his piece. Turner walked in, looked at both paintings, and then added one detail to his one – a little red buoy swaying on the waves. The bright spot instantly attracted the attention of the audience. Constable complained that Turner had been in and 'fired a gun'. 180 years after the first conflict of these landscape artists, their "controversial" paintings were hung side-by-side again.

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.

In 2008, Tiepolo's name was the talk of the art world: a picture of the great master was found in the attic of a French estate! Shy grandparents of the current owners prudently hid the luxurious topless lady depicted on the canvas. Thus they perfectly preserved the picture! It is believed that it was ordered by the Russian Empress Elizabeth to decorate the Winter Palace, as there are similar images of the series there. The canvas was called "Portrait of a Lady as Flora" and soon sold at Christie's auction for 4,227,780 dollars, almost three times "overlapping" the considerable estimate.

A pleasant surprise: the restorer discovered that the canvas from the London residence of the Dukes of Wellington belongs to the brush of the great Titian, and not an unnamed follower! The painting titled "Titian's Mistress" was believed to have been painted by a follower after the death of the artist in 1576, and did not appear in public for centuries, almost from the time it was stolen from the Royal Spanish Collection and brought to London in the year 1813. What an irony – the duke owned three originals of Titian, and didn’t even know about it! All of them were considered copies.

At one time, Maurits Escher made attempts to translate Bach's works into a graphic language. However, when musicians came to him with a request to illustrate the cover of their new album, he categorically refused. The same cold shoulder received the leader of The Rolling Stones Mick Jagger, who wished to decorate his plate with an engraving "Verbum". However, many musicians did not feel confused about the artist’s position, and they used Escher's drawings without permission, which disturbed him very much.

Passion for birds has become the main dominant of John Audubon's life. He was to manage the lead mines, but once he started drawing birds, he could not live without it, devoting his days and nights to his sketches. This led him to ruin, and Audubon found himself in a debt prison.
After getting free, the artist painted river ships, drew road signs and even taught dance, but continued to create exotic birds in huge albums, where he depicted them almost in half of human growth.

Leonardo da Vinci enjoyed watching cats and sketching their varying moods and postures. Judging by eight preparatory sketches, he planned to create Madonna with an Infant and a Cat. It is clear from his sketch from the British Museum why the painting itself never materialized: this combination of models was a troublesome one. Leonardo has brilliantly caught the struggle between infant and cat, but the sketches he made were obviously dashed off at high speed. It must have dawned on him that any attempt to keep the cat there for the many hours needed for a detailed portrait painting would be doomed to failure. As a result, we have been robbed of a finished painting of a cat by the grand master.

Lucian Freud said: "I paint people, not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be." Quite a psychological statement, while the works that cost millions may be a subject for "Freudian" analysis. Lucian Freud led a bohemian lifestyle. By the time he died in 2011, he had been married twice, acknowledged 14 children by different women and had at least 50 lovers. At the end of 80, he created a nude portrait of Kate Moss and inked a tattoo on her lower back.

Apart from domestic animals, Pablo Picasso always had many birds. The French photographer and sculptor Michel Sima found a little owl in Antibes and gave it to Picasso. It was brought from Antibes to Paris, and lived in the artist's kitchen, sharing a cage with canaries and doves. The owl had a wild temper and rejected everyone except for Picasso. And the artist, known for his Dove of Peace drawing, also painted owls.

When Renoir worked, he didn't notice anything around. He would come to the forest at Fontainebleau, set up his easel and forget about everything. After he noticed the deer gathering behind him, he started bringing them bread to eat. That was a big mistake. Since then, the artist found them every single time he tried to paint: "They started crowding behind my back, nuzzling against me and breathing into my neck. I had to be rough sometimes ... would you finally let me paint or not?"
But once, having come to the usual place, Renoir did not see the deer. They were scared away by hunters. The artist was indignant: "I wanted to shoot those blockheads in red caftans! If hell exists, then I know how they will be punished: the deer will chase them until they run themselves out of breath!"

Turner was an “expensive” and respectable artist, a member of the Royal Academy. The collector, who bought “The Golden Bough” from Turner, turned to the author with a claim soon after the deal. One of the characters... fell off the canvas! "Hey, it's just paper!" Turner was surprised. He himself forgot how he made a sketch of a naked man in a classroom, and found that its proportions and pose fits perfectly into an almost finished picture. So he simply pasted the figure onto the canvas. Turner intended to paint it with oil later, but forgot. "Most likely, I would not have remembered about it if it wasn’t for you!" He grumbled to the disgruntled buyer. There were no other apologies: Turner never cared to be nice.

The favorite place of residence of artists in Paris at the beginning of the last century was the subject of jokes. So, the artist Federer in difficult times loved to encourage his friend Amshey Nyurenberg:
"You have a magnificent workshop on Rue de la Santé, 32, next to the famous Santé prison". Above its entrance, at the top of the gate there is a historical revolutionary inscription: "Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood". Of course, you would say what an irony. Then," he added, "in front of your workshop, there is a nunnery. Every morning, in the open window at the gate, you see gentle female hands. A mug of milk is in one of them, a piece of white bread in the other. Here's your breakfast ready! And not far from the studio is the famous Parisian venereal Hospital Cochin. What do you want, my friend?”

At first, Edgar Degas's sculpture The Little Fourteen Year Old Dancer got the negative public reaction. "She resembles a monkey, an Aztec, a fetus. If she were smaller, one would be tempted to enclose her in a glass jar of alcohol," said one of the critics. Another reviewers described her as "astoundingly ugly" while her forehead and lips were said to be "marked with a profoundly vicious character". Yet, now The Little Fourteen Year old Dancer is considered to be one of Edgar Degas' masterpieces. The model for the statue was Marie Geneviève van Goethem. Before sculpting the piece, Degas had drawn and painted her more than seventeen times, both clothed and nude. The artist had planned to show his artwork in 1880, at the Fifth Impressionist exhibition in Paris, but by the time of the opening he was not satisfied with his sculpture. It was shown a year later – dressed in a muslin skirt with a satin hair ribbon.

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.