The post was inspired by the program "What, where, when?". Let me start with a riddle.
This is a painting by Tivadar Kostka Chontvari called "The Old Fisherman". At first glance, there is nothing particularly remarkable in it, as art critics also thought, but once it was suggested that God and the devil are depicted on it. The mystery is why such an idea was born. Under the cut there will be a bigger picture, a biography and a clue :)
Did you guess? Not? Maybe the details will give you an answer?
I’ll torment a little more with a story about the artist himself. Who can not wait, fly down for an answer.
self-portrait
Tivadar Kostka was born on July 5, 1853, in the mountain village of Kishseben, which belonged to Austria (now Sabinov, Slovakia) - a self-taught Hungarian artist.
His father Lasli Kostka was a doctor and pharmacist. Tivadar and his five brothers grew up in an atmosphere saturated with the spirit of pharmacology. The future artist knew from childhood that he would become a pharmacist. But before becoming one, he changed many professions—he worked as a sales employee, attended lectures at the Faculty of Law for some time, and only then studied pharmacology.
Once, he was already 28 years old, while in a pharmacy, he grabbed a pencil and drew on a prescription form a simple scene he saw from the window - a passing cart drawn by buffaloes. Was it the beginning of the schizophrenia that he suffered from later on, but since then the dream of becoming an artist has gripped him.
He goes to Rome, then to Paris, where he meets with the famous Hungarian artist Mihai Munkácsy (who, by the way, also ended his life in a psychiatric hospital). And then he returns to his homeland, and for fourteen years he works in a pharmacy, trying to achieve financial independence. Having accumulated a small capital, he goes to study first in Munich, and then in Paris.
Study did not bring him satisfaction. Therefore, in 1895, he went on a trip to Italy to paint landscapes. He also traveled in Greece, North Africa and the Middle East.
In 1900 he changed his surname Kostka to the pseudonym Chontvari.
Already in 1907 and 1910 solo exhibitions were held in Paris, but they did not bring him recognition. His paintings did not receive recognition in Hungary, and the author had a reputation as a madman.
In 1910, the period of creation ended. The attacks of the disease became more and more severe. He drew very rarely now, only sketches of his surrealistic visions.
In recent years, he has written books: the pamphlet “Energy and Art, the Mistakes of a Civilized Man” and the study “Genius. Who can and who cannot be a genius.
During his lifetime, the artist did not sell any of his paintings.
The last major painting, A Trip Along the Shore, was painted in Naples in 1909.
On June 20, 1919, the artist Chontvari died, as they say, of arthritis.
Relatives, consulted with experts, they assured them of the complete artistic failure of Tivadar as an artist, and soon the paintings were put up for auction not as works of art, but as pieces of canvas. A random collector (random is it?) Bought all the paintings in bulk for a meager amount that satisfied short-sighted (or still deceived) nephews.
Well, now the answer :) Take a mirror and put it in the center of the picture and you will see these answers :)
God, with a calm sea at your back.
And the devil with raging passions.
In almost every significant work of art there is a mystery, a double bottom or a secret story that you want to uncover.
Music on the buttocks
Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1500-1510.
Fragment of a triptych
Disputes about the meanings and hidden meanings of the most famous work of the Dutch artist have not subsided since its appearance. On the right wing of the triptych called "Musical Hell" sinners are depicted who are tortured in the underworld with the help of musical instruments. One of them has notes imprinted on his buttocks. Oklahoma Christian University student Amelia Hamrick, who studied the painting, transposed the 16th-century notation into a modern twist and recorded "a 500-year-old ass song from hell."
Nude Mona Lisa
The famous "Gioconda" exists in two versions: the nude version is called "Monna Vanna", it was painted by the little-known artist Salai, who was a student and sitter of the great Leonardo da Vinci. Many art critics are sure that it was he who was the model for Leonardo's paintings "John the Baptist" and "Bacchus". There are also versions that dressed in a woman's dress, Salai served as the image of the Mona Lisa herself.
Old Fisherman
In 1902, the Hungarian artist Tivadar Kostka Chontvari painted the painting "Old Fisherman". It would seem that there is nothing unusual in the picture, but Tivadar laid a subtext in it, which was never revealed during the life of the artist.
Few people thought of putting a mirror in the middle of the picture. In each person there can be both God (the right shoulder of the Old Man is duplicated) and the Devil (the left shoulder of the old man is duplicated).
Was there a whale?
Hendrik van Antonissen "Scene on the Shore".
It seemed like an ordinary landscape. Boats, people on the shore and the desert sea. And only an X-ray study showed that people gathered on the shore for a reason - in the original, they examined the carcass of a whale washed ashore.
However, the artist decided that no one would want to look at a dead whale and repainted the painting.
Two "Breakfasts on the Grass"
Edouard Manet, Breakfast on the Grass, 1863.
Claude Monet, Breakfast on the Grass, 1865.
Artists Edouard Manet and Claude Monet are sometimes confused - after all, they were both French, lived at the same time and worked in the style of impressionism. Even the name of one of Manet's most famous paintings, "Breakfast on the Grass", Monet borrowed and wrote his "Breakfast on the Grass".
Twins at the Last Supper
Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1495-1498.
When Leonardo da Vinci wrote The Last Supper, he attached particular importance to two figures: Christ and Judas. He was looking for sitters for them for a very long time. Finally, he managed to find a model for the image of Christ among the young singers. Leonardo failed to find a sitter for Judas for three years. But one day he came across a drunkard lying in the gutter on the street. He was a young man who had been aged by heavy drinking. Leonardo invited him to a tavern, where he immediately began to write Judas from him. When the drunkard came to his senses, he told the artist that he had already posed for him once. It was a few years ago, when he sang in the church choir, Leonardo wrote Christ from him.
"Night Watch" or "Day Watch"?
Rembrandt, Night Watch, 1642.
One of Rembrandt’s most famous paintings, “The Performance of the Rifle Company of Captain Frans Banning Cock and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenbürg,” hung in different halls for about two hundred years and was discovered by art historians only in the 19th century. Since the figures seemed to stand out against a dark background, it was called the Night Watch, and under this name it entered the treasury of world art.
And only during the restoration, carried out in 1947, it turned out that in the hall the picture had managed to become covered with a layer of soot, which distorted its color. After clearing the original painting, it was finally revealed that the scene presented by Rembrandt actually takes place during the day. The position of the shadow from the left hand of Captain Kok shows that the duration of the action is no more than 14 hours.
capsized boat
Henri Matisse, "The Boat", 1937.
In the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1961, Henri Matisse's painting "The Boat" was exhibited. Only after 47 days did someone notice that the painting was hanging upside down. The canvas depicts 10 purple lines and two blue sails on a white background. The artist painted two sails for a reason, the second sail is a reflection of the first one on the surface of the water.
In order not to be mistaken in how the picture should hang, you need to pay attention to the details. The larger sail should be at the top of the painting, and the peak of the sail of the painting should be directed to the upper right corner.
Deception in a self-portrait
Vincent van Gogh, Self Portrait with a Pipe, 1889.
There are legends that Van Gogh allegedly cut off his own ear. Now the most reliable version is that van Gogh's ear was damaged in a small scuffle with the participation of another artist, Paul Gauguin.
The self-portrait is interesting because it reflects reality in a distorted form: the artist is depicted with a bandaged right ear, because he used a mirror when working. In fact, the left ear was damaged.
alien bears
Ivan Shishkin, "Morning in the Pine Forest", 1889.
The famous painting belongs not only to the brush of Shishkin. Many artists who were friends with each other often resorted to "the help of a friend", and Ivan Ivanovich, who had been painting landscapes all his life, was afraid that touching bears would not turn out the way he needed. Therefore, Shishkin turned to a familiar animal painter Konstantin Savitsky.
Savitsky painted perhaps the best bears in the history of Russian painting, and Tretyakov ordered his name to be washed off the canvas, since everything in the picture “beginning from the idea and ending with the execution, everything speaks of the manner of painting, of the creative method peculiar to Shishkin.”
Innocent story "Gothic"
Grant Wood, "American Gothic", 1930.
Grant Wood's work is considered one of the strangest and most depressing in the history of American painting. The picture with a gloomy father and daughter is overflowing with details that indicate the severity, puritanism and retrogradeness of the people depicted.
In fact, the artist did not intend to depict any horrors: during a trip to Iowa, he noticed a small house in the Gothic style and decided to depict those people who, in his opinion, would be ideally suited as inhabitants. Grant's sister and his dentist are immortalized in the form of characters that the people of Iowa were so offended by.
Revenge of Salvador Dali
The painting "Figure at the Window" was painted in 1925, when Dali was 21 years old. Then Gala had not yet entered the life of the artist, and his sister Ana Maria was his muse. The relationship between brother and sister deteriorated when he wrote on one of the paintings "sometimes I spit on a portrait of my own mother, and it gives me pleasure." Ana Maria could not forgive such shocking.
In her 1949 book Salvador Dali Through the Eyes of a Sister, she writes about her brother without any praise. The book infuriated El Salvador. For another ten years after that, he angrily remembered her at every opportunity. And so, in 1954, the picture "A young virgin indulging in Sodomy sin with the help of the horns of her own chastity" appears. The pose of the woman, her curls, the landscape outside the window and the color scheme of the painting clearly echo the Figure at the Window. There is a version that this is how Dali took revenge on his sister for her book.
Two-faced Danae
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Danae, 1636-1647.
Many secrets of one of Rembrandt's most famous paintings were revealed only in the 60s of the twentieth century, when the canvas was illuminated with X-rays. For example, the shooting showed that in the early version, the face of the princess, who entered into a love affair with Zeus, looked like the face of Saskia, the wife of the painter, who died in 1642. In the final version of the painting, it began to resemble the face of Gertier Dirks, Rembrandt's mistress, with whom the artist lived after the death of his wife.
Van Gogh's yellow bedroom
Vincent van Gogh, "Bedroom in Arles", 1888 - 1889.
In May 1888, Van Gogh acquired a small workshop in Arles, in the south of France, where he fled from the Parisian artists and critics who did not understand him. In one of the four rooms, Vincent sets up a bedroom. In October, everything is ready, and he decides to paint Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles. For the artist, the color, the comfort of the room was very important: everything had to suggest thoughts of relaxation. At the same time, the picture is sustained in disturbing yellow tones.
Researchers of Van Gogh's creativity explain this by the fact that the artist took foxglove, a remedy for epilepsy, which causes serious changes in the patient's perception of color: the whole surrounding reality is painted in green-yellow tones.
Toothless perfection
Leonardo da Vinci, "Portrait of Mrs. Lisa del Giocondo", 1503 - 1519.
The generally accepted opinion is that Mona Lisa is perfection and her smile is beautiful in its mysteriousness. However, the American art critic (and part-time dentist) Joseph Borkowski believes that, judging by the expression on her face, the heroine has lost a lot of her teeth. While examining enlarged photographs of the masterpiece, Borkowski also found scars around her mouth. “She smiles so much precisely because of what happened to her,” the expert believes. “Her facial expression is typical of people who have lost their front teeth.”
Major on face control
Pavel Fedotov, Major's Matchmaking, 1848.
The public, who first saw the painting "Major's Matchmaking", laughed heartily: the artist Fedotov filled it with ironic details that were understandable to viewers of that time. For example, the major is clearly not familiar with the rules of noble etiquette: he appeared without the proper bouquets for the bride and her mother. And the bride herself was discharged by her merchant parents into an evening ball gown, although it was daytime (all the lamps in the room were extinguished). The girl obviously tried on a low-cut dress for the first time, is embarrassed and tries to run away to her room.
Why Freedom is naked
Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix, Liberty at the Barricades, 1830.
According to the art historian Etienne Julie, Delacroix painted the face of a woman from the famous Parisian revolutionary - the laundress Anna-Charlotte, who went to the barricades after the death of her brother at the hands of royal soldiers and killed nine guards. The artist depicted her bare-chested. According to his plan, this is a symbol of fearlessness and selflessness, as well as the triumph of democracy: naked breasts show that Svoboda, like a commoner, does not wear a corset.
non-square square
Kazimir Malevich, Black Suprematist Square, 1915.
In fact, the "Black Square" is not at all black and not at all square: none of the sides of the quadrangle is parallel to any of its other sides, and none of the sides of the square frame that frames the picture. And the dark color is the result of mixing various colors, among which there was no black. It is believed that this was not the negligence of the author, but a principled position, the desire to create a dynamic, mobile form.
Specialists of the Tretyakov Gallery have discovered the author's inscription on a famous painting by Malevich. The inscription reads: "Battle of the Negroes in a dark cave." This phrase refers to the name of the playful painting by the French journalist, writer and artist Alphonse Allais “Battle of the Negroes in a Dark Cave in the Dead of Night”, which was an absolutely black rectangle.
Melodrama of the Austrian Mona Lisa
Gustav Klimt, "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer", 1907.
One of Klimt's most significant paintings depicts the wife of the Austrian sugar magnate Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. All Vienna discussed the stormy romance between Adele and the famous artist. The wounded husband wanted to take revenge on his lovers, but chose a very unusual way: he decided to order a portrait of Adele from Klimt and force him to make hundreds of sketches until the artist starts to turn away from her.
Bloch-Bauer wanted the work to last several years, and the model could see how Klimt's feelings fade away. He made a generous offer to the artist, which he could not refuse, and everything turned out according to the scenario of the deceived husband: the work was completed in 4 years, the lovers had long cooled off towards each other. Adele Bloch-Bauer never found out that her husband was aware of her relationship with Klimt.
The painting that brought Gauguin back to life
Paul Gauguin, "Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?", 1897-1898.
Gauguin's most famous canvas has one feature: it is "read" not from left to right, but from right to left, like Kabbalistic texts that the artist was interested in. It is in this order that the allegory of the spiritual and physical life of a person unfolds: from the birth of the soul (a sleeping child in the lower right corner) to the inevitability of the hour of death (a bird with a lizard in its claws in the lower left corner).
The painting was painted by Gauguin in Tahiti, where the artist fled from civilization several times. But this time life on the island did not work out: total poverty led him to depression. Having finished the canvas, which was to become his spiritual testament, Gauguin took a box of arsenic and went to the mountains to die. However, he did not calculate the dose, and the suicide failed. The next morning, he staggered to his hut and fell asleep, and when he woke up, he felt a forgotten thirst for life. And in 1898, his affairs went uphill, and a brighter period began in his work.
112 proverbs in one picture
Pieter Brueghel the Elder, "Netherlands Proverbs", 1559
Pieter Brueghel the Elder depicted a land inhabited by literal images of the Dutch proverbs of those days. There are approximately 112 recognizable idioms in the painted picture. Some of them are still used today, such as "swim against the current", "bang your head against the wall", "armed to the teeth" and "big fish eats small ones".
Other proverbs reflect human stupidity.
Subjectivity of art
Paul Gauguin, Breton village under the snow, 1894
Gauguin's painting "Breton Village in the Snow" was sold after the death of the author for only seven francs and, moreover, under the name "Niagara Falls". The auctioneer accidentally hung the painting upside down after seeing a waterfall in it.
hidden picture
Pablo Picasso, The Blue Room, 1901
In 2008, infrared showed that another image was hidden under the "Blue Room" - a portrait of a man dressed in a suit with a butterfly and resting his head on his hand. “As soon as Picasso had a new idea, he took up the brush and embodied it. But he did not have the opportunity to buy a new canvas every time the muse visited him, ”art historian Patricia Favero explains the possible reason for this.
Inaccessible Moroccan women
Zinaida Serebryakova, Naked, 1928
One day, Zinaida Serebryakova received a tempting offer - to go on a creative journey to portray the naked figures of oriental maidens. But it turned out that it was simply impossible to find models in those places. An interpreter for Zinaida came to the rescue - he brought his sisters and his bride to her. No one before and after that was able to capture the closed oriental women naked.
Spontaneous insight
Valentin Serov, "Portrait of Nicholas II in a jacket", 1900
For a long time Serov could not paint a portrait of the king. When the artist completely gave up, he apologized to Nikolai. Nikolai was a little upset, sat down at the table, stretching out his hands in front of him ... And then it dawned on the artist - here he is! A simple military man in an officer's jacket with clear and sad eyes. This portrait is considered the best depiction of the last emperor.
Again deuce
© Fedor Reshetnikov
The famous painting "Again deuce" is just the second part of the artistic trilogy.
The first part is "Arrived for the holidays." Obviously a well-to-do family, winter holidays, a joyful excellent student.
The second part is "Again the deuce." A poor family from the outskirts of the working class, the height of the school year, a dull stunner who again grabbed a deuce. In the upper left corner you can see the picture "Arrived for the holidays."
The third part is "Re-examination". Rural house, summer, everyone is walking, one malicious ignoramus who failed the annual exam is forced to sit within four walls and cramming. In the upper left corner you can see the picture "Again deuce".
How masterpieces are born
Joseph Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed, 1844
In 1842, Mrs. Simon traveled by train in England. Suddenly, a heavy downpour began. The elderly gentleman sitting across from her got up, opened the window, stuck his head out, and stared like that for about ten minutes. Unable to contain her curiosity, the woman also opened the window and looked ahead. A year later, she discovered the painting “Rain, Steam and Speed” at an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts and was able to recognize in it the very episode on the train.
Anatomy lesson from Michelangelo
Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam, 1511
A couple of American neuroanatomy experts believe that Michelangelo actually left some anatomical illustrations in one of his most famous works. They believe that a huge brain is depicted on the right side of the picture. Surprisingly, even complex components such as the cerebellum, optic nerves, and pituitary gland can be found. And the catchy green ribbon perfectly matches the location of the vertebral artery.
The Last Supper by Van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh, Café Terrace at Night, 1888
Researcher Jared Baxter believes that Van Gogh's Café Terrace at Night contains a dedication to Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. In the center of the picture is a waiter with long hair and in a white tunic, reminiscent of the clothes of Christ, and around him exactly 12 cafe visitors. Baxter also draws attention to the cross, located directly behind the back of the waiter in white.
Dali's image of memory
Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1931
It is no secret that the thoughts that visited Dali during the creation of his masterpieces were always in the form of very realistic images, which the artist then transferred to the canvas. So, according to the author himself, the painting “The Persistence of Memory” was painted as a result of associations that arose at the sight of processed cheese.
What is Munch shouting about
Edvard Munch, "The Scream", 1893.
Munch spoke about the idea of one of the most mysterious paintings in world painting: "I was walking along the path with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red, I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence - I looked at blood and flames over the bluish-black fjord and the city - my friends went on, and I stood, trembling with excitement, feeling the endless scream piercing nature. But what kind of sunset could scare the artist so?
There is a version that the idea of "Scream" was born by Munch in 1883, when there were several strongest eruptions of the Krakatoa volcano - so powerful that they changed the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere by one degree. A copious amount of dust and ash spread across the globe, reaching even as far as Norway. For several evenings in a row, the sunsets looked as if the apocalypse was about to come - one of them became a source of inspiration for the artist.
Writer among the people
Alexander Ivanov, "The Appearance of Christ to the People", 1837-1857.
Dozens of sitters posed for Alexander Ivanov for his main picture. One of them is known no less than the artist himself. In the background, among travelers and Roman horsemen who have not yet heard the sermon of John the Baptist, one can notice a character in a brown tunic. His Ivanov wrote with Nikolai Gogol. The writer closely communicated with the artist in Italy, in particular on religious issues, and gave him advice in the process of painting. Gogol believed that Ivanov "had long since died for the whole world, except for his work."
Michelangelo's gout
Raphael Santi, The School of Athens, 1511.
Creating the famous fresco "The School of Athens", Raphael immortalized his friends and acquaintances in the images of ancient Greek philosophers. One of them was Michelangelo Buonarroti "in the role" of Heraclitus. For several centuries, the fresco kept the secrets of Michelangelo's personal life, and modern researchers have suggested that the artist's strangely angular knee indicates that he has a joint disease.
This is quite likely, given the peculiarities of the lifestyle and working conditions of Renaissance artists and Michelangelo's chronic workaholism.
Mirror of the Arnolfinis
Jan van Eyck, "Portrait of the Arnolfinis", 1434
In the mirror behind the Arnolfinis, you can see the reflection of two more people in the room. Most likely, these are witnesses present at the conclusion of the contract. One of them is van Eyck, as evidenced by the Latin inscription placed, contrary to tradition, above the mirror in the center of the composition: "Jan van Eyck was here." This is how the contracts were usually sealed.
How a flaw turned into a talent
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Self-portrait at the age of 63, 1669.
The researcher Margaret Livingston studied all Rembrandt's self-portraits and found that the artist suffered from strabismus: in the images his eyes look in different directions, which is not observed in the portraits of other people by the master. The disease led to the fact that the artist could better perceive reality in two dimensions than people with normal vision. This phenomenon is called "stereo blindness" - the inability to see the world in 3D. But since the painter has to work with a two-dimensional image, it was precisely this shortcoming of Rembrandt that could be one of the explanations for his phenomenal talent.
Sinless Venus
Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus, 1482-1486.
Before the advent of The Birth of Venus, the image of a naked female body in painting symbolized only the idea of original sin. Sandro Botticelli was the first European painter not to find anything sinful in him. Moreover, art historians are sure that the pagan goddess of love symbolizes the Christian image on the fresco: her appearance is an allegory of the rebirth of the soul that has undergone the rite of baptism.
Lute player or lute player?
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Lute Player, 1596.
For a long time, the painting was exhibited in the Hermitage under the title "Lute Player". Only at the beginning of the 20th century, art historians agreed that the canvas still depicts a young man (probably, Caravaggio was posed by his friend artist Mario Minniti): on the notes in front of the musician, a recording of the bass part of the madrigal by Jacob Arcadelt “You know that I love you” is visible . A woman could hardly make such a choice - it's just hard for the throat. In addition, the lute, like the violin at the very edge of the picture, was considered a male instrument in the era of Caravaggio.
Blossoming almonds (Landscape in Italy), 1902
Tivadar Kostka Chontvari (Hungarian Csontváry Kosztka Tivadar, July 5, 1853, Kishseben, Austrian Empire, now Sabinov, Slovakia - June 20, 1919, Budapest, Hungary) is a self-taught Hungarian artist. His work can be attributed to post-impressionism and expressionism.
In 1865, the Chontvari family moved to the village of Sredne (now the Transcarpathian region), and Tivadar was sent to study at a commercial school in Uzhgorod. He served as a pharmacist, like his father. In 1881 he experienced an insight that foreshadowed him the fate of a great painter, "more significant than Raphael himself." In 1883, in Paris, he met Mihaly Munkácsy, who was considered the greatest Hungarian painter. Traveled in Dalmatia, Italy, Greece, North Africa and the Middle East. In 1900, he changed his surname Kostka to the pseudonym Chontvari.
Chontwari began painting in the mid-1890s. He owns over a hundred paintings. Most of them, stylistically close to expressionism, were created in 1903-1909. Also in his paintings there were features of magical realism, symbolism, mythical surrealism, post-impressionism.
Chontvari's canvases were exhibited in Paris (1907, 1910) and other European cities, but did not receive recognition in their homeland. In Hungary, the artist had a reputation for being crazy because of his eccentric behavior, ascetic lifestyle, and a tendency to fall into a prophetic tone when communicating. In recent years, he has written books - the pamphlet "Energy and Art, the Mistakes of a Civilized Man" and the study "Genius. Who can and who cannot be a genius." During his lifetime, the artist did not sell any of his paintings. The main works of the artist are collected in the museum of the city of Pec.
self-portrait
Predatory bird
old woman peeling apples
Woman sitting by the window
Young artist
The sun looking back at Trau
Sunset over the Gulf of Naples
Blossoming almonds in Taurmina
Castellammare di Stabia
Date of lovers
City by the sea
View of the town of Selmetsbanya
Breakthrough Zrinji (Zrinji - Croatian commander)
Power plant in Yajice at night
Pompeii (House of Chirgugus with Vesuvius)
Praying Savior
An interesting mirror effect can be observed on the example of the painting "The Old Fisherman". It is known that a person's face is asymmetrical, that is, the right and left parts do not coincide with one another.
It is difficult to say whether the artist wanted to say something by the fact that the right and left parts of the face of the old man depicted in the picture are so different, but the effect turned out to be very interesting.
old fisherman
On the left is a portrait composed of the right side of the face and its mirror image, on the right - from the left side and its mirror image.
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Until recently, only a few who are interested in painting, in particular, expressionism and primitivism, knew the name of the Hungarian artist Tivadar Kostka Chontvary. About the painter who died in poverty almost 100 years ago, who, moreover, was considered crazy (some researchers of his biography think that Tivadar was ill with schizophrenia), quite recently many started talking.
The fact is that one of the employees of the city museum in Pec, examining the painting by Tivadar Chontvari "The Old Fisherman", discovered that if you divide the canvas in half with a mirror, you get two different images! This detail interested not only many art historians, but also ordinary people. They started talking about the secret mysticism of the work, the attitude towards the creative heritage of the Hungarian self-taught was revised. In Russia, interest in this fact grew after the release of the program “What? Where? When?" dated October 1, 2011, during which the viewer, with a question about the painting "The Old Fisherman", managed to beat the connoisseurs.
Unrecognized artist
Tivadar Kostka Chontvari was born in 1853 in the small Hungarian village of Kishseben. His father was a doctor and pharmacist, was interested in science, was a staunch opponent of alcohol and tobacco, and vehemently advocated their ban. Tivadar received his primary education here, but after a fire in 1866 he moved to his mother's relatives in Uzhgorod. After graduating from high school, he worked as a trader's assistant in Presov.
From his father, Laszlo, young Tivadar Chontwari inherited an interest in pharmacology. As a result, he received a pharmaceutical education at the University of Budapest, and later studied law and worked as a clerk for the deputy mayor of the capital. During his studies, he was respected by other students, was elected head of the student organization, participated in the strikes of 1879.
Tivadar began his career as an artist in 1880. One autumn day, while working in a pharmacy, he looked out the window, mechanically picked up a pencil, a prescription form, and began to draw. It was not something abstract - a cart passing by was captured on paper. The owner of the pharmacy, seeing the picture, praised Chontvari, saying that the artist was born only today. Later, already at the end of his life, Tivadar himself, in his autobiography, written in his characteristic mystical and prophetic manner, describing what had happened, said that he had a vision. It was this that prompted Tivadar his destiny - to become a great painter.
Since that time, Tivadar Kostka began to travel in order to get acquainted with the work of the greats. He traveled to the Vatican and Paris. Then he returned to Hungary, opened his own pharmacy and devoted himself completely to work in order to gain financial independence and do what he was, in his opinion, born for. Tivadar painted his first picture in 1893. A year later, he went to Germany (Munich, Karlsruhe, Düsseldorf) and France (Paris) to. However, the newly minted artist quickly got tired of this, and in 1895 he went on a trip to Italy, Greece, the Middle East and Africa to paint local landscapes. Over time, he began to sign his paintings not with the name Kostka, but with the pseudonym Chontvari.
Tivadar Chontvari was engaged in painting until 1909. At that time, his illness began to progress (presumably schizophrenia, which was accompanied by megalomania), and rare paintings became a reflection of surrealistic visions. The artist also wrote several allegorical philosophical treatises. During his life, Tivadar never sold any of his paintings - exhibitions in Paris were not particularly popular, and there were almost none at home. The painter died in 1919, never having received recognition for his talent.
God and the Devil in the painting "The Old Fisherman"
More recently, the subject of close attention of art critics has been the painting by Tivadar Kostka Chontvari “The Old Fisherman”, written by him in 1902. By mirroring the left and right parts of the painting alternately, two completely different images are created - God in a boat against the backdrop of a calm lake, or the Devil on a volcano and storm waters behind.
After the discovery of this fact, the recognition of the author of the picture was approached differently. But what did Tivadar Chontvari want to say with his work? Many suspected the connection of the artist's work with mysticism and with great zeal began to study the heritage of the Hungarian painter.
The most plausible version of the idea embedded in the picture is the opinion about the dualistic nature of human nature, which Tivadar wanted to convey. A person spends his whole life in a constant struggle between two principles: male and female, good and evil, intuitive and logical. These are the ingredients of life. Like the god and the devil in the Chontwari painting, they complement each other, without one there is no other.
The “Old Fisherman”, as the embodiment of a lived life and human wisdom, with the help of a simple technique, shows how bad and good, good and evil, god and devil harmonize in each of us. And to balance them is the task of each person.