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Art is often imagined as the product of a solitary genius. Every artist seeks to discover the medium that most authentically conveys their inner expression and molds it to their will. However, art is never created in isolation (unless space art takes off). Countless influences can shape the artistic landscape. Here are 10 of the more unusual ones.
10. Monet’s Vision Impairment
Claude Monet is considered the father of Impressionism, a movement named after his painting "Impression, Sunrise." The Impressionists focused on capturing light and motion in their art, often resulting in a somewhat blurred effect on the canvas. Could it be that this characteristic, the blurriness, was influenced by Monet’s need for eye surgery?
At the age of 85, Monet underwent surgery to remove cataracts. But how long had his vision been impaired by them before? Scientists, in studying his iconic water lily paintings, discovered that as his cataracts progressed, the once-vibrant colors of the garden began to lose their clarity.
9. Vermeer’s Optical Tool
For more than a century, there has been speculation that Vermeer might have used a device with lenses to create his masterpieces. Although there is no direct historical proof, some art historians have come to believe that he utilized a camera obscura to project images onto his canvas. Certain peculiarities in his paintings align with the distortions that lenses can cause.
In 2013, the film Tim’s Vermeer was released, in which an inventor successfully recreated a Vermeer using a camera obscura, despite having no prior painting experience. Artist David Hockney is convinced that Vermeer employed this tool, although many in the art community remain doubtful.
8. Strange Medieval Baby Depictions
Medieval art is often dominated by religious themes, with the infant Christ being the most prominent. However, many depictions of the baby Jesus from this time feature faces that only the Holy Mother might find endearing. Why were these kinds of portrayals created?
The theological beliefs of the Middle Ages could shed some light on this. Jesus was thought to have been born 'perfectly formed and unchanged.' This portrayal of the baby Jesus is known as a homunculus, meaning 'little man' in Latin. This way of painting babies gradually faded during the Renaissance, as people began preferring paintings of their own children and would have been repelled by the idea of their offspring depicted as elderly, grim figures.
7. Van Gogh’s Color Vision Deficiency
Few artists are as cherished as Vincent van Gogh. The vibrant intensity of his colors makes the idea that he could be colorblind almost unbelievable. Yet, Kazunori Asada has analyzed van Gogh’s work and determined that the artist may have had difficulty distinguishing reds.
By manipulating light, Asada has been able to simulate how van Gogh’s paintings might have appeared to him and how they would look to individuals with similar visual impairments. While this theory is not universally accepted, it certainly provokes thought about the process of creating art.
6. The Virgin Mary’s Cerulean Mantle
We have seen how theology can shape art, but economics also has an impact. In Renaissance depictions of the Virgin Mary, she is almost always shown wearing a blue cloak. What explains this artistic choice? After all, there is no scriptural indication that Mary had a particular fondness for the color blue.
The reason for this lies in the arduous trade routes to Afghanistan. Medieval artists had very few vivid blue pigments available to them. This gap was filled when Lapis Lazuli, a blue mineral, began arriving in Europe. The journey of transporting rocks from the mountains of Asia made Lapis and the ultramarine pigment derived from it incredibly expensive (ultramarine means 'From across the sea'). Only the most prestigious commissions could afford its use, and many of these were religious in nature. The most prominent area of color in a Virgin and Child painting would be Mary’s cloak. This is where artists would focus their resources. And that is how Mary ended up with her blue cloak.
5. Handedness in Prehistoric Art
We are so accustomed to handedness determining which hand we use to hold a pen that it's almost impossible to imagine prehistoric humans being either left- or right-handed. But how could we know for sure?
One of the most common motifs in ancient cave art is the image of the hand. Instead of painting a hand, ancient artists would press their hand against the wall and blow pigment over it through a tube, leaving a hand-shaped outline. Imagine doing this. Which hand would you place on the wall, and which hand would hold the tube? Most people would hold the tube with their dominant hand. By studying the ratio of left hands to right hands on cave walls, we can deduce how many prehistoric people were left- or right-handed.
4. Egyptians Only Had Profile Views
Egyptian art is so iconic for its use of profiles that we might think Egyptians never looked each other in the face. However, their freestanding statues prove they were fully capable of depicting the human figure in full form. So why then did they choose to show themselves in profile in paintings and carvings?
Egyptian art wasn't designed to be realistic in the way we expect art to be. Their paintings and carvings aimed to capture the essence—the most recognizable features of a person or object. This explains why the shoulders are shown frontally, while the arms, legs, and face are depicted in profile. Consider how this approach mirrors Egyptian hieroglyphs, which are intended to be recognized as stylized representations.
3. St. Christopher’s Dog Head
Whatever else may be said about religious art, it is typically respectful of its subjects. But in Eastern Orthodox Christian iconography of St. Christopher, something strange appears. He is portrayed as a cynocephalus—a being with the head of a dog.
The most likely explanation for St. Christopher's dog-headedness is a mistranslation. He is described as Cananeus (a Canaanite), but someone may have misread this as Canineus (canine). While it may seem like a stretch to transform this into giving a saint the head of a dog, the idea of half-human races inhabiting the far reaches of the world was not unusual to the ancients. A traveler observing the animal-headed Egyptian deities might not judge too harshly the icon painters’ imagination.
2. Moses’s Horns
The Vulgate Bible, the Latin text still used by the Catholic Church today, has seen its share of translation errors. One such mistake has led to some rather unconventional depictions of Moses.
In Chapter 33 of Exodus, the Vulgate reads, “And when Moses came down from the Mount Sinai, he held the two tables of the testimony, and he knew not that his face was horned from the conversation of the Lord. And Aaron and the children of Israel seeing the face of Moses horned, were afraid to come near.” This is why Michelangelo’s statue of Moses depicts him with distinct horns. However, many believe, supported by the Septuagint and King James Bible, that the writer of Exodus actually intended to convey that Moses’s face was radiant after his encounter with God.
The Hebrew text is intricate, and there are still those who defend the Vulgate's interpretation as correct.
1. Lop-Sided Male Statues
Classic Greek statues idealized the human form, following strict proportional harmony. To best present this perfect body, most statues were sculpted in the nude, allowing those with the time and interest to study every intricate detail of this idealized anatomy.
Dr. Chris McManus investigated the asymmetry of the testicles in ancient Greek statues. In human anatomy, men typically have one testicle positioned lower and the other larger, with the right often being both higher and larger. However, McManus discovered that in Greek sculptures, the right testicle was represented as higher, but the left was depicted as larger, as if its size was pulling it downward. Dr. McManus believes this difference has symbolic meaning. The ancients thought one testicle produced male children and the other female. By showing one testicle larger than the other, the artist may have been signaling a man’s virility and ability to father sons.
