ARTISTS
- Claude Monet's 100 thousand franc winnings in the French lottery of 1891 allowed him to quit his job and try his hand at what he really liked-painting.
- Claude Monet was painting the portrait of a huge oak tree that stood out vividly against a ruddy cliff in the Cruse near his home in Giverny, in 1883, when his work was interrupted by three weeks of bad weather. When Monet returned to the site, the tree was in full bloom, completely enveloped in buds. At the request of Monet, the mayor of the village organized a working party that proceeded to remove every single leaf from the tree. Monet then continued painting where he had left off.
- In grassy fields above the cliffs at Etretat, Claude Monet would work on five or six paintings at the same time. As the weather changed, he would switch from one canvas to another.
- Charles Wilson Peale, the patriot painter who did portraits of Washington, Hamilton, John Paul Jones and other Revolutionary heroes, never saw a painting until he was a grown man. He was a saddle-maker in Annapolis, Maryland when he one day went to Norfolk for supplies and there saw paintings for the first time. They were so bad that he was sure he could do better. On returning home, he started to paint, made money at it and decided to make painting his career. He took lessons from John Singleton Copley in Boston and Benjamin West in London. He believed anyone could learn to paint and he taught painting to his brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, nephews, nieces and other relatives. Two of his sons, Rembrandt and Raphaelle became famous painters, as did his brother James.
- Henri Matisse's Le Bateau hung in New York's Museum of Modern Art for 47 days in 1961 before someone realized it was upside down. About 116,000 people had passed in front of the painting before the error was noticed.
- Leonardo da Vinci could draw a sketch with one hand and write with the other simultaneously.
- One of the things Leonardo da Vinci was most famous for during his time was his weightlifting ability.
- Leonardo da Vinci also invented scissors.
- Da Vinci was the first to record that the number of rings in the cross section of a tree trunk reveal its age. He also discovered that the width between the rings indicates the annual moisture.(1452)
- Among the designs left by Leonardo da Vinci around 500 years ago-with notes written backwards to be read in a mirror-were the parachute, life jacket, water pump, swim fins, well digger, paddle wheel boat, horseless carriage, sprocket chain, steam gun, water turbine, lens-grinding machine, shrapnel, machine gun, airplane, helicopter, submarine, and mass production.
Sources: A Book of Days for the Literary Year, ed. Neal T. Jones: The Emperor who Ate the Bible: and more Strange Facts and Useless Information, by Scot Morris: Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts, by Isaac Asimov; www.publishingcentral.com.
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