Most Mysterious Secrets Found in Famous Artwork
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June 22, 2023
•16 min read
Let's investigate the most intriguing mysteries hidden in famous paintings!
Fine art can be mysterious and even those who’ve spent their whole lives trying to figure it out often miss secret codes and meanings hidden by the artist. From hidden handshakes to mathematical riddles, let’s explore the most intriguing art mysteries.
Secrets Of The Sistine Chapel
Religion has provided us with some truly inspiring art. Nothing comes close, however, to the Sistine Chapel. Between 1508 and 1512, Pope Julius II commissioned the esteemed Italian artist Michelangelo to paint the Chapel ceiling. But Michelangelo and Julius didn’t exactly see eye to eye.
Maybe that’s why the painter hid some suspicious symbols in the finished product. Take the famous The Creation of Adam, for instance. Some observant onlookers spotted that the pink mantle God is floating on looks somewhat like a human brain. And it might not be merely coincidental. In another painting on the chapel’s ceiling, Separation of Light from Darkness, the center of God’s chest up towards his chin looks just like a spinal cord and brain stem. In fact, the ceiling painting includes references to everything from kidneys to lady parts. As well as being a talented artist, Michelangelo was also a master of anatomy. As a young man, he had a job in a church graveyard, which meant he probably knew more than most about what our insides look like. It might have been a gross nine-to-five, but Michelangelo gained impeccable knowledge about how the human body looked. It is thought that Michelangelo might’ve been showing his favoritism towards science over religion and hiding it right below or above the Pope’s nose! And that’s not all. In 1536, Michelangelo was commissioned to paint the altar wall of the chapel too.Mysteries Of The Mona Lisa
You’ve definitely heard of the Mona Lisa and you might’ve even seen her at the Louvre in Paris, France. But what if you were told that the image you know isn’t what she looks like? Rather, she looks like the second one in the image below:
The image on the left is the Mona Lisa painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the early 1500s. However, the painting on the right is also the Mona Lisa, painted by one of da Vinci’s students at the same time as the original, in the very same workshop! Da Vinci’s painting has layers of old cracked varnish built up on the surface making our girl, Mona, look much older than she actually is. The student’s version was spruced up in 2012 though, restoring it to its 16th-century glory. So, now we’ve got two Monas! But can we really be sure that either of them is the real Mona? Engineer, Pascal Cotte, seems to think otherwise.Hidden Image Revealed Behind "Girl Reading A Letter At An Open Window"
Artists painted over their canvases all the time and sometimes other people paint over them and we’ve got no idea! Take, Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, by Dutch master artist Johannes Vermeer.
Something about the painting always felt so secretive, like the girl is hiding something. Well, it turns out, she was. After undergoing restoration in 2021, this was revealed. Vermeer had originally painted a large, framed painting of Cupid, the Roman God of Love, behind the letter-reading girl.The Ambassadors And The Hidden Skull
That’s enough about covering up famous paintings. How about when the mystery is hidden in plain sight? Take The Ambassadors, by 16th-century German-Swiss painter Hans Holbein the Younger, as an example.
In it, two diplomats are standing in front of a table covered in trinkets, books, and other valuable items. But it’s not either of these men or their luxurious wares who draw our focus. Instead, a strange, distorted shape across the bottom does. What is that? Creepily, it’s actually a skull. Holbein painted it using a technique called anamorphosis. When you look at a painting, you normally stand directly in front of it, so everything is presented on a flat 2D surface. But anamorphosis creates images intended to be viewed from other perspectives. If you view The Ambassadors from either side of the painting, the skull becomes visible. And some think this painting was meant to hang in a stairwell, or beside a doorway, so any passing glance would see the spooky skull in its full glory. Others think Holbein was simply flexing his brush skills. Whatever the truth, it’s seriously strange. Why a skull instead of something nice, like a kitten? Well, in the Early Renaissance, skulls were commonly used as a memento mori, a reminder that death was inevitable for all.The Cheese That Inspired Dali
Most artists are weirdos and few are as eccentric as Salvador Dali. This 20th-century Spanish Surrealist was known for his iconic pointy mustache and for antics such as taking his pet anteater on the Parisian underground.
Pieter Bruegel's Hidden Poopers
The best thing about art is you can make it about anything you want. The only limit is your imagination, something Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the most significant artist of the Dutch Renaissance, took quite literally.
He’s best remembered for painting beautiful landscapes and scenes of peasant life known as genre paintings. But some eagle-eyed analysts have noticed an unconventional subject creeping into many of his paintings. Here’s one of his most famous works, Tower of Babel. See if you can spot it.What is that man doing? Is he going potty on the beach? Gross! And this happens again and again in Bruegel’s work. You can see it in The Magpie on the Gallows and Netherlandish Proverbs. You’re probably wondering what inspired Pieter’s fecal period. Bruegel saw his art as a reflection of Dutch peasant life, it might be vulgar and crass, but it was honest.Conservation Uncovers Hidden Whale
I love beaches, provided Bruegel hasn’t left a little brown sandcastle on them! One of my favorite seaside paintings is Hendrick van Anthonissen’s 1641 painting, Scheveningen Sands.
You can smell the sea air just by looking at it. But why are all these people crowded around absolutely nothing? What are they looking at? When the painting went for restoration in 2014 and conservator Shan Kuang began lifting layers of crusty old varnish, she uncovered a man floating above the ocean. As Kuang continued gently lifting back the layers, she realized he wasn’t actually floating at all, but stood upon a dead whale washed up on the beach. So, that’s what caused half the village to turn out! Still, why cover it? Well, back then paintings were treated purely as decorative items. So if the owner didn’t like a part of them, they’d commission another artist to change it, which is likely what happened here. It's possible that thousands of our favorite paintings could’ve been changed without us ever knowing.When Madame X Scandalized The Art World
It’s hard to think nowadays that a painting could cause a great deal of commotion. However, a little over 100 years ago, American artist John Singer Sargent made a painting so controversial he had to flee the country.
Madame X was it debuted in Paris in 1884. The painting was almost universally disliked. The neckline of the dress showed too much skin for audiences at the time, something that wasn’t helped by the right shoulder strap draping seductively off her arm. Although Sargent took steps to keep his model’s anonymity, she was immediately recognized as Parisian socialite Virginie Gautreau and her family lost their minds. They demanded Sargent repaint the strap onto her shoulder, which he obliged, but the damage was already done. Everyone in Paris refused to work with Sargent ever again. So, he fled to London to start a new life. But Paris’ loss was the art world’s gain. Sargent went on to become one of the most influential artists of his era. That’s karma for being a big bunch of prudes.
The Mystery Of The Madonna And The UFO
In 1947, American pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying his plane past Mount Rainier when he spotted nine unidentified flying objects. This is widely regarded as the first time anyone had claimed to see UFOs in the modern era.
But what about before the modern era? Because when looking at the painting Madonna and Child with the Infant St John, by an unknown artist at the end of the 15th century, you can't help but notice something otherworldly looking.The Hidden Math In Van Gogh's Starry Night
You probably know of Vincent van Gogh, his ear-cutting antics are almost as famous as his paintings. But in Starry Night, from 1889, the way van Gogh captured the night sky, in a seemingly pulsating flow of starlight, shocked both the art world and the scientific community.
Those brainy whitecoats thought the way van Gogh caught movement within a still image reminded them of something called “turbulent flow”. If you drop one liquid into another liquid, it all seems to move in the same direction, at least for a few seconds. However, before long it splits off and forms its own patterns seemingly at random. Only, it's not random, this movement is known as turbulent flow.
Hand-In-Waistcoat Mozart
Loads of our historical heroes were part of secret societies. Take a look at this portrait below of a young Mozart, done in 1763 by Pietro Antonio Lorenzoni. The hand tucked into the jacket could show allegiance to the Freemasons.
They’re a secretive order that communicates their membership via special hand signals and shakes and they had many high-ranking members across major societal elites. People like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Winston Churchill were all members of the Masonic Lodge. Mozart was definitely a member of the guild, but he didn’t join until 1784, twenty-one years after the portrait! Then why did Lorenzoni depict him like this, all that time before? Well, many portraits from the 18th and 19th centuries depicted noblemen with their hands in their jackets. You can think of it as the Enlightenment era’s answer to the duck face. But it still seems a little too coincidental that Mozart would later join the Freemasons.The Riddle Of Millais' Huguenot
In John Everett Millais’ 1852 painting, A Huguenot, we see two young lovers sharing a tender sweet moment. But what’s she doing with her hands? Is she binding him? What betrayal is going on here?
Last Supper And The Fibonacci
Da Vinci loved Math, so much so, he painted in it. Take The Last Supper as an example. The painting tells the story of Jesus’ last meal with his apostles. The entire painting can be broken down by something known as the Fibonacci sequence. It’s a chain of numbers where the next number in the sequence is found by adding together the last two numbers.
Keeping those numbers in mind while looking at the painting, we can see one table, one central figure, and two groups on either side of Jesus, whose shape resembles a triangle, symbolizing the trinity of father, son, and the holy spirit.Van Gogh's Religious Zeal
Van Gogh's Café Terrace at Night is up there with the most famous paintings of all time. On the eponymous terrace, a waiter dressed in white is surrounded by twelve diners. One distinctive figure surrounded by twelve others, just like the Last Supper!
One of the diners is even trying to make his getaway into the shadows, which some researchers believe is meant to be Judas on his way to betray Jesus. Or in this case, not pay for his cappuccino. What a sneak!