Maria Santi:
The Killer Artists

Myths are tenacious. Artists are presented to the viewer as hermits, then prophets, then asexual angels. We list those geniuses to whom you would not turn your back.

1. In my collection of killer artists, Jacques-Louis David is remarkable for killing with a stroke of the pen. Sitting in the convention, signed decrees. Including voted for the execution of the king.

Jacques Louis David. "Self portrait." 1794.

2. Orest Kiprensky, a promising graduate of the Academy of Arts, rented a house in Rome. He served an Italian, who had a little daughter. The woman was a cleaning lady and a washerwoman, and a cook, and a muse. Once she was found dead. On the same day they found the corpse of a cobbler who lived nearby. The victims were lovers. And although the servants of the law did not find reasons to put Kiprensky in prison, the neighbors ostracized him. Teenagers threw stones at him and shouted:

- Assassin! Assassin!

Kiprensky wandered until he settled in Moscow. For many years he sent small amounts, which was enough to keep an orphaned girl in the monastery. When she came of age, came and married her. The homeless had no particular choice.

The young lived in Italy, did not get along, the wife sawed her husband. Soon he washed down and, having burned for several years, died. She sold to Russia all the paintings, including her portrait of a child.

Orest Adamovich Kiprensky: Girl in a poppy wreath with a carnation in her hand (Mariuccia). 1819.

3. Benvenuto Cellini loved not only to stick a knife into his neighbor, but also to boast of victory. Fought one against five! And not just like that, but with great dexterity!

“I approached him with great dexterity with a large pistol dagger, and when I hit him swiftly, thinking to completely cut his neck, he turned very quickly in the same way, and the blow hit the end of his left shoulder and split the whole bone; jumping up, dropping his sword, beside himself with great pain, he rushed to run; I, following him, overtook him in four steps, and lifting the dagger over his head, and he bent it strongly, the dagger fell just between the neck bone and the back of the head, and I entered into both so deep that the dagger I, no matter how hard I tried to pull him out, could not; because four soldiers jumped out of the said house of Antei, holding swords in their hands, so I had to take up my sword to defend myself against them. ”

(c) “The Life of Benvenuto Cellini, Told Himself”

4. Goya killed a guy in a duel, and then wandered around with a troupe of matadors. The take-off of the artist’s career began after he married the daughter of the court artist Francisco Bayeu.

5. Caravaggio was famous for robbery during his lifetime. If you climbed into your pocket, then not a word, but a knife.

For example, for inspiration when working on the painting “The Resurrection of Lazarus”, he dug up a dead man. The sitters were indignant and did not want to keep the dead!

The artist took out a knife and threatened to send them to a freshly excavated grave.

The result is in front of you.

Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio. The Resurrection of Lazarus. 1609.

Bonus track. According to rumors:

6. Rumor had it that Michelangelo killed the sitter in order to more reliably show the torments of the dying Christ. It seems to me that Michelangelo could finish off a subordinate only for a daring look. Remember the lack of elementary principles of labor protection and the fact that the sitters did not go from a full life. But the master of a heavy character Buonarotti would only grunt that art required it.

7. Titian reigned in Venice. His throne stood in a swampy area of changeable sympathies of customers. Competition increased every year. The young artist Pordenone competed openly, and he happened to intercept the orders of the master. That’s why when

the rival suddenly and suddenly died, all the artist’s friends accused Titian of poisoning.

Who wants to hear even more stories from the author of the article, come to the lecture-discussion “Violence in art” on Friday, January 30 at 19-30. The price and location can be found in the author’s group http://fb.com/proiskusstvo and by phone +7 (968) 434-24-61.