We all are a walking story who wants to live forever, feel heard by someone and that’s what art fulfills. A story that’s conveyed through paintings is eternal. Words can be powerful but there are some emotions and feelings that even words fail to capture and that is when the painting takes over and splashes those paints of sprinting thoughts onto the canvas.
Through art, we can not just travel back and forth but live millions of lives and disappear into a fantasy world where we are the main character.
This universe is a painting of its own, a giant storybook where the creative minds have conveyed their thoughts and stories through paintings. Where they have poured all kinds of emotions, feelings, memories, perspectives, experiences, and precious moments into a canvas that they have experienced in this journey of life.
Let’s cross the threshold of the museum and lose ourselves in the 7 most famous paintings which have a jaw-dropping story and meaning to it.
The Persistence Of Memory: Melting Clock
This is one of the most famous artworks of the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali in the year 1931. Dali describes his artwork as “Hand-painted Dream Photographs”. He said that he was inspired to paint this when he ate a super-soft cheese. These melting clocks look like blankets that are covering a sleeping figure’s back.
The clock symbolizes memory, time, and Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity (clock cannot capture time). Surrealism (capturing the dream state) is the key to unlocking this famous painting. The painting represents how in the dream world we experience different time-zone, where hours seem like no time at all because there is no time in the dream world.
Three Girls
This portrait was the first painted by the Indian artist Amrita Sher-Gil after her return from Europe for which she won a gold medal. Three girls is a silent expression that indicates melancholy.
This painting has beautifully captured the epitome of patience and the helplessness of the Indian women which tells the story of how the Indian ladies do not have a say in their future. Sher-Gil brought life to this painting when she visited her grandparents and met these three sisters who were her siblings.
She was fascinated with their innocence and decided to capture this simple life yet powerful emotions.
The Scream
The scream was originally titled “The shriek of nature” which was painted by Norwegian artist Evard Munch who had a different intention when he painted this. The artist said that when he was walking down the path where the city was on one side, he felt sick and stopped and looked over the fjord where the clouds were turning bloodish red because of the sunset. And heard a scream passing through nature.
It is the most expensive painting that was stolen three times but was received. This masterpiece reveals the excessive pressure of modern life.
Whistler’s Mother
This Magnificent artwork was created by James Abbott Mc Neill. He is known for his “art for art’s sake” style where he considers art to be beautiful even if it doesn’t have any political or moral values added to it. This painting was an accidental painting that has a hilarious and exciting story to it.
James originally hired a model to pose for his painting but the model never showed up. For the replacement, he asked his mother to become the model. He planned to paint the portrait in the standing state but because his mother was old hence it became a seated portrait.
Many rejected this artwork but soon it got approved because of his mother’s help. And this painting became a slap in the face of people who rejected it.
The Two Fridas
This artwork is a self-portraiture of the most well-known Mexican artist Frida Khalo. The Two Fridas painting portrays the pain of Frida’s physical and emotional life. In this painting, we see the before and after Fridas.
The one on the right is the Frida in her Mexican traditional clothes who Rivera fell in love with and the lift one is the Frida as a bride who Rivera had cheated and left. Frida had faced several traumatic incidents and pain in her life but the separation from Rivera (husband) made her miserable.
The painting captures the strong will of Frida, where she supports herself proving that she can endure and heal this pain too by herself. And this is the reason we can feel her strong energy in all the paintings, into which she poured her heart and captured all her emotions.
American Gothic
American Gothic was created by Grant Wood in the year 1930. This is a national icon and a leading exponent of religionism which appears to be a depiction of a couple – A weathered wife and a depression-era farmer. In reality, they both are father and daughter.
Starry Starry Night
This beautiful swirling painting is created by Vincent Van Gogh in the year 1889. Even though this painting is been celebrated worldwide now, it holds a lot of vincent’s pain and he didn’t like this painting much.
He painted this when he was in a mental asylum where he saw this view out of his window before the sunrise. These morning stars were confirmed to be venus which came closer. Vincent had added his imagination to it which is the reason for its obsession.
Conclusion
The true meaning of any painting is uncertain which is why it still holds beauty. And this is also the reason why many paintings get sold for millions of dollars because the interpretation of a human’s complicated feelings about themselves and the world around them is not an easy job to capture. And bringing life to a canvas is a creation that is indeed priceless.
