When asked why he chose to paint X, the artist offered a deadpan reply: “I used to have the same lunch every day, for twenty years, I guess, the same thing over and over again.”
That daily meal became the subject of this work consisting of 32 individual pieces.
Which artwork am I talking about?
The art piece was mocked at the time of its release because of its pedestrian nature.
However today, the work has become synonymous with Pop Art & is displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York stating "Repeating the nearly identical image, the canvases at once stress the uniformity and ubiquity of the product’s packaging and subvert the idea of painting as a medium of invention and originality".
Watch how Andy Warhol changed the face of Pop Art.
Category: Art
[303]
Due to years of aging & darkened canvas, this painting came to be called XY. However, in reality both X & Y are incorrect. The painting is supposed to be a day time scene & the subjects are a civic guard.
The original name of the painting ‘Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq’ and is one of the most famous Dutch Golden Age paintings.
Identify the painting.
Show AnswerThe Night Watch, a 1642 painting by Rembrandt van Rijn
Watch a Nerdwriter Video on why it is so popular.
Or Zoom Infinitely into the painting to see its aging.
[263]
In October 2018, an artwork was sold for £1m at London auction house Sotheby’s. However, as soon as the gavel hit the sound-block, the artwork was (partially) destroyed through a remote control mechanism.
The stunt was called “the first artwork in history to have been created live during an auction”. Also, the price of the work increased almost 18-fold in just 3 years.
Can you identify the artist behind this?
[229]
X is the world’s most expensive painting ever sold & is reported to be in the possession of the Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
This painting’s title translates to ‘Saviour of the World’.
Can you identify this painting?
Show AnswerSalvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci
The original painting by Leonardo was thought to have been destroyed or lost around 1603. In 2005, the painting resurfaced again, but was heavily overpainted, to the point where the painting resembled a copy. From there it was resorted back to its original glory.
Read More.
[207]
While the idea behind the portrait was to show a larger than life character & traditions in the 21st century.
However, its striking red colour was immediately linked to symbolism of blood & hell fire. Perhaps due to the history of the subject & his family.
Whose portrait are we discussing?
Show AnswerKing Charles III
The bold portrait, painted by British artist Jonathan Yeo, is the first official portrait of the 75-year-old king since his May 2023 coronation. It was unveiled inside Buckingham Palace on May 14.
Read More about the artist's interpretation of the work.
[205]
Originally called Der Schrei der Natur, this iconic painting was completed in 1893.
There have been many speculations about the inspiration behind the painting, ranging from: the powerful volcanic eruption at Karkatoa, Stratospheric clouds, to admission of the painter’s sister to a mental asylum.
Can you guess the painting?
Show AnswerThe Scream by Edward Munch. The painting has been called an expression of anxiety of the human condition.
While there are a lot of speculations about the inspiration, there is no common consensus.
Read More about the theories.
[164]
X was born in Italy in 1479 and at the age of 15 was married to a modestly successful silk & cloth merchant. Years after their marriage, her husband commissioned a portrait of her. However in the middle of the assignment, the artist found more important work, leaving the portrait unfinished for years.
The artist was finally able to complete the work many years later, but never gave it back to X’s family.
Can you identify X, the subject of this portrait?
[114]
Following a rather tepid album release in 1986, influential English artist X had a bit of a brainwave and released a seventh solo album titled (in Cyrillic) СНОВА В СССР in 1988, consisting entirely of live-in-studio covers of older (English) rock and roll songs, and distributed only in the Soviet Union on the Soviet government-run Melodiya label.
Soon after, though, copies of the album began popping up outside the Soviet bloc (which, in a way, had been X’s initial intention), going for anywhere between $100-$250 in the US and up to £500 in the UK. This eventually led to a global release of the album in 1991, notably with the title misprinted as “СНОВА Б СССР”.
Who is X?
[110]
What word is used to refer to either:
-a particular cut of meat, usually veal, used in Italian and French cooking, usually cooked in wine or other sauces, or
-a type of bivalve mollusc that is prized both for its meat that is sold as seafood and for its symmetric, fluted, fan-shaped shells?
[108]
St. Burchardi Church is a nearly thousand-year old church in Halberstadt, Germany, just a short walk away from the famed Halberstadt Cathedral.
On February 5, 2024, fans flocked to the church to bear witness to a moment they’d been waiting for for two years. Another such moment is expected to occur in 2026, and there will be quite a few more after that.
What’s going on behind that unassuming stone face?
[92]
Santa Maria delle Grazie (“Holy Mary of Grace”) is a lovely, if initially unassuming, 15th-century terracotta-stone church and convent located in Milan, Italy. While every brick of the church is rightly regarded as an architectural and artistic jewel, there’s something special about the north wall in the dining hall that led to the building’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
On the night of August 15, 1943, an Allied aerial strike partly destroyed the site — that north wall was one of the few left standing, having been protected since the start of World War II by sandbags and scaffolding.
Why is that wall so important?
[80]
As a way to make their product stand out from the competition, one of the founders of this company would sign each finished product package to imply that it had been personally inspected and was the real deal.
With increasing demand, they designed a stylized, enhanced version of the signature in bright red, multiple iterations of which have served as the iconic logo for the company — up until very recently, when it was split into two entities, one of which now bears the full name of the founder and an expanded version of the logo.
What (former) company?
[47]
X is thought to have originated independently in different countries around the world, however the earliest records have been found in China. German educator Friedrich Froebel, inventor of the kindergarten, was an avid advocate of X and its educational benefits and related it to Life, Truth & Beauty. In fact the art form that we know X by today, derives a lot from German ideas, which standardized it & gave it its iconic rules like ‘no cutting’.
Identify X.