. . . after much disagreement by art historians, it is now accepted that Jan Van Eyck had an older brother, Pictor Hubertus Eyck (Hubert), who worked with Jan on Adoration of the Lamb.

. . . Florentine master painter Giotto di Bondone (1267 -1337) was also an accomplished architect? In 1334 Giotto's architectural skills were employed when he was put in charge of the building operations of Florence Cathedral for which he painted several panel pieces. The most celebrated piece being Ognisanti Madonna (1305 - 10).

. . . Artist Edgar Degas was so fascinated with ballet dancers that he became obsessed with representing them in his art? It is estimated Degas made approximately 1500 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings of dancers.

. . . in 1962 Leonardo DaVinci's Mona Lisa was valued at $100 million? Who knows what it would be worth today!

. . . there was an art movement called Pop Art? In the mid-1950's through to the early 1960's an art movement called Pop Art celebrated images from popular culture, advertising and the mass media. Exponents of Pop Art employed collage, air-brush and other techniques sometimes duplicating commercial silk-screen effects by hand. Artists such as Warhol and Lichtenstein took their subjects from popular American. Warhol's '100 cans of Campbell's Soup' and his repeated images of Marilyn Monroe are some of the most well known artworks to emerge from this movement.

. . . the first pigments used in painting were ground from earth, minerals and organic matter? Pigment is finely-ground colored powder which, when suspended in a medium such as oil, egg or water, forms paint. Most pigments are now made chemically and are more permanent.

. . . the word 'cartoon' originally comes from painting terminology? The term 'cartoon' relates to a preliminary, but fully worked, sketch from which the outlines could be transferred to be the basis of a design for a fresco or painting.

. . . artist Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) completed nearly 200 still-life paintings in his lifetime? The early 19th century saw a decline in the popularity of Still-life composition. Cezanne's love of the still-life was largely responsible for rekindling its popularity in the late 19th century. Cezanne seemed to revel in its possibilities creating an infinitely varied series of compositions repeatedly using a small set of household objects, along with everyday fruit and vegetables.

. . . a tessellation is a design made from shapes that fit together perfectly. For example a chessboard is a simple tessellation mad of squares.

. . . The Louvre was originally constructed as the fortress of Philippe Auguste in 1190.

. . . John James Audubon painted 435 watercolors of birds in his life time. He was born on the Caribbean island of Santo Domingo in 1784. In 1802 he moved to the United states where he fell in love with the bird life and made it his life's work to paint a picture of every species of bird in America.

Resources:

The Worldwide Art Gallery