Surprising Art and Creativity Facts
Fact · 8 facts — swipe through each one · May 31, 5:00 PM
Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand while drawing with the other at the same time.
Vincent van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime, and it was to a friend.
The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows because it was the fashion in Renaissance Florence to shave them off.
Claude Monet, a founder of French Impressionism, used to destroy his own paintings if he was dissatisfied with them.
The color wheel, still used by artists today, was invented by Sir Isaac Newton in 1704.
The modern concept of 'artistic genius' emerged during the Renaissance, shifting the perception of artists from craftsmen to creative visionaries.
Jackson Pollock used to lay his canvases on the floor to drip paint onto them, a technique known as action painting.
Michelangelo carved the David from a block of marble that another sculptor had already started and deemed irreparable.
Surprising Facts About Music and Sound
Fact · 9 facts — swipe through each one · Apr 6, 2:51 AM
The human ear can detect sounds as quiet as 0 decibels, which is the sound of a mosquito flying 10 feet away.
The song 'Jingle Bells' was originally written for Thanksgiving, not Christmas.
Plants can grow faster when they 'listen' to music, particularly classical music.
The world's oldest known musical instrument is a flute made from bird bone and mammoth ivory, dating back around 40,000 years.
Listening to music can improve physical performance, as it often increases endurance and boosts mood.
The mosquito 'buzz' is technically a love song, as males and females synchronize their wing beats in a harmonic duet.
Your heartbeat synchronizes to the rhythm of the music you listen to.
In space, no one can hear sound, but astronauts have reported hearing mysterious music-like sounds on the far side of the moon.
The brain releases dopamine, a 'feel-good' chemical, when you listen to your favorite songs.
Interesting Facts About Color and Light
Fact · 9 facts — swipe through each one · Apr 5, 5:08 PM
The human eye can distinguish about 10 million different colors.
Bees can see ultraviolet light, which helps them find nectar in flowers.
White light is a combination of all the colors in the visible spectrum.
Red light has the longest wavelength of all visible colors, which is why it's often used in night vision devices.
The sky appears blue because of Rayleigh scattering, which causes shorter blue wavelengths to scatter more than other colors.
Some animals, like the mantis shrimp, can see polarized light, which is invisible to humans.
A prism can separate white light into its component colors, creating a spectrum similar to a rainbow.
Fireworks get their colors from metal salts, with copper creating blue and strontium producing red.
The famous artist Claude Monet was known to have painted the same scene in different lighting conditions to capture the changing colors.
Interesting Facts About Art and Creativity
Fact · 8 facts — swipe through each one · Apr 5, 9:42 AM
Leonardo da Vinci spent 12 years painting the lips of the Mona Lisa.
Vincent van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime, yet he completed over 900 works.
The oldest recorded 'art' is a shell with a zigzag engraving dating back 540,000 years.
Claude Monet destroyed up to 500 of his own paintings in fits of frustration.
The first documented use of the term 'artificial intelligence' was in a 1956 conference at Dartmouth College which has since influenced creative digital art developments.
The famous melting clocks in Salvador Dalí's 'The Persistence of Memory' were inspired by Camembert cheese melting in the sun.
The word 'cartoon' originally referred to preparatory sketches for fine art, rather than the animations we know today.
Artists Piet Mondrian and Snoop Dogg share the same birthday, March 7th.