A well-known story: having seen The Bathers by Gustave Courbet at the Paris Salon of 1853, Napoleon III stroke it with his whip. But why did he do that?

Common version: the emperor was outraged by the rough naturalism: instead of the goddess there was a dumpy peasant with dirty feet.

Alternative version: It wasn't about Courbet at all – that’s how Napoleon responded to his wife’s brilliant joke. The Empress Eugénie accompanied him at the exhibition. After she had been struck by the way Rosa Bonheur endowed her horses with large rumps, it had to be explained to her that these were sturdy percherons and not slim-built chargers. When she reached The Bathers, Eugénie indicated the one who was removing her chemise and revealing her buttocks, and asked with a smile if she was a percheron too. Napoleon III was delighted with the joke and took advantage of it, apparently, by cracking his whip over the painting.

In his last years, Salvador Dalí suffered from parkinsonism, which precluded him from painting. And then his wife, incomparable and extraordinary Gala, found a Spanish artist Manuel Pujol of Baladas. In 1979–1981, he created about 400 works: oil paintings (about 200!), drawings, watercolors, lithographs, and he signed each of them with the famous signature of Salvador Dalí. These "unpleasant" details became known to the public, but the surrealist did not lose his head. He said that fakes are excellent, and they could well be his works!

At the age of 15, Arkhip Kuindzhi started studying art under Aivazovsky. A shy, full-bodied young man arrived in Feodosia wearing a shirt, a colourful vest, checkered pants bubbling on his knees, and a straw hat. The young Kuindzhi really amused Ivan Aivazovsky and his daughter Elena, who had a good laugh at his naive village daub and crimson face. Arkhip lived under the shed in the yard for two months, since he was not allowed into the studio. At the end of his "training" the master entrusted Kuindzhi to paint his fence (though he got some practical advice from Aivazovsky's disciple Adolf Faessler). Kuindzhi learned this lesson for life and Kuindzhi never refused anyone anything.

Botticelli was unhappy in love and never married, because he was in love with Simonetta Vespucci, the first beauty of the Renaissance era, dubbed La Sans Pareille. She became a model of the famous painting "The Birth of Venus", her image was also on other canvases by the master. Unfortunately, Simonetta never belonged to him: she was the wife of Marco Vespucci (the cousin of the famous Florentine navigator Amerigo Vespucci!) and the beloved of the younger brother of the Florentine ruler Giuliano Medici. However, it didn’t make Simonetta’s fate happy. The beauty, which made crazy all the noble men of the city, died of tuberculosis at the age of 23. Botticelli was buried next to Simonetta in the church of Ognisanti 34 years after her death, according to the will of the creator.

At age 26, an American portraitist John Singer Sargent had a misfortune of meeting with a model Virginie Gautreau, a Frenchwoman, the wife of a large banker from Paris. The beauty, capable of very extravagant deeds, easily agreed to pose for the artist. But her full-growth portrait in a black dress, favorably emphasizing her curves, caused a real scandal in the Salon: everyone recognized the heroine of the "Portrait of the Lady X". In her profile, decorated with half-moon of the Roman goddess of hunting, the husband of the model saw a hint not at the majestic Diana, but at the hunting "hound", which sniffs, preparing to take the trail. At the behest of Pierre Gautreau, Sargent was accused of sexist attitudes and even immorality. As a result, the artist had to say goodbye to Paris.

Van Gogh's Sunflowers are fading. This was confirmed by experts who have studied the version of the painting from the artist’s museum in Amsterdam. The thing is that the artist used two differing yellow pigments in the work, one of which is extremely sensitive to light and is fading to a brownish colour over time as a result. It seems that the artist himself was all too aware that the colours in his work were transient. "Paintings fade like flowers," he wrote in a letter to his brother Theo. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has already lowered its galleries’ lighting in an attempt to slow the aging process of 200 paintings and 400 drawings by the artist.

Suzanne taught young Édouard and his brothers music at their parents’ house. She gave birth to a son, Leon: was he Manet's godson, brother or son? At first, Suzanne became his secret lover, hidden from prying eyes for 10 years, and only then – his wife. Manet’s mistresses laughed at her kindness and plumpness, she never came to the studio, but it was to her that Manet daily sent pigeons with letters from the besieged Paris: "I woke up last night thinking I heard you calling me..." The poetry and prose of life went hand in hand in this story. One day Manet was following some pretty girl on the streets of Paris and stumbled upon Susanne. "I thought it was you," the artist said cheerfully to his wife.

In 1564, the famous Italian artist Jacopo Tintoretto, cunningly won the Scuola Grande Di San Rocco commission. His competitors were the best Italian painters of that time, but Tintoretto successfully implemented the "multi-way combination": instead of a sketch, he presented a finished work Saint Roch. Moreover, knowing that the statute of the Scuola (school) di San Rocco forbids refusing gifts, the master wrote on his painting "to Saint Roch from Jacopo Tintoretto". They had no choice but to give the commission to the inventive artist! And he got something to do for the next 23 years: it took so much time to create 69 compositions.

When Claude Monet turned 20, he had to participate in the drawing of lots. At that time, there was no conscription in France, but under the law in force, all young men of the city who reached the age of twenty were gathered and had their names written on pieces of paper which were put into the ballot box – in this way a lottery system determined who was called up for military service. They had to serve 7 years. It was also officially allowed to pay for someone to take your place. But Claude had already started dreaming about white sands, starry nights, and an incredibly beautiful military uniform.
Monet asked to serve in Algeria. He spent a year in the personal protection of marshal Pélissier but didn't participate in a single military campaign. Monet escaped out of boredom and despair – and was found unconscious and feverish by his colleagues. He had typhoid. Unlike his colleagues (Impressionists), Monet remained indifferent to oriental exotics.

When the house is under repair, the true artists paint from nature! Caillebotte submitted his painting Les raboteurs de parquet (The Floor Scrapers) to the jury of the Salon, the official exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris. The work was rejected, but it caught the attention of Edgar Degas and Auguste Renoir, who encouraged Caillebotte to exhibit with the impressionists. The painting became one of the sensations of the Second Impressionist exhibition in 1876! And the reviews were mixed: the admirers appreciated it being "beautifully truthful and accurate", the critics deemed it "unfinished, vulgar and anti-artistic", and Émile Zola denounced this work as being "photographic" and "bourgeois." Now this painting is considered to be one of the pearls of the Musée d'Orsay collection.

A young singer became a model for the Christ in the famous Da Vinci’s painting. Then for another three years, Leonardo was looking for a model to depict Judas. And suddenly, when he saw a drunkard lying about in the gutter, the artist decided that it was the man to pose for Judas! He dragged his "find" into a tavern, where he immediately began to paint him as Judas. When the drunk man sobered up, he told the artist that he had already posed for him when he sang in the church choir: it was the same man who was da Vinci's model for Christ.

The favorite place of residence of artists in Paris at the beginning of the last century was the subject of jokes. So, the artist Federer in difficult times loved to encourage his friend Amshey Nyurenberg:
"You have a magnificent workshop on Rue de la Santé, 32, next to the famous Santé prison". Above its entrance, at the top of the gate there is a historical revolutionary inscription: "Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood". Of course, you would say what an irony. Then," he added, "in front of your workshop, there is a nunnery. Every morning, in the open window at the gate, you see gentle female hands. A mug of milk is in one of them, a piece of white bread in the other. Here's your breakfast ready! And not far from the studio is the famous Parisian venereal Hospital Cochin. What do you want, my friend?”

"Women of Algiers (Version O)" by Pablo Picasso set a new world record as the most expensive painting sold at auction. On May 12, 2015 at Christie's auction in New York they paid more than $179 million for it. Previously, the most expensive work sold at auction was Francis Bacon's triptych " Three Studies for Portrait of Lucian Freud". In November 2013, it was auctioned at Christie's for $142.4 million, taking the priority from Edward Munch’s "Scream".

At the meetings of the young artists (future Impressionists) at Café Guerbois, Cézanne was a strange participant: he would break in all messy, wheeze, greet everyone, make a few rude jokes and then sit in silence listening to conversations about new art. When he didn’t like something said, he would just get up loudly and leave. When asked by the elegant painter Edouard Manet what he would show at the next Salon, Cézanne answered: "a pot of shit".
Every time, the judges of the Salon would squeamishly wait for this madman to bring his new masterpieces in a rattling truck or carrying them on his back. They got used to it. Cézanne would repeat that trick for 18 years until in 1882 his painting was accepted at the Salon.

Auguste Renoir liked painting pictures but didn't like talking about them. The connoisseurs of art, who grilled the artist about the sublime even on a train, would often hear his: "Sorry, I know nothing about high art, my works are pornographic". Yet, there's a grain of joke in every joke. The same Renoir was quite serious when saying: "I loved women even before I learned to walk... I never think I have finished a nude until I think I could pinch it.”

Alexander Benois is considered the main critic and opponent of creativity of Kazimir Malevich. Benois considered the works of Malevich a "dead-end branch". It is no surprise, as Malevich called for "stabbing the art of painting and abandoning obsolete Madonnas and Venuses." For Benoit, such a philosophy was blasphemous, so he tirelessly criticized Malevich in his articles and speeches. Here is his review on the "Black Square": this work allegedly had its beginning in an abomination of desolation and through "trampling all the tenderness and love, it will inevitably lead the world to imminent death." Well, has history judged them?

Apart from domestic animals, Pablo Picasso always had many birds. The French photographer and sculptor Michel Sima found a little owl in Antibes and gave it to Picasso. It was brought from Antibes to Paris, and lived in the artist's kitchen, sharing a cage with canaries and doves. The owl had a wild temper and rejected everyone except for Picasso. And the artist, known for his Dove of Peace drawing, also painted owls.

Velasquez was a court painter: successful, but not as famous as he would have liked. First, only those admitted to the palace could appreciate his paintings: authors who painted pictures and frescoes for public temples were much more popular. Secondly, the Spaniard Velasquez was almost unknown in Italy, which he considered the birthplace of the beauty itself. One day, having arrived to Rome, Velasquez painted a portrait of his servant, handed him this portrait, and sent to go to the homes of local aristocrats and artists, saying, look, here I am the original, Pareja the Moor, and here is my portrait by Velasquez! It had effect! This portrait was eventually exhibited in the Pantheon, and Velasquez received orders from the Italian noblemen.

No one managed to avoid the sarcastic jokes and condescending remarks of Edgar Degas. Everybody got it in the neck: artists and writers, critics and politicians; admiring biographers and chroniclers of Impressionism even recorded excerpts of Degas's conversations in cafes and at the exhibitions.
When Pablo Picasso settled in Montmartre, there had been legends about Edgar Degas. Residents of the commune Bateau-Lavoir, their guests and friends (poets and artists) spent evenings "playing Degas". The point of the game was to insult each other in a perfectly calm voice and as politely and secular as possible.

By the early 1940s, Lucian Freud – the grandson of the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud and the future cult British artist – had already been a student of two British schools. He got kicked out of the last one for bad behaviour: dropping his trousers in public for a bet. Having been thrown out of several art schools, Freud finally gave up on academic education and decided to become a sailor. Having mastered the art of tattooing, Lucian quickly made friends with other sailors, but his first voyage left him with severe tonsillitis, putting paid to the sea career. Freud had no other choice rather than becoming an artist.