3 Famous Paintings You Should Know the Backstory to

Christina’s World (1948) by Andrew Wyeth

Beloved by the public, Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World evokes strong feelings of nostalgia, longing and also a sort of calmness, brought on by the desolate, flat rural landscape. However, what you may not know is that there was a real life Christina, an Anna Christina Olson that was actually Wyeth’s neighbor who he modeled the painting after. At a young age, Olson had developed a degenerative muscle condition (what is now presumed to be polio) that left her crippled and unable to walk. Choosing to crawl using her forearms instead of using a wheelchair, Wyeth was enamored with and inspired by the hardships of her life. Upon completing Christina’s World, he remarked that “The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless.”

The Starry Night (1889) by Vincent Van Gogh

One of the most famous and well known paintings of all time, Van Gogh’s The Starry Night is a magnificent work of vibrant blues swirling to create an abstracted night sky. Painted just thirteen months prior to Gogh’s passing, The Starry Night was painted while Gogh was staying in an asylum in Saint-Remy, France, where he based the painting on the view from his room window. Although the painting depicts the sky at night, Van Gogh actually worked on the piece during the day, pulling directly from his imagination to reimagine the sky at night, illuminated by glowing celestial shapes. 

Ophelia (1851) by Sir John Everett Millais, Bt

Based on the death of Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Millais painted Ophelia in two parts. Beginning with the background, Millais supposedly based it off part of the Hogsmill river at Ewell in Surrey. He spent more time rendering the background, as he believed the background should be equally as important as the portrait, a less popular belief at the time. When it came time to paint the portrait of Ophelia, Millais used a young model named Elizabeth Siddal. To recreate the drowning scene from the play, Siddal had to model in a bathtub of water, kept warm by oil lamps underneath. However, on one occasion, the lamps went out and Siddal became ill after posing in cold water for a long duration of time. Millais was forced to pay her medical bills, and luckily, she recovered rather quickly after.

Resources: 

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78455 

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79802 

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-ophelia-n01506/story-ophelia