Art Central
The Art and the Artist
Did you know a famous artist wrote his notes backwards, and an Indian artist helped decorate our Constitution? Meet some artists and the surprising stories behind their work!
Did you know?
Leonardo da Vinci wrote most of his personal notes in 'mirror writing', from right to left with every letter reversed. The easiest way to read them is to hold them up to a mirror!
The original handwritten Constitution of India was decorated by artists from Santiniketan, led by Nandalal Bose. Its pictures include a Harappan seal, Nataraja and the freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose.
Raja Ravi Varma, a famous Indian painter, set up a printing press in Mumbai in 1894. Its low-cost prints meant ordinary people could own copies of his paintings.
Try this: Write Like Leonardo
Write your name and a short secret message backwards, so that it reads correctly in a mirror. Start from the right side of the page and reverse every letter. Hold it up to a mirror: can you read it now? Swap secret messages with a friend and decode them with a mirror.
Go further: Art Detectives
Some paintings hide secrets! Experts use X-rays and special infrared cameras to see beneath the paint. Under Pablo Picasso's painting 'The Blue Room' (1901), they found a hidden portrait of a bearded man wearing a bow tie. Picasso was poor at the time, so he reused old canvases instead of buying new ones. These hidden layers help us understand how an artist worked and changed their mind.