# Insane Russian painter **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 3, 2006, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655 "2006-12-03T03:00:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/21 "2006-12-03T18:55:48Z")
I like this theory by agrippa on this board [http://www.veryrussian.net/2006/the-mystery-painting-a-sudden-twist.html](http://www.veryrussian.net/2006/the-mystery-painting-a-sudden-twist.html) He seems correct that all the stuff on the right is just recycled imagery from the left. > [@](#): > > Comment by agrippa > 2006-12-03 12:40:02 > Not insanity, sever brain damage. > this painting is a copy of the original, however the difference is that, all of the content right from the center is missing in the copy. The copy only contains the same information from the left hand side of the painging but seen from another angle. > > Compared to the original painting, there is “nothing” on the right hand side of the copy. > > this person literally cannot conceive of anything on the right hand side of his perspective. were you to ask him to draw a clock, you would probably get only the numbers 6,7,8,9,10,11, 12, either all around the circle of the clock or trailing off at 6 and 12. the story would be much the same if you asked him to draw an upside down clock, however, the numbers would be 12,1,2,3,4,5,6. > > This person knows there is another “half” of the painting, but cannot conceive of it, and so “fills in” the right hand side with the left hand side, but from a new perspective. The only other thing I find unusual is the the amount of foliage on the trees. The original shows almost bare trees, which I’d think is the normal state of trees in such a scene. Still, it’s probably more of a sign of a careless artist than a crazy person. ---
**Author:** ![Kal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de053/32.png) [@Kal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kal)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/22 "2006-12-03T19:14:53Z")
Much of that quoted post was also on MetaFilter earlier - [link](http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/56678) (second reply to the FPP). The author then changed his mind when he realised that the first image he’d seen had a problem with the scan. A more accurate - though small - copy of the image is [here.](http://www.museum.ru/Outsider/pice.asp?psih_07) ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/23 "2006-12-03T19:18:42Z")
I don’t think he has a visual agnosia (the not being able to recognise one visual field thing) because I think the painting would look a lot more obviously “wrong”. He can still recognise the right side of smaller items, for example. If he couldn’t “see” the right side of the picture, he would probably just miss it off completely, or he’d end up with a very strange looking copy of the right side, rather than a copy of the left again. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/24 "2006-12-03T19:53:22Z")
Maybe this professor is the same guy who came up with “14 k of g in a f p d” ---
**Author:** ![diggleblop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@diggleblop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggleblop)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/25 "2006-12-03T20:12:46Z")
The insanity is in people trying to figure out what’s wrong with a painting that’s been plagiarized. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/26 "2006-12-03T20:12:48Z")
Anyway, I quite like the theory that the painting depicts the interior of one of those snow globe things. The resemblance occurred to me straight away - the grey area at the extreme lower left could be the edge of the base seen through the glass, and if you look at [this](http://www.museum.ru/Outsider/pice.asp?psih_07) version of the picture you can see a similarly curved feature in the lower right-hand corner too. If it is a snow globe, I’m not sure what that says about the artist’s supposed mental disorder. Feaure of sudden violent earth tremors? ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/27 "2006-12-03T20:22:56Z")
This is another piece by the same artist: [http://www.museum.ru/primitiv/imagee.asp?pic=KO\_0001](http://www.museum.ru/primitiv/imagee.asp?pic=KO_0001) He’s called A. Kuplin but I’ve not been able to find any biographical data, apart from the fact he’s a loony and was in a mental hospital in Moscow. ☹ Anyway, this painting is a copy of this one: [http://www.artsstudio.com/reproductions/paintings/aiv\_9thwave1.JPG](http://www.artsstudio.com/reproductions/paintings/aiv_9thwave1.JPG) So I’m still liking the “fear of drowning” idea! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/28 "2006-12-03T21:25:27Z")
Does “complete and utter lack of artistic ability” count as a mental disorder? ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/29 "2006-12-03T21:28:41Z")
If you remove the objects from the scene, it looks a bit like a mons veneris. There’s that cleft near where the skiers are, and that patch of vegetation could be pubic hair. So maybe that’s what his phobia is. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/30 "2006-12-03T21:34:29Z")
[QUOTE=Una Persson] What I’d like to know is what reputable branch of science relies upon a single painting as a strong indication, let alone proof, of mental illness. I’m immediately suspicious of this story, and think that even if the painter in question was mentally ill, I don’t see how one could make a logical conclusion between a single painting and mental illness. I think one could twist any sort of symbolism, colour, pattern, isometric positioning, etc. and invent a justification. [/QUOTE] What Una said. This is intellectual masturbation by a hack academic’s pulling stuff out of his ass analysis of a hack painter. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/31 "2006-12-03T22:09:45Z")
Repetition of sets of three? ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/32 "2006-12-03T22:35:47Z")
[QUOTE=Manduck] If you remove the objects from the scene, it looks a bit like a mons veneris. There’s that cleft near where the skiers are, and that patch of vegetation could be pubic hair. So maybe that’s what his phobia is. [/QUOTE] I agree with **Manduck**. Without all the objects, you have a vague female form, all in a deathly white, which would suggest death. Having painted a dead woman, the painter covered it up with a houses and tiny people. On second thought, none of this leads anywhere. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/33 "2006-12-04T02:49:00Z")
He is anal, teleologically obsessive compulsive, superstitious and indistinct, this is is a view of all… representive, nearly all. Je is afraid of legs. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/34 "2006-12-04T02:53:37Z")
Interesting how nobody is any of the houses and / or the shape of the drivers’ hats…? Honestly, I’m an English major–I look between the lines for a _living_–and I can’t see anything about this painting. It’s flat and repetitive, yeah, but that just means it’s _bad_. Doesn’t necessarily mean the artist is crazy. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/35 "2006-12-04T02:55:49Z")
Worth saying again that anything that’s faithfully reproduced from the original cannot be evidence of the copier’s “insanity.” ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/36 "2006-12-04T02:58:23Z")
…and buttocks. This picture is corpus expletive. He wasexpurgating ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/37 "2006-12-04T17:24:46Z")
I seem to have solved the puzzle. The answer isn’t what anyone was expecting: The artist is sane. The _professor_ is nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/38 "2006-12-04T17:52:33Z")
Can you be nuts if you don’t exist? It’s no great surprise to [learn](http://www.veryrussian.net/2006/the-painting-contains-polonium-210.html) that the Russian LiveJournaller through whom this professor supposedly communicates with the world now says that the prof. has become fed up with all the questions and refuses to talk about it any more. ---
**Author:** ![Crescend](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Crescend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crescend)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/39 "2006-12-04T18:18:48Z")
At least one part of this painting is entirely reasonable - the sets of three horses. The Troika is a traditional Russian setup for a sleigh-drawing horse team. ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2006, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655/40 "2006-12-04T19:05:43Z")
[QUOTE=Manduck] If you remove the objects from the scene, it looks a bit like a mons veneris. There’s that cleft near where the skiers are, and that patch of vegetation could be pubic hair. So maybe that’s what his phobia is. [/QUOTE] Heh. I was about to post the same thing. The couple standing next to it could represent conception. The sleighs departing, maybe Birth. To triplets. The whole hill empty looks like a woman’s breast. The whips, maybe rape to the woman. I could go on and on but won’t. (Your’e welcome!) 🙂 When will we get the answer? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/insane-russian-painter/382655.md?page=3)