Creative History

  This painting is entitled Easter Snow.   It is from the year 1915.  It is a peaceful, idyllic; almost Norman Rockwell-esque painting in the simplistic Americana that it depicts--the seeming innocence and simplicity of ordinary families trudging unexpectedly through surprising snow drifts on their way to a springtime Easter church service. Though this painting by famed realist American artist George Wesley Bellows is iconic and serene, the historical event that Bellows depicted with his rich brush-strokes in this image, was in reality, anything but peaceful and serene. To those on the east coast of the United States who lived through the great Easter Blizzard, sometimes referred to as the Easter Nor’easter of April 3-4, 1915 the singular storm that Bellows iconically depicted in his painting was both shocking and terrifying. The forecast for Saturday, April 3, 1915 printed in Friday’s edition of the Philadelphia Enquirer said only that there would be, “[P]eriods of...

  Vincenzo Peruggia is a 30 year old aspiring artist who has recently emigrated from Florence, Italy, to Paris and found work as a handyman at the Louvre, the world’s most renowned art museum. Peruggia has a checkered past.  During his short time living as a member of Paris’ Bohemian art community in various boarding houses he has been arrested twice, once for assaulting a prostitute and one other time for having drawn a gun in the midst of a drunken brawl. But early on the morning of August 21, 1911 aspiring artist and petty criminal Vincenzo Peruggia will steal the Mona Lisa and pull off the greatest art heist in world history. Vincenzo Peruggia Mugshot & Fingerprints 1913 At 7 a.m. on Monday morning August 21, he enters the Louvre via an employee entrance with a crowd of other workers.  Peruggia is dressed in a large white smock that is part of the customary uniform worn by all maintenance workers of the museum at the time. Peruggia lingers around the Salon ...