Michelangelo`s /1475 - 1564/ sculptures owe their realism and beauty of proportions not only to the many sketches of nature made by the artist. What was also very important were the autopsies, which Michaelangelo secretly performed. He had to keep them secret, as in those days performing autopsies was considered a crime. It was however the only opportunity to conquer the secrets of anatomy of the human body. Autopsies were also performed by other artists living in the Renaissance period, such as Leonardo da Vinci. We know this thanks to the notes and drawings he left behind.

How widely the process of creation can be understood you will able to see from the statement of Yves Klein /1928 - 1962/, who is the author of his famous blue paintings, so-called Monochromes and IKB International Klein Blue: "Lying one day on the beach I began to feel hatred towards birds, which were flying in my beautiful, cloudless sky, as they were trying to make holes in the biggest and most beautiful of my works". [8]

In the days when paint couldn't be bought in a shop, painters (or their assistents) had to make paint themselves. There existed certain rules (they were often kept a secret), according to which paints were produced. There is a rumour that Rembrandt /1606 - 1669/ to obtained his shiny red colour added to the dye crushed rubies.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec /1864 - 1901/ wasn't pleased with the elaborated poses of professional models, so he found the perfect field for observation in public houses painting prostitutes. He was inspired by freed nudeness, in the state of nature.

Theodore Gericault`s /1791 - 1824/ painting called The Raft of the Medusa, which can be found in the Louvre fascinates people with its exression and dramatism. Aiming to achieve the highest realism possible the artist was increadible precise: he talked with shipwrecked people, built a model of a raft and even studied corpses in a mortuary.

One of the most interesting ideas for painting was Yves Klein`s /1928 - 1962/ action. In the eyes of an audience and in the presence of an orchestra he himself (wearing a tuxedo) made paintings (Anthropometries) with the use of so-called "living brushes" - naked models submerged in blue paint, who according to his instructions pressed against a canvas with their bodies.

Jackson Pollock /1912 - 1956/ hardly ever fastened a canvas on a stretcher. He prefered to tighten it to the hard surface of a wall or place it on the floor. He said that when he does so it feels as if he is closer to the painting, he becomes part of it, he can walk around it, work from all four sides, practically "enter" his painting. In place of an easel, palett or brush he used palett-knives, sticks, knives, liquid, leaking paint or thick paint mixed with sand, broken glass and other substances (mainly ones never used in painting).

Yves Klein /1928 - 1962/ covered his equal canvasses with flakes of real gold. Such paintings are called Mongoldes.

Salvador Dali /1904 - 1989/ was inspired (like many other surrealists) by dreams, interpretations made by the mind and any sorts of deformations, for which he searched methodically and fully aware in regions of psychical disturbances and pathological symptoms. He claimed that when contemplating something it is possible to find its second state.

Collage is a new method, introduced in painting in the year 1912 by two outstanding artists - Pablo Picasso /1881 - 1973/ and George Braque /1882 1963/. From the moment artists started to discover its virtues they began involving sand in their paintings, as well as pieces of cloth or wood, unusual objects in art, such as cards, match boxes, tobacco containers and others. All this enriched the structure of a painting by new elements.

The same model, Victoria Meurend, posed to the famous paintings of Edouard Manet /1832 - 1883/ - Breakfast in the grass and Olympia. The boy playing the flute in Manet's painting The Fife-Player also has Victoria`s features.

Francis Bacon /1909 - 1992/ was an artist, whose paintings rose many controversies because of their brutality. What Bacon did was show people, nudes and even the Crucifixion as pieces of meat, images full of physical evilness. He used to say that every time he is in a slaughter-house he often wonders why animals hang there and not people.

Yves Klein /1928 - 1962/ "painted" with the use of fire; he also made sculptures out fire. A controlled column of fire, which "faught" in the eyes of an audience with streams of water, flames continuously shooting up like an obelisk. He also created so-called cosmogonies - he intentionally put his paintings out into the rain, as he wanted their surfaces to be covered with rainwater that was filtered and dyed blue.

Dictionary of Manz and Paul dating 1950 holds over 7 thousand samples of colours and only 4 thousnad have their names - they may sound like "a combination of red and orange" which is obviously different from "red with a hint of orange".