Painting by numbers is a painting technique that allows you to fill the finished contours with a given color. A kind of "coloring for adults", but many paintings can be fully considered works of art. The uniqueness of paintings by numbers is not only in the simplified technique of creation, but also in their beneficial effect on the human nervous system.
The industrialist Max Klein and the artist Dan Robbins are recognized as the inventors of the paintings by numbers. The latter was the author of the idea of writing canvases according to a given algorithm, but a large paint manufacturer with production in Detroit, Max Klein, was able to realize the idea of a talented artist. In a wide release, paintings by numbers were launched in 1951 under the Craft Master trademark. Each package of the drawing kit bore the inscription: "Every person is a Rembrandt!"
Indeed, the idea was to the taste of both children and mature art connoisseurs. They had to work with large canvases, paint in oils, acrylics and watercolors. At the same time, not banal drawings from classical coloring, but popular landscapes, still lifes, and portraits were proposed as a theme for paintings by numbers. Among other paintings by numbers was a set with "The Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci.
The kits have given many people the opportunity to feel like artists. For many, this was the true embodiment of an old dream. For example, one of the major American patrons noted: “I am happy as a child. All my life I dreamed of painting, but I never had the talent, and therefore the opportunity. Now I paint one picture after another and get tremendous pleasure from it. I can’t stop.”
It is not surprising that in the first three years of the realization of paintings by numbers, more than 12 million sets of completely different themes were sold - from classical still lifes to copies of paintings by great masters. Today, paintings by numbers are equally popular. In addition to the ability of a person to get an original hobby, psychologists note the extremely beneficial effect of paintings on our nervous system.
As it turned out, working on them calms, relieves stress and even brings out depression. It is all the more interesting that today paintings by numbers are made to order - for example, each of us can fill our own portrait with color.
