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Shamim Ansary:
All the information of this board has been quoted from http://www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com/

How many paintings did Pablo Picasso paint and did he paint everything in sight?

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso didn’t “paint everything in sight,” but he was a prolific painter in many senses of the word.

He produced over 15,000 paintings in his lifetime—working on three or more canvases a day—and he also painted on surfaces other than canvas.

The story goes that while renting an apartment in Barcelona in 1900, the newly whitewashed walls were too great a temptation for him. He lavishly decorated them with paintings.

His landlord was unimpressed and told him he must pay to have them repainted. Picasso snippily remarked later, after becoming successful,

“He could have sold the whole wall for a fortune if he had only had the sense to leave it.”

Shamim Ansary:
What Other Paintings Did James Whistler Paint Besides Whistler’s Mother?

The painting Whistler’s Mother (we have seen a film on it named Mr. Bean) has given people the impression that James Whistler was a sentimental Norman Rockwell sort of fellow, but Whistler’s Mother wasn’t his normal style.

Most of Whistler’s paintings were more abstract.

On this occasion, he painted his reluctant mom in a straight-backed wooden chair only because his scheduled model hadn’t shown up.

Despite this one painting, Whistler loved seeing himself as a shocking rebel against the art establishment and presented himself and his work in ways to keep that image alive.

In one of his public melodramas, he sued English art critic John Ruskin for libel after Ruskin wrote a scathing review of his artwork.

After a long and bombastic trial, the jury agreed that Whistler had been libeled, and awarded him damages of one farthing, about a quarter of a cent.

For his “victory,” Whistler was bankrupted by legal fees and lost his house and furniture.

Ironically, he was also forced into backtracking away from his confrontational style and into more commercial, conventional etchings.

Ruskin, for his part, was so outraged by the verdict against him that he stopped writing reviews, resigned from Oxford University, and became a bitter, antisocial recluse.

Shamim Ansary:
Why Does the Moon Go Around the Earth?

Almost everything in the universe travels in a circular path. The moon goes around the earth, the earth goes around the sun, and even the sun revolves around the center of our galaxy. This is because of two basic laws of science.

First, an object moving in space, where there is no air to slow it down, will continue to move forever once it begins in motion. The moon has been moving through space ever since it was formed billions of years ago.

But the gravity of the earth pulls the moon toward us. This gravity isn’t strong enough to pull the moon into the earth, but it holds the moon at a certain distance from the earth, where the gravity of the earth, the sun, and the planets are balanced.

So the moon keeps moving around the earth at that distance, traveling in a circular path called an orbit. And the earth goes around the sun for the same reason.

Shamim Ansary:
Was the White House In Washington, D.C. Always White and What Color Was It Before?

The White House in Washington, D.C. was not always white.

Back when it was called the “Presidential Palace,” it was made of brownstone.

However, in 1814 the British captured Washington, D.C., and burned many government buildings, including the Palace and the Capitol.

So much of its shell was charred from fire that painting the building became necessary.

White covered the burn marks well and brightened the place up.

It had never looked much like a palace anyway, and even less so with bright white paint, so people stopped calling it the Palace and started calling it “the white house.”

Teddy Roosevelt made the popular name official when he had “Theodore Roosevelt, The White House” printed on his presidential stationery.

Shamim Ansary:
Why Does the Same Side Of the Moon Always Face the Earth?

It does seem like a pretty strange coincidence that the moon would rotate at exactly the same rate that it revolves around the Earth.

But of course it’s no coincidence at all.

When the moon was much closer to the Earth than it is now, the Earth’s gravity distorted the moon slightly, so that it’s somewhat egg shaped.

As a result, the pull on the moon is now slightly stronger on the pointy end, keeping it always faced toward us.

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