Do You Know the Real Stories Behind These Famous Artworks?

Edvard Munch's "The Scream" was painted in 1893, but its blood-red sky was inspired by the eruption of Krakatoa almost 10 years earlier. The Indonesian volcano violently spat ash and debris into the sky and created vivid red twilights across Europe. Researchers believe that Munch drew upon that hue to match the emotion he intended to evoke through "The Scream."

Though "Washington Crossing the Delaware" is one of the most patriotic images in American art, it was actually painted by German artist Emanuel Leutze in Düsseldorf, Germany. Leutze began the painting in 1849 in the wake of Germany's own failed revolution. The massive 12 x 21-foot canvas was completed two years later and is currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Grant Wood's Midwestern painting "American Gothic" is intended to represent a farmer and his daughter, but in fact, the models for the painting were Wood's sister and his local dentist. Little did they know at the time that they would become two of the most recognizable faces in the history of American art. The painting, which was completed in Iowa in 1930, is now housed at the Art Institute of Chicago.

The dramatic black-and-white painting "Guernica" depicts Pablo Picasso's reaction to the Nazi bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. The painting is massive — 11 feet tall and 25 feet wide — and is currently on display at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.

Many women have been proposed as the mysterious model for Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa," but most historians agree that the woman behind the enigmatic smile is Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, the wife of a wealthy silk merchant. It is believed that Lisa's husband commissioned the painting to celebrate her pregnancy; scholars use Mona Lisa's loose garments as evidence for her being with child.

Georgia O'Keeffe was often inspired by the scenery of New Mexico but wasn't a fan of the oppressively hot temperatures she'd encounter while seeking inspiration outside. To combat the elements, O'Keeffe modified a Ford Model A to become her studio. When the artist found a spot she wanted to capture, she would park, turn her seat around, and paint using a modified back seat.

James Abbott McNeil Whistler intended to paint his mother standing, but when she grew tired, he allowed her to sit while he completed his most famous painting, "Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1." In 1891, the painting, more commonly known as "Whistler's Mother,” became the first American artwork ever bought by the French state. It's now on display at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

Seen here is Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's "At the Moulin Rouge," which depicts the city's denizens out for a night of drinking at the famous French nightclub. Toulouse-Lautrec frequented the location and painted posters for some of its shows, which gave him enough money to buy copious amounts of absinthe to help fuel his uniquely "green" perspective.

In 1925, when Frida Kahlo was just 18 years old, she was involved in a bus accident. The injuries forced her to be encased in a full-body plaster cast. While in recovery, Kahlo's parents created a custom easel and mounted a mirror over her bed so she could paint self-portraits to pass time. Her painting "Tree of Hope, Remain Strong," pictured here, depicts Kahlo holding the steel corset she had to wear.

In 1889, Vincent van Gogh entered the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in southern France to seek help for mental illness. During his stay, he painted his most recognizable work, "The Starry Night." The landscape in the painting depicts the view from van Gogh's asylum window, though it's partially fictionalized. In reality, the village of Saint-Rémy couldn't be seen from his window.