Art can be anything. Someone sees the beauty of nature and conveys it with a brush or a cutter, someone takes amazing photographs of the human body, and someone finds beauty in a terrible one - Caravaggio and Edvard Munch worked in this style. Modern artists are not far behind the founding fathers.
1. Dado
Yugoslav Dado was born in 1933 and died in 2010. At first glance, his work may seem completely ordinary or even pleasant - this is due to the choice of colors: many horror artists choose black or red, and Dado liked pastel shades.
But look closely at pictures like Big Farm in 1963 or Football Player in 1964 and you'll see grotesque creatures in them. Their faces are full of pain or suffering, tumors or extra organs are visible on their bodies, or bodies are simply irregular in shape. In fact, pictures like "Big Farm" are much more frightening than sheer horror - precisely because at first glance you do not notice anything terrible in them.
2. Keith Thompson
Keith Thompson is more of a commercial artist than a person of art. He designed the monsters for Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim and Scott Westerfield's Leviathan. His work is done in a technique you'd rather see on Magic: The Gathering cards than in a museum.
Look at his painting "The Creature from Pripyat": the monster is made of several animals and is terribly ugly, but it gives a great idea of Thompson's technique. The monster even has a story - it is supposedly a product of the Chernobyl disaster. Of course, the monster is somewhat contrived, as if it came straight out of the 1950s, but this does not make it any less creepy.
The SCP Foundation adopted this creature as their mascot, naming it "SCP-682". But in the arsenal of Thompson there are still many such monsters, and there are more terrible ones.
3. Junji Ito
On the subject of commercial artists: some of them draw comics. In the horror comic business, Junji Ito is the champion. His monsters are not just grotesque: the artist carefully draws every wrinkle, every crease on the body of creatures. This is what scares people, and not the irrationality of monsters.
For example, in his comic "The Riddle of Amigara Fault" he undresses people and sends them into a humanoid hole in solid rock - the closer we see this hole, the scarier, but even "from a distance" it seems frightening.
In his Uzumaki (Spiral) comic book series, there is a guy obsessed with spirals. At first, his obsession seems funny, and then scary. Moreover, it becomes scary even before the hero's obsession becomes magic, with the help of which he turns a person into something inhuman, but at the same time alive.
Ito's work stands out among all Japanese manga - his "normal" characters look unusually realistic and even cute, and the monsters seem even more creepy against their background.
4. Zdzisław Beksiński
If an artist says, "I can't imagine what sanity means in painting," chances are he's not painting kittens.
Polish painter Zdzisław Beksiński was born in 1929. For decades, he created nightmare images in the genre of fantastic realism until his horrific death in 2005 (he was stabbed 17 times). The most fruitful period in his work fell on the years 1960 - 1980: then he created highly detailed images, which he himself called "photographs of his dreams."
According to Beksiński, he did not care about the meaning of this or that painting, but some of his works clearly symbolize something. For example, in 1985 he created the painting "Trollforgatok". The artist grew up in a country devastated by the Second World War, so the black figures in the picture can personify Polish citizens, and the head can be a kind of ruthless authority.
The artist himself claimed that he had nothing of the kind in mind. In fact, Beksinsky said about this picture that it should be taken as a joke - that's what really black humor means.
5. Wayne Barlow
Thousands of artists have tried to portray Hell, but Wayne Barlow has clearly succeeded in this. Even if you have not heard his name, you have probably seen the work. He has been involved in such films as James Cameron's Avatar (the director personally praised him), Pacific Rim, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. But one of his most outstanding works can be called a book published in 1998 called "Inferno".
Hell for him is not just dungeons with demonic lords and armies. Barlow said: "Hell is complete indifference to human suffering." His demons often show interest in human bodies and souls and behave more like experimenters - they ignore other people's pain. People for his demons are not objects of hatred at all, but simply a means for idle entertainment, nothing more.
6. Tetsuya Ishida
In acrylic paintings by Isis, people are often transformed into objects such as packaging, conveyor belts, urinals, or even hemorrhoid pillows. He also has visually pleasing paintings in which people merge with nature or escape into the magical land of their imagination. But such works are much dimmer than paintings in which restaurant workers turn into dummies pumping food into customers as if they were servicing cars at a gas station.
Regardless of the opinion about the accuracy and insight of the artist or the vividness of his metaphors, it cannot be denied that the style of his work is eerie. Any humor in Isis goes hand in hand with disgust and fear. His career came to an end in 2005 when 31-year-old Ishida was hit by a train, almost certainly a suicide. His works are valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars.
7. Dariusz Zawadzki
Zavadsky was born in 1958. Like Beksiński, he works in the style of creepy fantastical realism. His teachers at the art school told Zavadsky that he did not have very good eyesight and a poor eye, so he could not become an artist. Well, they obviously jumped to conclusions.
There are elements of steampunk in Zavadsky's works: he often draws creatures similar to robots, under the artificial skin of which working mechanisms are visible. For example, take a look at the 2007 oil painting "The Nest". The poses of the birds are the same as those of the living, but the frame is clearly metallic, barely covered with shreds of skin. The picture may cause disgust, but at the same time it attracts the eye - you want to consider all the details.
8. Joshua Hoffin
Joshua Hoffin was born in 1973 in Emporia, Kansas. He takes terrifying photographs, in which fairy tales familiar from childhood take on terrible features - the story, of course, can be recognized, but at the same time its meaning is greatly distorted.
Many of his works look too staged and unnatural to really scare. But there are also series of photographs like "Pickman's Masterpieces" - this is a tribute to one of Lovecraft's characters, the artist Pickman.
In the photos from 2008, which you can see here, is his daughter Chloe. The girl's face almost does not express emotions, and she almost does not look towards the audience. The contrast is frightening: a family photo on the bedside table, a girl in pink pajamas - and huge cockroaches.
9. Patricia Piccinini
Piccinini's sculptures are sometimes very different from each other: some sculptures are irregularly shaped motorcycles, others are strange balloons with hot air. But mostly she creates sculptures that are very, very uncomfortable to stand in the same room with. They even look creepy in photos.
In the 2004 work Indivisible, a humanoid is pressed against the back of a normal human child. Most disturbing is the element of trust and affection - as if the innocence of the child was cruelly used to harm him.
Of course, Piccinini's work is criticized. They even said about the "Indivisible" that it was not a sculpture, but some kind of real animal. But no - it's just a figment of her imagination, and the artist continues to create her work from fiberglass, silicone, and hair.
10. Mark Powell
The work of the Australian Mark Powell is really shocking. His 2012 show is a series of compositions in which fantastic creatures evolve, devour and excrete each other from their own bodies, multiply and decay. The textures of the creatures and environments are extremely convincing, and the body language of the figures is precisely chosen to make the situations look as ordinary as possible - and therefore convincing.
Of course, the Internet could not fail to pay tribute to the artist. The aforementioned "SCP Foundation" took the hideous monster from the image above and made it part of a story called "The Flesh That Hates". There are also many horror stories associated with his work.
When it comes to painting, the imagination tends to paint pastorals and stately portraits. But in fact, fine art is multifaceted. It happened that very ambiguous paintings came out from under the brush of great artists, which hardly anyone wants to hang at home. In our review of the 10 scariest paintings by famous artists.
1. The great red dragon and the monster from the sea. William Blake
William Blake is known today for his engravings and romantic poetry, but he was little appreciated during his lifetime. Blake's engravings and illustrations are classics of the Romantic style, but today consider a series of Blake's watercolor paintings that depict the great red dragon from the book of Revelation. This painting depicts a large red dragon, which is the embodiment of the devil, which stands on a seven-headed beast in the sea.
2. Study of the portrait of Innocent X by Velázquez. Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. His paintings, striking in their boldness and gloominess, are sold for millions of dollars. During his lifetime, Bacon often painted his own interpretations of the portrait of Pope Innocent X. In Velázquez's original work, Pope Innocent X looks thoughtfully from the canvas, while Bacon portrayed him screaming.
3. Dante and Virgil in hell. Adolphe William Bouguereau
Dante's Inferno, with its depiction of horrific torture, has inspired artists since the publication of this work. Bouguereau is best known for his realistic depictions of classical scenes, but in this painting he depicted a circle of hell where impostors fight incessantly, stealing each other's identities through a bite.
4. Death of Marat. Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch is Norway's most famous artist. His famous painting "The Scream", which personifies melancholy, is firmly ingrained in the minds of any person who is not indifferent to art. Marat was one of the leading political leaders of the French Revolution. Since Marat suffered from a skin disease, he spent most of the day in the bathroom, where he worked on his works. It was there that Marat was killed by Charlotte Corday. The death of Marat was depicted by more than one artist, but Munch's painting is especially realistic and cruel.
5. Severed heads. Theodore Géricault
Géricault's most famous work is The Raft of the Medusa, a huge painting in a romantic style. Before creating large works, Gericault painted "warm-up" paintings, like "Severed Heads", for which he used real limbs and severed heads. The artist took similar material in morgues.
6. Temptation of St. Anthony. Matthias Grunewald
Grunewald often painted religious images in the style of the Middle Ages, although he lived during the Renaissance. Saint Anthony went through several trials of his faith while living in the wilderness. According to one legend, Saint Anthony was killed by the demons living in the cave, but later revived and destroyed them. This picture depicts Saint Anthony, who was attacked by demons.
7. Still life of masks. Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde was one of the first expressionist painters, although his fame was soon overshadowed by a number of other expressionists such as Munch. The essence of this trend is the distortion of reality in order to show a subjective point of view. This painting was made by the artist after researching the masks in the Berlin Museum.
8. Saturn devouring his son. Francisco Goya
In Roman myths, which are heavily based on Greek mythology, the father of the gods devoured his own children so that they would never dethrone him. It is this act of killing children that Goya portrayed. The painting was not intended for the public, but was painted on the wall of the artist's house, along with several other gloomy paintings, collectively known as "Black Painting".
9. Judith and Holofernes. Caravaggio
There is a story in the Old Testament about the brave widow Judith. Judea was attacked by an army led by the commander Holofernes. Judith left the city walls and went to the camp of the army besieging the city. There, with the help of her beauty, she seduced Holofernes. When the commander slept drunk at night, Judith cut off his head. This scene is quite popular with artists, but Caravaggio's version is particularly creepy.
10. Garden of earthly delights. Hieronymus Bosch
Usually Hieronymus Bosch is associated with fantastic and religious paintings. The Garden of Earthly Delights is a triptych. The three panels of the painting respectively depict the Garden of Eden and the creation of mankind, the Garden of earthly delights, and the Punishment for sins that occur in the earthly garden. Bosch's work is one of the most gruesome yet most beautiful works in the history of Western art.
There are works of art that seem to hit the viewer on the head, dumbfounded and amazing. Others drag you into reflection and in search of semantic layers, secret symbolism. Some paintings are covered with secrets and mystical mysteries, while others surprise with an exorbitant price.
We carefully reviewed all the major achievements in world painting and selected two dozen of the strangest paintings from them. Salvador Dali, whose works completely fall under the format of this material and are the first to come to mind, were not included in this collection intentionally.
It is clear that “strangeness” is a rather subjective concept, and for everyone there are amazing paintings that stand out from a number of other works of art. We will be glad if you share them in the comments and tell us a little about them.
"Scream"
Edvard Munch. 1893, cardboard, oil, tempera, pastel.
National Gallery, Oslo.
The Scream is considered a landmark expressionist event and one of the most famous paintings in the world.
There are two interpretations of what is depicted: it is the hero himself who is seized with horror and silently screams, pressing his hands to his ears; or the hero closes his ears from the cry of the world and nature sounding around him. Munch wrote four versions of The Scream, and there is a version that this picture is the fruit of a manic-depressive psychosis from which the artist suffered. After a course of treatment at the clinic, Munch did not return to work on the canvas.
“I was walking along the path with two friends. The sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red, I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned against the fence - I looked at the blood and flames over the bluish-black fjord and the city. My friends went on, and I stood, trembling with excitement, feeling the endless cry that pierces nature,” Edvard Munch said about the history of the painting.
“Where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?"
Paul Gauguin. 1897-1898, oil on canvas.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
At the direction of Gauguin himself, the picture should be read from right to left - the three main groups of figures illustrate the questions posed in the title.
Three women with a child represent the beginning of life; the middle group symbolizes the daily existence of maturity; in the final group, according to the artist, "an old woman approaching death seems reconciled and given over to her thoughts", at her feet "a strange white bird ... represents the futility of words."
A deeply philosophical picture of the post-impressionist Paul Gauguin was written by him in Tahiti, where he fled from Paris. At the end of the work, he even wanted to commit suicide: "I believe that this canvas is superior to all my previous ones and that I will never create something better or even similar." He lived another five years, and so it happened.
"Guernica"
Pablo Picasso. 1937, oil on canvas.
Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid.
Guernica presents scenes of death, violence, atrocities, suffering and helplessness, without specifying their immediate causes, but they are obvious. It is said that in 1940 Pablo Picasso was summoned to the Gestapo in Paris. The conversation immediately turned to the picture. "Did you do that?" - "No, you did it."
The huge fresco "Guernica", painted by Picasso in 1937, tells about the raid of the Luftwaffe volunteer unit on the city of Guernica, as a result of which the six thousandth city was completely destroyed. The picture was painted in just a month - the first days of work on the picture, Picasso worked for 10-12 hours, and already in the first sketches one could see the main idea. This is one of the best illustrations of the nightmare of fascism, as well as human cruelty and grief.
"Portrait of the Arnolfinis"
Jan van Eyck. 1434, oil on wood.
London National Gallery, London.
The famous painting is completely filled with symbols, allegories and various references - up to the signature "Jan van Eyck was here", which turned the painting not just into a work of art, but into a historical document confirming the reality of the event, which was attended by the artist.
The portrait, presumably of Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife, is one of the most complex works of the Western school of painting of the Northern Renaissance.
In Russia, in the past few years, the painting has gained great popularity due to Arnolfini's portrait resemblance to Vladimir Putin.
"Demon Seated"
Mikhail Vrubel. 1890, oil on canvas.
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
"Hands Resist Him"
Bill Stoneham. 1972.
This work, of course, cannot be ranked among the masterpieces of world art, but the fact that it is strange is a fact.
Around the picture with a boy, a doll and palms pressed against the glass, there are legends. From "because of this picture they die" to "the children in it are alive." The picture looks really creepy, which gives rise to a lot of fears and conjectures in people with a weak psyche.
The artist assured that the picture depicts himself at the age of five, that the door is a representation of the dividing line between the real world and the world of dreams, and the doll is a guide that can lead the boy through this world. The hands represent alternative lives or possibilities.
The painting gained notoriety in February 2000 when it was listed for sale on eBay with a backstory that said the painting was "haunted". "Hands Resist Him" was bought for $1,025 by Kim Smith, who was then inundated with letters with creepy stories and demands to burn the painting.
At the mention of painting in the minds of most of us, portraits of Madonnas and breathtaking landscapes, biblical stories and historical battles pop up, someone presents still lifes or abstract images. Whatever one may say, canvases designed to delight, give aesthetic pleasure or reflect on the message of the artist are the first to come to mind. Isn't that why art exists? But in the world of painting, there are paintings that inspire horror to those who look at them. Some canvases even have a bad reputation, there are legends that some kind of misfortune or even death will surely befall their owners. In this collection, we have collected pictures, looking at which, it becomes uncomfortable.
The Hands Resist Him Bill Stoneham
This picture has already won the title of the most terrible in the world. It was written in 1972. According to one source, Stoneham portrayed himself at the age of five with his little sister, and copied the images from an old childhood photograph. According to other sources, the door behind the boy's back is the boundary separating reality from the world of dreams, and next to him is not a sister at all, but a doll that is a conductor between these two worlds.
The picture began to acquire bad rumors immediately after the death of its owner, John Marley. People looking at the canvas admitted that they began to feel bad, and someone fell into hysterics or panic. It was rumored that some kind of misfortune awaited those who looked at the picture. There is also a story about a family with a four-year-old girl who ran to her parents at night in fright. According to her, one night the children in the picture were fighting, and the next they were standing outside the door. At some point, Stoneham's creation was found in a landfill. In 2000, the painting was sold on eBay. The new owner was written about notoriety, and the lot itself was accompanied by a comment that it was a haunted painting.
Now “Hands Resist Him” is the first part of a trilogy. Bill Stoneham wrote Resistance at the Threshold in 2004 and Threshold of Revelation in 2012.
The Crying Boy Giovanni Bragolin
They say that Bruno Amadio (real name of the artist) wanted to depict a child in the light from a match, and the boy was terribly afraid of fire and cried. Now the child is taking revenge for his torment - in the house where the reproduction of the cursed painting appears, a fire breaks out, and the painting itself is found in the ashes, which was not affected by the fire in any way. Around the ominous picture, a stir began, stories about fires appeared one after another. It all ended with the fact that the newspaper asked its readers to send their pictures to the editor and thus get rid of their fears. The Sun staged a ritual burning of all sent canvases, however, it turned out that the rumors revolved around five different versions of the painting and all, in the wake of superstitious experiences, seemed cursed to the owners.
Paintings by Zdzisław Beksinski
The paintings of this Polish artist are full of gloomy images: a post-apocalyptic world, death, decay, ugly figures. Like many representatives of surrealism (although this is not the only direction in which the artist worked), Beksinski drew inspiration from dreams. Unfortunately, the master did not give a name to his canvases, which is why we can only guess at the images and worlds that he created. It also remains unknown what inspired Beksinski to create such dark, terrifying and in many ways insane works. The artist himself found some of his paintings "fun". It is known that relatives characterized Beksinsky as a cheerful and kind person, however, according to some letters and works of the creator, his interest in the philosophy of sadomasochism is known.
The Scream by Edvard Munch
This picture is famous, recognizable and known to everyone who is at least a little interested in painting. Munch tried to depict one of the sunsets that he saw with his own eyes and struck to the core. The artist made several attempts to convey his state as accurately as possible when he stood on the bridge and looked at the blood-red sunset. On the first versions of The Scream, the central figure was a person with quite realistic features, but then it was replaced by an abstract figure that reminds different people of a skeleton, an embryo, and even a spermatozoon. Munch himself called his creation "Cry of Nature". The undulating landscape and rich bloody colors are designed to convey the agony of nature, which is transmitted to the human figure and makes it freeze in horror and despair.
As for the places to which the plot of the picture is attached, there are several versions. They say that in those parts there was a psychiatric clinic where Munch's younger sister was treated, and a slaughterhouse. According to the stories of relatives of Edvard Munch, the artist reproduced the “Scream” again and again until he was cured of a mental illness. There is an opinion that Munch suffered from manic-depressive psychosis. There are also rumors that some people, after meeting the canvas, suffered a misfortune - someone died, unable to withstand terrible migraines, and someone burned down in their own house.
"Rain Woman" Svetlana Telets
As the artist herself admits, she painted this picture in just 5 hours and all this time she had the feeling that someone was leading her hand. The painting was repeatedly bought, but each time it was returned back. The owners complained of insomnia, unreasonable fear and an obsessive feeling that someone was following them, while others, on the contrary, told how they dreamed of a woman from a picture or her eyes seemed to be everywhere. The artist herself believes that each picture is written for a specific person. If the “Rain Woman” exists, then someone is looking for her, and she is looking for her owner.
Paintings by Ken Curry
Scottish artist Ken Curry was born in 1960, before his eyes there were many political and social changes that left a dark mark on the soul of the young creator. Curry began to depict fading and suffering bodies, designed to convey the painful state of modern society. Realistic problems of a socio-philosophical nature are intertwined in the artist's works with metaphysical issues that concern each of us. The frightening canvases are an attempt by Curry to depict and at the same time deeply understand how our body depends on aging, pain, physical injury, and disease. One of the artist's most famous works (and one of the creepiest at the same time) is called Gallowgate Lard and is his self-portrait. Another famous painting is a portrait of British theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, Nobel Prize winner for predicting the Higgs boson. This picture does not scare, but hardly anyone wants to hang it in their bedroom.
