Famous Scary Artwork To Love This Halloween
Happy Halloween!
The Scream, 1893 by Edvard Munch
Munch's The Scream is an icon of modern art, the Mona Lisa of our time. As Leonardo da Vinci evoked a Renaissance ideal of serenity and self-control, Munch defined how we see our own age - wracked with anxiety and uncertainty.
Essentially The Scream is autobiographical, an expressionistic construction based on Munch's actual experience of a scream piercing through nature while on a walk, after his two companions, seen in the background, had left him.
Electric Chair: Andy Warhol, 1964
The dreadful injunction "silence" glows in the gloom of Andy Warhol's Electric Chair as if describing the future for whoever has been slaughtered in that seat. The restraints lie slack on the ground after the corpse has been removed and the darkness speaks of some shadowy no-man's-land. The silkscreen print takes the original photograph to the verge of dissolution with its blurry overlays so that one can hardly grasp what is going on in this desolate scene. "Everything I do is connected with death," remarked Warhol, and it seems particularly true of his silkscreen images – widowed Jackie, the skulls, the car crash sequences, and, above all, the electric chairs.
Salvator Rosa, The Temptation of St. Anthony, 1645
Salvator Rosa was an Italian painter, poet, and musician who lived in the 17th century. He mostly devoted himself to images of the Italian landscape, which he enlivened with soldiers or outlaws. Every now and then, however, he also added a good deal of drama, even surrealism, to his work, which was completely unusual at the time. In the present work, the hermit Antonius is confronted with creepy figures on his wander through the desert, who want to tempt him in the name of the devil.
Hell: Hans Memling, c1485
Man as well as woman, the devil as well as the dragon, dog, and bird, this vicious critter is dancing on the damned as they burn in eternal hell fire. Memling heaps up the horror so that the inferno broils within the jaws of a colossal fish and the demon holds a banner emphatically denying the possibility of hope: "In hell, there is no redemption". The scene is part of a larger altarpiece intended to frighten 15th-century churchgoers into far better behavior. But the notion of a torso that can talk was catnip to those modern shock merchants, the surrealists.
The Nightmare: Henry Fuseli, 1781
It is the worst dream in art and by far the most famous, an archetype to outclass Sigmund Freud. The sleeper in her virginal nightgown lies ready on the bed like a sacrificial victim, throat stretched bare as if for the blade. On her stomach squats an excremental troll. His pricked ears cast horn-like shadows on the curtains behind her, which are, in turn, thrust apart by the head of a wild-eyed stallion. Even those blind to the intimations of rape, bestiality, voyeurism, and murder can feel the power of Fuseli's metaphor: the nightmare as a nocturnal violation. The Nightmare was meant to cause nightmares.
Gustave Moreau, Diomedes Devoured by his Horses, 1865
What can you do if your pets suddenly turn against you? This is the question that Thracian king Diomedes had to grapple with in Greek mythology. Diomedes was the proud owner of four horse beasts that lived in the swamps and ate human flesh. With them, he terrorized his people. Then the hero Herakles stepped on the scene, who also had to take on the horse beasts during his 12 imposed tasks. He finally ended the reign of terror by throwing Diomedes himself to his steeds to eat.
William Blake, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, 1805-10, and The Ghost of a Flea, 1819/20
The English poet and painter William Blake was strongly influenced by spirituality in his works. It goes without saying that he was rejected by his enlightened contemporaries. Only with the advent of Romanticism in the early 19th century did his work find increasing recognition and imitation by other artists. Blake created the painting The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed by the Sun between 1805 and 1810 as an illustration of the Old Testament book of Job. In 1981, it inspired the American author Thomas Harris to write the first novel in the Hannibal Lecter series, Red Dragon.
Frida Kahlo, “Girl with Death Mask (She Plays Alone)” 1938
In this work Kahlo presents us with a little girl, dressed in a simple pink dress wearing a skull mask and completely alone in a mountainous area; In her hands, she holds a flower reminiscent of the cempasúchil, or flower of the dead, and next to her bare feet is a wooden mask of a jaguar with sharp teeth and a bloody mouth. According to some stories, the girl would be the same Kahlo at 4 years old and the masks – antonyms of the girl’s innocence – would represent the future pains she would encounter in her life. And although this is a probable origin, the work also allows us to reflect on the cycles of life and death, with the girl and the flower as a symbol of the beginning of the first and the jaguar and skull masks as a symbol of the second.
Medusa: Caravaggio, 1596-98
Medusa was one of the three Gorgons, monstrous beauties with snakes for hair who turned people to stone with their gaze. They were supposedly invincible, until the Greek hero Perseus came up with the brilliant ruse of fending off Medusa's lethal look with a mirror. Perseus gave her decapitated head to the goddess Athena to carry on her shield in the Trojan war. Caravaggio's painting also takes the form of a shield, his Medusa axed but still conscious, still momentarily alive. As horrified as she is Legend has it that Caravaggio used his own reflection for the model.
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JOIN US To Make Some SPOOKY ARTWORK Of Your Own!
10/27 Van Gogh’s Starry Night - Halloween
**Black Light Class! - It glows in the dark!
https://www..../event/645568
10/28 ‘Mysterious Moon Glow'
What mysterious things can happen in the glimmering glow of a full moon? Enjoy a drink with us and find out!
Create a CharSPOOKerie board then paint! We'll get a charcuterie board lesson from Cynthia at Busy Butternut (https://www.busybutternut.com/) and paint Mysterious Moon Glow. Two classes in ONE! All supplies are included for the charcuterie class!
https://www..../event/640393
10/30 ‘Starry NIghtmare’
A fun painting that combines a scary Halloween picture with the famous artist, "Van Gogh”.
https://www..../event/640398
10/31 ‘Vampire Kiss’
A special kiss for this spooky time of year.
**Black Light Class! - It glows in the dark!
https://www..../event/642655