I suppose I was in a somewhat musical mood when I painted the picture above. It wasn’t meant to be one of my greatest paintings, just a whimsical self portrait. Yet today it remain fairly popular, even though the background figures proved to be a little difficult to paint at the time- a pretty small scale. I still had fun painting it, exaggerating the truth a little with “painter’s license” putting myself strumming away at those six strings, even though I can barely play Mary Had a Little Lamb. I do really have a hat like that, though.
In yesterday’s post I explained how music and painting can be very similar forms of art. Looking at certain paintings can make you think of specific songs or styles of music. As a painter, music is playing while you paint, and sometimes by design you can have specific songs playing while you paint, perhaps to put you in that mood.
Breezing Up, by Winslow Homer
This was a fun painting to reproduce. Executed in a weekend when I also painted Homer’s Foxhunt. I love its spontaneity: off center, asymmetrical. It feels like someone took a quick snapshot. This catboat caught a good wind and races fast- notice the water splashing off the bow. Reminds me of riding around in Marine Corps river boats, water splashing and mist raining into your face. It must be fun to sail; I’d love to get into it, God willing I save up some money.
Ravel’s Bolero- Winslow Homer is an American painter who lived and worked around the Civil War. Bolero was written by Maurice Ravel in 1928, much later, although a bolero dance has been around since the 18th century. Despite the much later year this music was written, it sounds like 19th century to me. The excellent use of repetition and the anticipation make me think of a day of sailing with a storm coming on the horizon.
Ganymede
Ganymede was kidnapped by Zeus to be the cup-bearer to the gods. While the boy was tending to the flock on the mountainside, Zeus, the god of gods, took the form of an eagle and swept Ganymede off his feet. Several versions of this story have been made throughout art history including paintings by Correggio and Rembrandt. I didn’t take anything from any of their works but made my own composition. And, of course, painting in a classical style, there has to be nudity.
Pink Floyd’s Learning to Fly comes to mind first thinking about the story of Ganymede. Clinging to the god, Ganymede is carried through the sky to Mount Olympus as he watches the landscape so far below- the people are like ants.
Rowers
Painted as a tribute to Thomas Eakins, this a view of the Schuylkill River, Philadelphia, showing rowers practicing about to go under the Columbia Bridge. Eakins, a Philadelphia native, was known for his paintings of Philadelphia sportsmen, among other things. He often portrayed rowers on this river, so it makes a fitting tribute.
One of Eakins’ paintings is The Swimming Hole. That painting plus his other river landscapes make me think of REM’s Nightswimming.
Vampire
This was painted right before last Halloween, so there was some inspiration there. It was meant to be a dark vampire painting without showing the teeth or the actual bite, but rather right before. I’m a big fan of subtlety. The eyes have just turned red, the bite is just about to happen. The victims veins are visible all across his body, the neck is red, flowing with warm blood.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula inspired me to paint this, and there are two songs on the soundtrack that I listened to on the playlist while painting, and remind me of it: the Mina’s Photo song and the Storm.
Henry VIII, by Hans Holbein
And last but not least, this is Henry VIII, after Hans Holbein. This makes me think of the Counting Crows’ Have You Seen Me Lately? The long deceased Tudor monarch may wonder if he could, if he has been portrayed by artists since his death centuries ago. Who has painted me, how do I look, am I meant to resemble living people, have you seen me lately?
Music and painting are two different forms of art but they go hand in hand. Harmony is an attribute for pieces of music the same as it is a painting. Lines and colors flow across the canvas in a rhythm just as a musical work does. A piece of music sparks mental images and memories as the viewer feels emotions from the heart while in the experience. The same is true of paintings.
The two art forms complement each other. When I listen to Mozart, I imagine beautiful paintings. When I immerse myself into a painting, I hear the great works of musical masterpieces in my head, in symphonic glory as I gaze at form, light, shadow, and line. Every brush stroke, every speck of paint, every blade of grass, reflection, rock, and grain of sand is a symphony.
I can’t imagine a time when music was a luxury, even for the rich. Today I sit at my computer and while I blog or work I am constantly listening to music. When in my car, no matter where the destination or who I’m with, music is at least a background ambiance. People carry Ipods to the gym, the library, while jogging, and wherever else they go. Music is everywhere and it’s a great time to be living with this technology. Too often I think we take this for granted. Scarcity may increase value in simple economics, but when dealing with music, there can never be too much.
We associate certain times in our lives with a certain songs, perhaps because we heard the song on the radio at that time, or we later reminisced about the event while feeling strong emotions, listening to a song. Either way, music brings back memories of all kinds large and small, and when we here it we have strong feelings. Just the same as events I tend to associate certain paintings with certain songs for whatever reason.
When I did the photo expedition of Philadelphia statues for the first time, I had Bach harpsichord music in my head the whole time. I had listened to it on the way up and it stayed in my head while I was out shooting, so I will forever associate the music with that sunny day around the art museum. Another time at the museum I saw the Dali exhibit and was enthralled. The song by the Killers Everything Will Be Alright played in my head, particularly the slower part. The eerie part of the song resonated with the dreamy paintings of Dali; the whole experience was surreal.
Sometimes music fits perfectly with artwork. I put together a small collage of Caravaggio paintings and put some music in the background. The music is a 16th century madrigal, with singing but no instruments. It was written by the Italian composer Arcadelt who lived in the time of Caravaggio. Not only was it from the same region and time, but the beautiful voices go along perfectly with the masterpieces of the painter.
There’s also more music I think of Caravaggio when listening to. It’s from a fairly unknown band from the ’90s called Crash Test Dummies. One of their songs about skeletons in the closet was called The Ghosts That Haunt Me:
You’re so kind/ I know you would not mind/ Send away the ghosts that haunt me now./ Then things I fear just wouldn’t seem so near,/ when I stroll out late at night,/there would be nothing rattling at my heals…
You, Constant Reader, may know that Caravaggio is my favorite artist, with this being the fifth post mentioning him. Caravaggio had an interesting life and I can imagine how it must have felt toward the end, around 1610. At this point Caravaggio had been on the run from the law having been charged with the death of Ranuccio Tomassoni, constantly moving, seeking the aid of powerful patrons. He had a price on his head, and his own fear of decapitation was inherent in his artwork depicting themes of that nature- Medusa, David and Goliath, etc. The songs seems to go along with what he must have felt, wanting an end to the whole affair.
Of course, some songs have a special place in the artist’s heart as they remind of their own creation. Just as I listen to music doing every other day to day activity, I also listen to music while painting. Most painters I know do. I like to set up a specific playlist that has something to do with the painting I’m working on. Paintings like Vampire had lots of Type O Negative, Ozzy’s Ghost Behind My Eyes, Billy Idol’s Eyes Without a Face, and Nine Inch Nails, etc.
At least two posts in the near future will be about some paintings and the songs that come to mind when I look at them. Some of them I painted and remember certain songs while painting them.
But one more note about music and art. There’s one piece of music in history that is the pinnacle of all artistic achievement. This, of course, is the Ninth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Other composers had higher IQs, constructed more mathematically perfect works, and are held in higher regarded by historians. But no other work encapsulates body, mind, heart, and spirit as does this piece of work. The entire 4th movement, particularly, is just phenomenal.
I said I picture paintings when I hear music like this, but in this case I see the beauty and genius of all works of art in human history combined. Great music like this can be considered dated and old, but never obsolete. It does not get better than this. It is art straight from the human soul.
Cannibalism, senseless murder, witchcraft, kidnapping, dogs dying, weird, strange, macabre… These all describe the murals painted on the artist’s walls in his own villa. It was the end of a long and successful career. He was alone and sick, had gone deaf, lived through the terrors of Napoleon, and probably had about enough of the world and life in general. It was time to unleash the true scope of his power by digging deep into the subconscious and pulling out, writhing and screaming, the scariest possible visions imaginable. This was the dark genius of Fransisco Goya.
Goya, who is considered the last of the Old Masters and the first of the Modern Masters, had a very long and successful career, working for the Spanish court. He painted for kings and queens, courtiers, and much of the Spanish upper crust, receiving a more than comfortable salary.
After the travesties of the Napoleonic occupation, Goya was commissioned by the court to illustrate the horrors with a series of prints known as The Disasters of War, which included the Charge of the Marmalukes (Second of May), and the famous Third of May, showing the executions of innocent Spaniards by the French invaders. These unforgiving works depict the real horrors of battlefield and war. The French occupation hit Goya deeply and he would express this anger by creating dark works such as the Colossus.
It was around 1820, that the 72 year old artist sought total reclusion and purposely bought a villa known as the “Deaf Man’s Villa,” which was named after its previous occupant. For a period of some years Goya’s art had become less jovial and bright, with portrayals of carnivals to more disturbing visions of his reality. He had suffered illnesses, and had been hospitalized witnessing the inhumane treatment of the infirm and mentally ill. By the time he was in his villa, secluded from the world, he held nothing back and created the “Black Paintings.”
I’m about to redirect you to an excellent wikipedia article on the Black Paintings which shows each painting and exactly where the were situated in the two rooms of the house. They were painted directly onto the plaster and not intended to be sold or given to anyone. After the painter’s death, the paintings were taken out of the walls and placed in their original position in a special two room gallery in Madrid. It’s interesting to note that there is no real order in the original setup. Goya had created these works in a haphazard arrangement, and followed no narrative.
The Saturn Devouring His Children, which shows the god Saturn eating his sons, as the story goes, is the most hideous and gruesome of them all. It is perhaps the most hideous and gruesome in all of art history and marks the descent of a painter’s mind into the verge of madness.
Or perhaps he was the sanest of us all depicting the world as he really saw it, not afraid and pulling no punches. Perhaps he got it dead on what humanity truly is, in all its grotesque and “cannibalistic” reality.
I did this in the middle of winter and far from Halloween for several reasons. One, I know people can be more into art than they’ve been if they just knew how entertaining it can be. Few people I know would be able to name any of these paintings or their artists and I think that’s sad. Not because they’re ignorant of art, we all learn all the time, it’s that I know they’d get a kick out of these paintings. Most people would eat this stuff up, they just have to know it’s out there. And that’s one of the purposes of this blog.
And another reason is to show that art can conjure up all kinds of emotions. And they’re not always warm and fuzzy. Art can be shocking, sickening and can downright scare the hell out of you. I’m sure we all have our own lists of things, including things in art, that scare us. I hope you’ve enjoyed this list. Now go find some art that makes you really feel something. That’s what life should be about.
“And behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth.”
The Prince of Darkness, Lucifer, The Beast, The Great Red Dragon - The Devil has many titles and just as many appearances- all the easier for the most infamous trickster to induce mayhem on the Earth. It’s usually incognito and in the form of serpents, or other animals and even humanoid. But if ever confronted with the epitome of all evil in all its hideous glory, as seen in this painting, with a wingspan as wide as a house and a tail which will wrap around you, there’s not much to do but cower in fear.
“The Great Red Dragon” Series, by William Blake
The Devil is evil itself, the enemy of God. It plays a starring role in the book of Revelation in the bible, which was illustrated at one point by the English poet and painter William Blake. He was commissioned to paint over a hundred paintings for the King James Bible, including the Great Red Dragon series, which altogether hold the number 2 slot in the 10 scariest paintings list.
William Blake can be considered a “visionary” painter for allowing the imagination to take free reign in his work. This can be taken literally as Blake once claimed to have gotten the idea for an illustration method from the vision of his dead brother. Beside the bible, his inspirations would illustrate the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and his own poetry.
This is the first entry in the scariest paintings list that’s not painted in oil. In fact, Blake never painted his canvases in oil, but rather illustrated in engravings, tempera, or watercolor as these paintings are.
What you’re seeing above is called “The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun.” You may recognize it as Francis Dolarhyde’s obsession in “Red Dragon” from the “Silence of the Lambs” trilogy starring Anthony Hopkins and Ralph Fiennes. In the movie, the antagonist thought he was slowly becoming the Red Dragon and had Blake’s monstrous Devil tattooed on his back. In the painting we see the Beast, wings spread, towering over a woman representing the Church.
Above is the painting “The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed With the Sun,” not to be confused with the woman clothed “In Sun.” Here is a different angle of the same scene showing a much more noticeably pregnant woman, who symbolizes the Virgin Mary. In this one, Satan has taken flight with tail coiling behind and prepares to descend on the woman and devour her child.
Next we have “The Great Red Dragon and the Beast from the Sea.” This painting depicts the passage literally, taken from Revelations 13 : 1-
“And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. “
This last painting is called “The Number of the Beast is 666.” This also comes from the apocalypse doomsday story in the final book of the bible.
Religious or not you can look at the painting, especially the one at the top of this page and imagine if you witnessed such a beast. The humongous muscles rippling on the diabolical back of the Devil, with the huge bat wings spread out ready to flap down in an Earth shattering display of might, with the horns and tail slowly crushing the woman to death are all enough to scare even the most seasoned arch-diocesan exorcist.
This isn’t a hallucination, or a vision or nightmare. It’s not a demon, or a harpy, or some Hellion Imp. It is the combined fears of humankind, the lack of light and love, the harbinger of doom and darkness.
“The Garden of Earthly Delights,” by Hieronymus Bosch
What you’re seeing above is a detail from the right panel of the triptych “Garden of Earthly Delights,” by Hieronymus Bosch. In a list where only 10 paintings make the team, this Netherlandish painter contributed two, the other being the Adoration of the Magi. The Magi, being number 10 in the list, is mysterious and confusing, while number 3, the Hell Panel, is just pure mayhem. The man’s paintings are so frightening in fact, that the name “Hieronymus Bosch” itself has become synonymous with the word “scary”:
I don’t know what it was about this painter’s life that drove him to create such fantastic diabolical worlds on canvas. Perhaps he was concerned with the degrading moral and Christian values of the 15th and 16th centuries Europe. Perhaps he was angered when people made fun of his funny looking hat. Whatever it was, no one will truly understand what really went on this genius’ disturbed mind.
Let’s take a look at the Hell painting and attempt to explain some of its many curiosities. Click on the panel here and go back and forth; see if you can spot some of the following points of interest:
Bosch painted the Hell panel as part of a triptych- when closed you see the outside as God creating the Earth, when opened on the left is Adam and Eve. Going to the center panel is the “Earthly Delights,” and then finally on the right humanity has descended into Hell.
You’ll see many demons torturing humans in never before heard of methods with strange devices, some of which are human symbols of sin. The horrors seen in this setting would later inspire Pieter Bruegel to paint his “Triumph of Death.”
You’ll find Satan (see detail above) as a giant bird with a cooking pot as a hat, symbolizing his unsatisfiable hunger, who eats the damned and excretes them out into a pit. In this scene we see several of the “deadly sins”: a demon forces a gluttonous sinner to continuously vomit, while into the same pit a greedy sinner excretes gold coins as punishment. Nearby we see a motionless woman condemned to stair at her reflection into the rear end of a demon- she had the sin of vanity.
Interestingly, Bosch painted a frozen pond in the center of the painting with people skating on it, and one unlucky soul has broken through and drowns. In the center of the painting you’ll find a grotesque portrait of Bosch with trees for legs coming out of boats, and demons in the mid-section taking a break in a gory tavern. A rotating platform serves as a hat, with a bagpipe symbolizing evil and lust.
Several large knives appear slicing and dicing, one of which cuts through ears showing that man is deaf to the warnings of the New Testament.
Musical instruments abound in this eternity of torment, as reminders of the Earthly delights that have doomed mankind.
Many scholarly interpretations have been made on these symbols and over the meanings of the themes Bosch used in his paintings. Interpret them as you will, but no one can deny that the Garden of Earthly Delights is one of the scariest and most interesting paintings in all of art history.
[I want to start out by saying that this beautiful painting is not a part of the 10 scariest paintings list. You probably figured that, just making sure. -Dan ]
“The Foxhunt” by Winslow Homer
Well, it’s snowing here in beautiful southeastern Pennsylvania for the first time in a winter that has been very mild and quite warm. There’s been a couple of freezing rains and a horrible ice covering a week or so back, but other than that I feared I’d sail through the whole season without having the pleasure of shoveling. And I’ll get to it later, I promise. At least now I have an excuse to use up the rest of firewood.
Aside from the wonderful feeling of snow caving into the tops of your boots, and slipping airborne off your back steps while taking the dog out, the winter months can be a great time for the artist. Soft snow falling can make the ugliest of landscapes beautiful, and the covering of snow can be quite a nice sight for anybody who can stand for just a moment in their day to appreciate the aesthetics of nature.
I talked a while back about Pieter Bruegel’s “Hunters in the Snow,” which is part of his series involving the seasons, but today the covering of snow reminds me of “The Foxhunt” by 19th century Realist Winslow Homer. I liked this painting so much I did my own copy of it on a 24″ by 36″ canvas, the same weekend I did a copy of Homer’s “Breezing Up.” They were both very fun to paint. On a side note copying famous paintings you like is a very good exercise for artists; it allows you to concentrate on technique and color, and lets you learn about the artist by literally stepping into his shoes.
I tend to like Homer’s paintings that have detached main characters who usually look away, or you can’t see much of their face, like the boy steering the catboat in “Breezing Up,” and similar to the rower in “Fog Warning.” This applies also to this fox, who is actually the one being hunted as it struggles in the deep snow with impending doom circling closely above in the form of birds of prey. These crows are as unforgiving as the sea, which clashes on the shore nearby with ferocity.
Take note of the colors of the fox. How many can you count? I had fun with this one, using viridian (blue-green), Naples yellow, burnt sienna (reddish-brown), deep red, cadmium red, cadmium yellow, burnt umber, raw umber, white, and yellow ochre. And infinite combinations. Makes you think how when you look at something such as a red fox, you are seeing all kinds of colors, including ones you may not expect to see. And the snow- there’s much more than just white, in the painting and in reality.
Now about that shoveling… well, hot chocolate sounds better.
Lucien Freud, grandson of Sigmund Freud the father of psychoanalysis, is a master of the realities of humanity. His unforgiving portraits show the sitter in a way that only the thick-skinned could appreciate. Almost caricature-like are his representations of the true human form- with every roll of fat, unsightliness, non-symmetry, and imperfection taking center stage in the body’s full glory. You want to see what you really look like? Commission a portrait from this British painter.
But is seeing how you really appear worthy of a 10 scariest paintings list? Well, that depends. It was scary to the royal House of Windsor when the Queen appeared to have a 5 o’clock shadow! What strikes me as scary once again is subtlety here. Number 5 was Pieter Brueghel’s Triumph of Death, which is an excellent example of “scare you out of your socks” scary, and that one is anything but subtle. But what Freud has achieved here, in my opinion, is a deep subconsciously spooky quality that not so much jumps out at you, but sends shivers down your spine the more you look at it, and the more you don’t understand it.
What we are looking at above is one of Lucien Freud’s “Reflections,” or self-portraits. Of course you wouldn’t know that at first glance, the same as you wouldn’t know that the two oddly placed children in the front left are his children. What you see is an extremely odd point of view as if you were lying on the floor looking up at the man with the ceiling lamps past him.
I can’t explain it fully, but when I first saw this painting I was terrified. For some reason it gave me the impression of being paralyzed, fainted, or otherwise helpless and on the floor looking up while this strange man does nothing to help, and perhaps played a role in such an unfortunate “accident.” And what are the children, hallucinations?!
Doubt, uncertainty, and fearing the unknown are as real as anything else that scares us. The mystery of this work of art makes it spooky, creepy, and scarier to me than the paintings higher on my list. This indeed is one of Freud’s oddest paintings and certainly ranks as #4 in the 10 scariest paintings.
This is the third post in the 10 scariest paintings about death and with the word in its title. But that doesn’t surprise you, does it? Death is our foremost primal fear, along with the fear of the unknown in general. It is a part of life just as birth is, yet we agonize over its cruel selection of our friends and loved ones.
As agonizing as it is, the battle is a futile one as is clear in Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s “Triumph of Death” (detail above). Similar to Bruegel’s other display of demise, Mad Meg, and reminiscent of the terrors of Hieronymus Bosch, “Triumph” is a spectacle of horror with Death not only lurking around every corner but dominating every square inch of the landscape.
All walks of life from Prince to pauper are tortured, tormented, harassed and murdered by ungodly skeletons. Armies of the bony villains abound to drown, hang, bludgeon, stab, lacerate, and decapitate their wailing victims with scythes, swords, clubs and any other implement of horror. Nets of people are cast into the murky water to drown; a skeleton slits the throat of a bound unfortunate soul, while a dog eats the face off a dying woman nearby.
Off in the distance, the sea is littered with the sinking ships of refugees who attempt, in vain, to flee the massacre. Smoke covers the horizon, and bellows from the burning cities and villages. The flames can be seen for miles.
The tortured are left on the cartwheels which dot the landscape to be eaten by birds. This is a view of commonplace torture methods of the time, where one is “broken on the wheel” and the remains, sometimes still alive, are hoist on a pole for scavengers to feast.
A skeleton waits over the dying king with an hourglass as a cart of skulls slowly rides past, crushing people to death as the wheels turn. The driver rings a bell, the death knell, signaling the defeat of mankind. This fight is over. The battle is lost to the hordes of death minions who have spread over the world like apocalyptic parasites, to mercilessly and without reason or remorse, slaughter humanity into oblivion.
Interpret this fright show as you will. Historians say that it might be a representation of the political climate of 16th century Europe before the “80 Years War.” A more pessimistic view is shown with the antagonists being armies of skeletons, or dead people, rather than otherworldly demons or hellions as seen in Bosch’s doom warnings. This could be Brueghel didn’t want to show anything from Heaven or Hell, but simply to show the end of humankind into the void. Maybe Brueghel was just in a bad mood when he painted this.
However you interpret it, we can agree this village has seen better days.
In truth probably anything by twentieth century English painter Francis Bacon would be worthy of a 10 scariest paintings list. If there would be one word to describe this artist’s work it would have to be “disturbing,” with his grotesque portraits, and distorted atmospheres. Therefore, it is with disturbed pleasure I present to you number 6 in the 10 scariest paintings,
Study of Velazquez’s Pope Innocent X, by Francis Bacon
Pope Innocent X was originally painted by Diego Velazquez (click on Bacon’s image to see the original), who, as I’ve said before, is a much beloved and reproduced artist by modern painters such as Pablo Picasso. This papal portrait was painted in 1650, when the Vatican, thanks to Innocent X, enjoyed tremendous power. Velazquez painted the pontiff sitting with unquestioned authority and the confidence of a successful man of God.
It is the somber religious subject matter that makes Bacon’s version so shocking. Where the original is not exactly relaxed, as no formal portrait of power usually is, there is a quiet peace and reverence. Bacon’s version, on the other hand, is anything but reverent. It is exploding with tension and wild distortion of reality in every square inch. “Sorry” doesn’t cut it with this pope, as he practically breaks the chair squeezing it, and screams an inhuman scream that echoes into eternity as we, the viewers, actually hear it in our heads as we gaze at this horror.
Bacon uses the contrasting complementary colors purple and yellow to add to the tension, as if we haven’t had enough. When asked why he had revisited this theme so much, the painter explained that he wanted to use these colors but hadn’t had much excuse to. The background becomes all black, with the curtains transforming into tattered transparent shreds that seem to cover the sitter’s face. The sitter himself becomes semi-transparent as the white of the frock disappears in and out of reality. This highest of priestly offices has become a strange apparition, a ghostly specter of the past.
I placed the original “underneath” the Bacon version so you can click back and forth to compare. I always saw this painting as a somewhat hidden truth, it seems, that the artist was attempting to uncover. The satin scarlet robes of the head of religion, the expensive jewelry, and flashy appearance (anything but humble) might hide the truth underneath. But Bacon said he had no problem with popes or religion, and wasn’t making a statement.
There are several versions in the Innocent series with a couple here below.
Do you think he gave any to the Vatican?
P.S.- This painting reminds me of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” After consideration I have decided to give Munch’s “Scream” honorable mention in this series as it certainly deserves attention, but is not as bone-chilling as these other paintings as I see it.
Valentine’s Day is upon us and what better way to celebrate than with a powerful visual reminder that love and life will not last forever, and that every living creature will some day die. Our days are numbered and the Grim Reaper waits patiently. And trading Valentine’s Day cards with pictures of trains on them that say “I choo choo choose you” will be the furthest from his mind.
“Death and Life” by Gustav Klimt
#7 in the 10 scariest paintings is one of Gustav Klimt’s most famous works, aside from The Kiss and Adele Bloch-Bauer I, which to date is the highest selling painting at auction. Death and Life is a masterpiece of juxtaposition, or placing two opposite things side by side. It’s appropriate use of warm and cool colors allows the viewer to feel the respective temperatures, thus giving us an uneasy mood.
The huddled group of the living rests peacefully in each other’s arms, warm with the beautiful quilts of pink, orange and yellow, with flowers and pretty patterns. This is a true representation of humanity with all stages of life present with men, women, and children. They huddle close for protection from the cruel world around them. For the time being they are safe, with no worries. But unbeknown to this peaceful sleeping family is the presence of an uninvited visitor, whose slim and ghostly form is but an arm’s length away.
This harbinger of doom knows the death knell can ring for any or all of these people at any moment. Its perpetually smiling skull watches, unresting, and holds ghastly inhuman vigil. In this painting it wears a dark cold cloak akin to a graveyard with crosses showing an infinite amount of tick marks for each of its victims.
Klimt makes excellent use of space here with huddled organic mass of life crowding together in the small space, giving our eyes a never ending spectacle of form and pattern and flesh. Interestingly, the background was first laid with gold leaf, but the artist later painted over it, thus giving us a much bigger contrast between Life and their surroundings, including the impending doom bringer to the left.
It is truly a superb work of macabre art, and an excellent representation of Death. The way the dark skeleton holds the club as it holds vigil over the people reminds me of Judith Leyster’s The Last Drop, where a carefree drunken duo party into the night, as a skeleton gladly counts down to the drinker’s demise, holding in its bony fingers an hourglass. Both paintings are akin to the Danse Macabre of the Middle Ages, where death lurked around every corner and truly danced among the living in ever-inopportune times and places.
So huddle up in your quilts and enjoy it, while you can.
An unwanted guest can stop by at any moment, and he won’t be bringing chocolates.
You are reading a daily art blog with topics ranging from art, art history, painting, sculpture, drawing, illustration, animation, artists, galleries, museums, and plenty more. It is authored by Dan Kretschmer, who lives around Philadelphia. Dan Kretschmer is also the author of a book called "Masters of the Renaissance," which takes a look at 18 of the most important artists of the Renaissance in Europe.
The purpose of this art blog is to raise general awareness of art and to share knowledge and interests. The author's goal is to spark interest in as many people as possible, and to inspire them to pursue art to enrich their lives.
