Art, from the moment primitive man appeared on the walls of the cave, excited and influenced humanity. As soon as the artist's brush touches the canvas, the real creation process begins. The author does not just do his job, he puts his soul and a particle of himself into his work. The streams of energy seem to leave the fingertips, pass along the brush and stop on the canvas.
That is why we literally feel that the paintings of real artists look and feel "like living". Plots and images can cause tears, depression, disgust in a person, or, conversely, a feeling of joy and happiness.
However, the question arises: Can paintings affect our lives in general?
In this article, you will learn about the stories of paintings that can cause a slight chill. Even the photographs of some of them are, if not terrifying, then certainly unpleasant. If anything, we warned you !!!
1. "Hands resist him"
Let's start with perhaps the most infamous picture - "The Hands Resist Him" by Bill Stoneham. She became so "famous" that she was called "the most ghostly picture in the world."
In 1972, when Stoneham was living with his wife in California, he worked under contract with the Charles Feingarten Gallery. According to the contract, the artist was supposed to create two paintings a month.
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The deadline for the work was coming to an end, and Stoneham decided to paint a picture, taking as a basis his old photographs, where he was 5 years old. He named this picture in honor of a poem written by his wife for Stoneham himself (the poem was about the fact that, as a child, Bill was adopted, and he never knew anything about his biological parents).
The result is an image of a boy with a creepy doll without eyes standing next to him. According to Stoneham, the boy is himself at the age of 5, and the doorway in the picture is a barrier between the real world (where the hands are depicted) and the world of dreams. At the same time, the doll is a guide to the fantasy world.
As for the hands, the artist mysteriously said: “Hands could mean anything … But, you will definitely have a question: Are these hands without a body? The body was dismembered, and the hands by themselves? Or are they still in place, with the body?"
The painting was exhibited at the Feingarten Gallery in Beverly Hills, California. This painting was mentioned in the Los Angeles Times in an article by art critic Henry Seldis. At this exhibition, the painting caught the attention of actor John Marley, who played the role of Jack Voltz in The Godfather. He liked her so much that he decided to buy it.
Within one year after the creation of the picture, three people died at once: art critic Seldis, gallery owner Feingarten and actor Marley. After that, the picture seemed to disappear, until in 2000 the couple found it by someone left behind a brewery (which, by the way, was turned into an art space) all in the same California.
They took this picture for themselves, considering it a good acquisition. In February of the same year, they put it up for sale on eBay, explaining that this picture carries horror, and in general it is cursed and ghosts come out of it. Their announcement looked more like a warning than an announcement.
Written entirely in capital letters and with errors, this ad contained a mini story about why they decided to get rid of the painting. According to the couple, their 4-year-old daughter said that she saw the children from the picture go out into the room at night and start fighting.
The woman herself (the girl's mother) does not believe in UFOs and similar things, but her husband decided to install a camera. The camera filmed three nights in a row.
In the end, the couple received pictures confirming their daughter's words. In the photo they posted on eBay, the doll is allegedly holding a gun, threatening the boy. The couple also asked not to file a claim in their ad after purchasing the painting.
This ad has been viewed over 30,000 times. In the comments, people wrote that they felt bad as soon as they saw these photos. Some tried to print them, but the printer gave an error or broke.
Some claimed that when viewing the photos, they felt warm currents of air, which enveloping them, whispering various things in their ears in children's voices. Some even set fire to sage to cleanse their living quarters of evil spirits after viewing a page on eBay.
As a result, the painting was bought by Kim Smith for $ 1,025, owner of Perception Gallery in Michigan. A year later, Smith was contacted by the paranormal site and asked if anything paranormal had happened after purchasing this painting or not.
Smith, in her reply, said that the picture itself did not bring her any setbacks or troubles, but letters from people with advice on how to clean the room, how to protect herself with the help of a shaman, definitely drove her crazy.
The gallery workers asked the artist himself with a question about the pistol in the doll's hands. The artist confidently and even with a grain of irony replied that there was no pistol there. Common digital noise and noise that distorts the original image.
At the moment, the painting is in the gallery's repository and has been exhibited only 6 times. Each time the painting caused fear among the gallery visitors. The artist himself subsequently created a sequel to the painting (2 paintings, one of which depicted the same characters 40 years later). But, alas, they did not hide any mystery in themselves, and even less did they bring any misfortune to anyone.
2. Portrait of Bernardo de Galves
At the end of the hallway at the Galvez Hotel in Galveston, Texas, hangs a portrait of Bernardo de Galvez, a Spanish military leader who assisted the American forces during the Civil War. Also, in his honor, the city itself is named.
Despite the fact that Galvez died in 1786, rumors of his ghost appeared during his lifetime. Guests and hotel employees claimed that the eyes in the portrait followed them as they walked down the hallway.
One of the strangest aspects is that Galves does not allow himself to be photographed without "permission."
People argue that any photo taken without permission is blurry or inexplicable balls, fogs, streaks, or even ghosts. A group of paranormal researchers decided to check whether this is really so.
A cold shiver ran through them as they made sure they were blurry until they asked permission from the painting.
3. "Crying boy"
In fact, this is not one picture, but a whole series. In 1950, Italian artist Bruno Amadio, also known as Giovanni Bragolin, painted over 65 portraits of crying orphans, which he sold as souvenirs to tourists.
Very quickly, his paintings became popular in England and they began to be copied in large quantities. And until the 1980s, nothing strange happened.
Beginning in 1985, firefighters began claiming to have found completely intact copies of Crying Boy among the ash and debris of burned down houses. Copies were always laid face down on the floor. In more than 50 homes, paintings inexplicably avoided fire.
Numerous psychics have stated that the ghosts of the orphans who died during the Second World War haunted these paintings. This whole story has reached the level of an urban legend.
It should be noted that the original story appeared in the British tabloid newspaper The Sun, so many did not believe everything that was happening.
The Sun, to test the legend, organized a massive bonfire for the owners of the paintings. When they brought the reproductions to the general burning, they found that the copies burned surprisingly very slowly.
There is even one video on the BBC of one guy trying to burn a copy, pointing out that it burns slower than a regular copy of any other painting.
Maybe we should blame those who covered copies of paintings with fire-resistant varnish?
4. "Martyr"
Undoubtedly, this is a terrible and terrible picture. It was allegedly kept for 25 years in the attic of a man's grandmother named Sean Robinson. According to his grandmother, the artist, when creating the picture, mixed his blood with paint, and immediately after its completion, he committed suicide.
She also said that from the picture you could hear various voices, screams and crying, and as the grandmother believed, the picture was haunted by the spirit of the creator. All this made the old woman hide the painting in the attic.
In 2010, Robinson inherited the painting, and allegedly almost immediately his family was faced with a series of strange events. Robinson stated that after he became the owner of the Martyr, his son was pushed down the stairs by invisible forces; his wife often felt that something was stroking her hair, and the whole family heard the screams and crying described by Robinson's grandmother.
Robinson even decided to put a camera next to the painting to record the paranormal, and then uploaded the recording to YouTube. The video he received showed how the painting itself fell to the floor, and the doors in the house were periodically slammed. And sometimes an incomprehensible smoke emanated from the picture.
Many users, having watched the video, claimed that this was a hoax. Robinson reportedly locked the cursed painting in his basement and refuses to sell it.
5. Painting with a man without a head
Our next unusual painting is actually a painting from a photograph. In the mid-1990s, the artist, known only as Laura P., made a living creating paintings from photographs. One day, her attention was attracted by a strange photo taken by the photographer James Kidd.
In the photo, an old stagecoach is shown in the foreground, and the image of a man without a head appears to the side. Kidd insisted that this was not the case when he developed the photo. This became evident over time. Laura could not explain what exactly attracted her to the photo, but she was seized with an irresistible desire to draw a picture.
The artist said that almost immediately after starting to paint, she could not overcome feelings of fear and anxiety. For a very long time she did not dare to complete what she had begun, and when the test was over, the painting got to the local office.
Workers in the office claimed that as soon as the painting got to them, documents began to disappear in the office, and items changed their location. After 3 days, the painting was returned to the author. When Laura and her husband moved to a new home, the painting, along with a mysterious force, moved with them.
In their new home, the couple repeatedly heard various abnormal sounds, such as bangs, footsteps and other less defined noises, which always seemed to occur in the vicinity of the painting. In addition, other strange phenomena began to occur with increasing frequency.
Very soon things began to move around the house, doors opened, the roof began to leak, although everything was fine with it. One incident was incredibly creepy: the glass from which Laura was drinking suddenly burst in her hand, and a large shard of glass disappeared without a trace.
Laura regretted drawing this picture and expressed a desire to destroy it.
6. "Love Letters"
The list of damned paintings will be supplemented by a portrait of a little girl, which can be seen at The Driskill Hotel, Austin, Texas, USA.
The girl depicted in the picture is very similar to another girl named Samantha Houston, the 4-year-old daughter of a US Senator, who died while staying at the hotel.
She fell down the stairs while chasing the ball. Guests and staff members reported that the girl in the painting occasionally changes her expression. There is also ample evidence that the painting "makes" feel bad and that it makes you feel dizzy and sick.
Perhaps the ghost of the senator's daughter fell in love with this portrait, and he decided to "settle" in it.
7. "Dead mother"
Another painting "The Dead Mother" by Edvard Munch (author of the painting "The Scream"). If anyone does not know, Munch almost went crazy as a child. He was raised by his father, whom everyone in the district knew for his religious fanaticism, and his mother and his sisters died of tuberculosis when he was only 5 years old.
This picture seems to reflect to some extent his longing, despair and madness. Munch spoke about his work in his usual manner: "Sickness, madness and death were dark angels who watched over my cradle."
People who once owned this painting claimed that the girl's eyes were constantly watching them, and the sheets on her mother's bed made noise or moved. Sometimes the image of the girl left the picture.
8. "Man proposes, but God disposes"
At the Royal Holloway College Art Gallery at the University of London hangs a painting entitled "Man Proposes, God Disposes" by Sir Edwin Landseer. The painting depicts the team of the Arctic expedition with their leader Sir John Franklin. This team was not destined to survive.
They are not just stuck in the ice of the Arctic … They are being devoured by polar bears. This picture drives the students crazy, distracts from the exam (exams are often held in the gallery), which they then “successfully” fail.
Sometimes it is hung with the Union Jack flag. According to the student legend, one student lost her mind and took her own life in front of the audience. True or not, this is enough to get rid of the picture once and for all.
Only the most famous paintings are covered in this review. Is it true or false … It's up to you. But one thing is clear: paintings are not just images. They have mystery and hidden power.