Dark and disturbing Paintings by Famous Artists

1. Art history contains a wide spectrum of topics from beauty and refinement to fear, death and terror.
Living through tumultuous times filled with famine, war and plague, art history is not without its dark masterpieces.

2. The world of darkness …
Dark and disturbing Paintings by Famous Artists

3. The heroic act completed by Judith to save the Israelites from the approaching Assyrian army.
A dramatic moment …
Holofernes struggles in vain, is overpowered and without hope,
Judith drives the sword, which is noticeably vertical and shaped in a way that alludes to a cross,
into flesh with an exertive force.
Holofernes bears a resemblance to Agostino Tassi who raped the Artist when she was
only 17 years old.
Artemisia Gentileschi
Judith Beheading Holofernes
Judith décapitant Holopherne
1620
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

6. He built an ‘infernal machine,’ consisting of 25 musket barrels arrayed within a wooden
frame in his third floor apartment.
On 28th July, this device was fired at the King Louis-Philippe of France and his entourage
as they passed by in the street.
Fieschi was guillotined on 19 February 1836.
Fieschi's head went to a doctor at Bicêtre Hospital where a postmortem examination
of his brain was carried out to determine if it exhibited features that might explain
his behavior.
Jacques Raymond Brascassat
Tête de Giuseppe Fieschi après son exécution
The head of Fieschi after his execution
1836
Musée Carnavalet, Musée de la Ville de Paris, Paris

9. “And heavy rain fell on earth for forty days and forty nights.” (Gen. 7:12) …
A cluster of bodies of human beings and animals
under the rain streams of the anger of the sky,
some are already drowned, others scream their distress.
Léon Comerre
Le Déluge ou Le Déluge de Noé et les compagnons
The Flood
1911
Musée d'Arts de Nantes, Nantes

12. The tragic death of the ancient Italian city …
the chaos, destruction,
death,
a mother covering her daughters,
two brothers are carrying their elderly father,
a young man is carrying his fiancée
On the left side of the painting an artist with a box of brushes and paints;
this is the self-portrait of Karl Bryullov.
Karl Bryullov
The Last Day of Pompeii
Le Dernier Jour de Pompéi
1830-1833
State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg

18. Cleopatra VII observing the effects of poisons on prisoners
condemned to death, as described in Mark Antony's Plutarch's Lives.
Cleopatra "tested" various poisons on prisoners in order to choose
the most effective and painless to keep it with her in case she would
have to commit a suicide
…
Cleopatra in luxury robes,
at his feet lies a majestic leopard.
Alexandre Cabanel
Cléopâtre essayant des poisons sur des condamnés à mort
Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners
1887
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

21. A biblical event in contemporary terms.
The sacking and plundering of a Flemish village …
a soldier drags an infant out of house,
a seated woman grieves with her dead baby on her lap (changed to a bundle),
a soldier with striped breeches stabs one child (overpainted as a boar)
and
another stabs at a baby held by a woman (overpainted as a jug) ...
A group of armoured horsemen are supervising the slaughter.
It was one of the characteristics of Spanish troops
that they held their lances in an absolutely upright position.
The troop's leader, clad in black and with a long white beard,
is presumably intended as a reference to the Duke of Alba.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder Pieter Bruegel l'Ancien
The Massacre of the Innocents
Le Massacre des innocents
1565-1567
Royal Collection of the United Kingdom

24. The moment that Jane, blindfolded, is being assisted to lay her head
upon the block for the executioner.
Her outstretched hand reaches uncertainly down to find the block.
She is being guided towards it by Sir John Brydges, Lieutenant of the Tower.
Two ladies in waiting showing their grief.
The executioner stands waiting …
Jane Grey, a great granddaughter of Henry VII who was proclaimed Queen of England
upon the death of young King Edward VI, a Protestant like herself.
She reigned for nine days in 1553, but, through the machinations of the partisans
of Henry VIII's Catholic daughter, Mary Tudor, she was convicted of high treason
and sentenced to death in the Tower of London.
Paul Delaroche
Le Supplice de Jane Grey
The Execution of Lady Jane Grey
1833
National Gallery, London

27. The painting depicts the murder of the Princess de Lamballe in the September Massacres,
during the French Revolution.
The unfortunate woman lies dead in the middle of the street,
is Marie-Thérèse-Louise de Savoie-Carignan.
The crowd gathered around the naked corpse
and
in the background the swords of torturers.
Faivre carefully avoids showing the beheading itself, too harsh,
and that it would have devalued the people in their struggle for justice.
Léon Maxime Faivre
La Mort de la princesse de Lamballe
Death of the Princess de Lamballe
1908
Musée de la Révolution française, Vizille

31. A dark stone basement or crypt ...
The "dead man" tries to get out of the coffin,
desperately stretching out his left hand towards the viewer.
At the center of this nightmarish vision is an unexpected touch of macabre humor,
Antoine Wiertz added a red inscription on the side of the coffin:
"Died by cholera – certified by our doctors [signed] without a doubt."
The fear of premature burial was real and intense in the nineteenth century.
Before the development of modern medical technology, it was surprisingly
difficult to determine whether or not someone was actually dead.
Antoine Wiertz
The Premature Burial
L'Inhumation précipitée
1854
Wiertz Museum, Ixelles

34. The moment after the murder ...
Marat's body is portrayed in heroic nudity,
still holding onto a paper in one hand and the pen.
His throat wound seems clean as if all signs of the violence have vanished.
In essence, this romanticized portrayal honors Republican principles
and remembers a Revolutionary martyr in the crucified position.
Marat was stabbed to death by Charlotte Corday,
a Girondin and political enemy of Marat
who blamed Marat for the September Massacre.
Jacques-Louis David
La Mort de Marat
The Death of Marat
1793
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels

37. A personification of the cruel plague ...
a dragon-like monster,
a rickety grim reaper swings his weapon spreading great mischief over the streets.
The "breath of plague" - an invisible, barely perceptible breeze is blowing.
The narrow alley thus becomes an inescapable death sentence.
As if seized by an invisible force, a girl in a red dress falls to the ground.
The superiority of the disease, the inferiority of man against the invisible opponent -
Böcklin will have been able to understand this quite personally:
his first son died of cholera, and another of typhus.
Arnold Böcklin
The Plague
La Peste
1898
Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel

40. a subject disturbing,
dramatic lighting,
the tragedy of Herodias, despair of a woman ...
a bare wall,
Herodias swooning in ecstasy as she mutilates the tongue that spoke against her.
A text by Saint Jerome recounts that when Herodias received the severed head,
she pierced the Baptist's tongue with a needle.
With this heinous and brutal gesture, she wanted to punish the words of disapproval
with which the Baptist had condemned her immoral conduct.
Francesco del Cairo
Herodias with the Head of Saint John the Baptist Hérodiade avec la tête de Saint Jean Baptiste
1625-1630
Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston

43. A theme extremely unusual for its time,
a naked woman in the middle flanked by representations of doom
and the wicked, Death and the Devil,
an erotic Vanitas allegory, a motif that was not destined to become
popular until the sixteenth century …
a woman,
with a diadem in her long hair, who looks in the mirror
and unashamedly shows off her nakedness but for the sandals
on her feet, simultaneously represents Vanity and Lust.
a corpse,
is still covered with skin (except the skull); Its abdomen is open
and devoured by worms, a toad covers its genitals.
a Demon,
tramples three damned men into a huge flaming maw,
representing the entrance to Underworld.
Hans Memling
Triptych of Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation
Polyptyque de la Vanité terrestre et de la Rédemption céleste
1485
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg, Strasbourg

47. Hell
the fantastic dark world ...
burning cities,
demons,
mutated animals feeding on human flesh
a hare-headed demon,
a group of persons around a toppled gambling table are being massacred with swords and knives
a gigantic bird-headed monster, the "Prince of Hell", feeds on human corpses
and
the "Tree-Man", his head supports a disk populated by demons and victims, its cavernous torso
is supported by what could be contorted arms or rotting tree trunks.
The tree-man gazes outwards beyond the viewer, his conspiratorial expression
a mix of wistfulness and resignation, the tree-man's face could be a self-portrait.
Hieronymus Bosch Jérôme Bosch
The Garden of Earthly Delights, Right panel The hell
Le Jardin des délices, Panneau de droite L'Enfer
1490-1505
Museo del Prado, Madrid

50. An apocalyptic vision.
For all men and women, however exalted their status on earth,
there is no escape from the army of Death, which advances inexorably
across Bruegel's burning landscape.
Trees and grass are withered;
the fires of Hell blaze behind the hills,
and the Christian promise of resurrection and redemption is absent …
a wagon-load of skulls and bones pulled along by an emaciated horse ridden
by a skeleton,
a cardinal is helped towards his fate by a skeleton who mockingly wears the red hat,
a dying king's barrel of gold coins is looted by a skeleton
and ...
a couple playing music, a small island of youth,
beauty and harmony in the midst of a destructive, raging storm.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder Pieter Brueghel l'Ancien
The Triumph Of Death
Le Triomphe de la Mort
1562
Museo del Prado, Madrid

55. The Ovid's tragic narrative of the satyr Marsyas,
who lost a duel with the deity Apollo in a contest
and was sentenced to a horrible demise.
The satyr has been strung, and is having his skin and hide cut off,
Apollo kneeling with his blade at Marsyas’ chest
the Muses, playing her string instrument,
Others gaze on in dismay at the grisly scene
In king Midas the observer, they see Titian self-portrait
meditating on the purpose of suffering and death.
Titian Titien
The Punishment of Marsyas or The Flaying of Marsyas
Le Supplice de Marsyas
1576
Archdiocesan Museum Kroměříž, Archbishopric Castle Kroměříž, Kroměříž

58. a disturbing image,
a gruesome retelling of the Roman (Originally Greek) myth of a God
eating his own son for fear of overthrow.
Many of the interpretations of the Saturn Devouring His Son are focused
on the artist’s inner conflicts between old and young age,
or
in an allegory on the situation in a country that was consuming
its own children in bloody wars and revolutions.
Francisco Goya
Saturn Devouring His Son
Saturne dévorant un de ses fils
1819-1823
Museo del Prado, Madrid

61. Combining terror and eroticism,
a dark, sinister scene …
A lady in profound slumber, her arms flung beneath her,
and
a devilish and animalistic incubus crouching on her breast.
Emerging from a parting in the curtain is the head of a horse with bold,
featureless eyes.
The artist has not provided any key to his interpretation,
giving rise to a myriad of interpretations
ranging from the sublimation of sexual desires
to the illustration of sleep paralysis.
Henry Fuseli Johann Heinrich Füssli
Le Cauchemar
The Nightmare
1781
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit

64. The Grim Reaper dressed in red
accompanies a new recruit to the underworld or afterlife,
as they walk together surrounded by large black crows …
Jakub Schikaneder
Poslední cesta
The Last Journey
Le Dernier Voyage
1895
Private collection

66. o.esqsegues@gmail.com
The world of darkness … Dark and disturbing Paintings by Famous Artists
Le monde des ténèbres ... Peintures sombres et inquiétantes d'artistes célèbres
images and text credit www.
Music Vangelis Alpha
created olga_oes
thanks for watching
Merci M.C., merci Michel