Horrifying Fine Art

[iluvdvds@Cult Labs]

The House With Laughing Windows is a fascinating giallo that centres around a horrific but stunning painting. The world of fine art is filled with similar images that are not only shocking, but just as mesmerising and haunting as this film.

In fact, it's not just House... that is obsessed with mixing high and 'low' cultures (art and exploitation gore) but many other films for this genre too, such as Suspiria's focus on ballet.

So, here's a thread dedicated to the more shocking and disturbing side of high art.

What are some of the most striking images in the art world? Hopefully we can create quite an interesting thread here.




One such example that springs instantly to mind is Francisco Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son. It portrays the Greek myth in which one of the leaders of the Titans, Titan Cronus feared his children would overthrow him. So, the creature devoured each of his babies upon birth.

There's a book called Cannibal Within (which I would STRONGLY recommend - it's easily the most disturbing book I've ever read) that features a version of this on it's front cover.




Shameless Screen Entertainment's THE HOUSE WITH LAUGHING WINDOWS is out now! Order yours here.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Pieter Bruegel's The Triumph of Death was first introduced to me as the artwork on Black Sabbath's Greatest Hits.

Its a striking painting with so much going on, much of it being mutilation, rape and torture.

A truly grim yet fascinating piece.

You can really explore the intricate detail by enlarging the pic in its Wiki page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triumph_of_Death

[ReturnToZero]

I'm very fascinated by Gustave Doré and his bible illustrations. Very dark and surreal. They are all worth checking out.

[ReturnToZero]

And of course this one is also an excellent piece of work

[Slippery Jack]

I find De Chirico's 'Mystery and Melancholy of a Street' wonderfully sinister. Makes me want to watch Who Can Kill A Child? . . .

[themanfromhongkong]

actually the first thing I thought of was the painting in the Night Child but here is Diomedes Devoured by his Horses by Gustave Moreau.

In the myths concerning the labors of Heracles, the eighth task he must perform is to steal the mares of Diomedes, King of Thrace. Horse theft should be a simple matter for the son of a god, but these are man-eating horses. Unaware that the horses are mad and deadly, he leaves them with his companion, whom the horses kill and devour. As a punishment on Diomedes for raising such monsters, Heracles feeds Diomedes to his own horses. This is the subject matter for Moreau’s painting, with Heracles nonchalantly looking on as the horses take his revenge. Moreau is famous for his symbolist paintings of Biblical and mythological scenes, though none are as bloody as this one.

[Jinx_Barkman]

I don't know how I managed to miss this thread.

Michael Hussar's work is often dark and brooding. Hauntingly beautiful.

[Slippery Jack]

I'm a big fan of Max Ernst's Surrealist collages, using bits of illustrated news clippings. I was obsessed with them doing art at school

[Susan Foreman]

Salvador Dali's “First Cylindric Chromo-Hologram Portrait of Alice Cooper’s Brain� which…

[...] depicts a three-dimensional Alice Cooper wearing two million dollars worth of jewelry including a tiara and necklace while holding a statuette of Venus De Milo as if it were a microphone. A plaster sculpture of Alice’s brain, topped by a chocolate éclair covered in ants, another DalÃ* oeuvre, was placed behind the cross-legged rock star and the set-up was documented by DalÃ* using (then) cutting-edge hologram technology.

[Jinx_Barkman]

Dali is my favorite artist and I consider him a tremendous influence of mine. I like the fact that he experimented with different mediums such as the one above. Fascinating.