THESE PAINTINGS FRIGHTEN AND FASCINATE SIMULTANEOUSLY
In the listing of the most costly arts in the world, you can sometimes find unusual specimens! Some are shocked by their plot, while a veil of mystery covers others. Some images are disgusting rather than delightful. However, the unique and strange nature of these works presents them out of the crowd. The images that we’re going to give here, for example, have been auctioned for millions of dollars. Each of these paintings has a unique and special meaning.
«Woman I», Willem de Kuning
This art piece is one of the most extraordinary paintings in the Top of the most expensive artworks in the world. Feel free if it makes you tremble in your knees! The artist depicted a woman with lush forms in an abstract manner. Sharp black paint strokes, disproportional face, and body – for the common man, such art can be unpleasant to the eye. The painting was in Iran, but it was sold and removed from the country due to strict censorship rules.
«Garden of Earthly Pleasures,» Hieronymus Bosch
The central part of this triptych is devoted to the topic of voluptuousness. Take a closer look, and you’ll see a real drug dream: cartoon images, strange erotic scenes, and other rattlesnakes. Art critics are still arguing about the true meaning of this painting. The content is so saturated and hallucinogenic that it is controversial.
«Three Ages of Woman,» Gustav Klimt
Sensitive and sentimental women are advised not to get involved in the meaning of this canvas. The great artist Gustav Klimt depicted three stages of life: childhood, youth, and old age. The little girl sleeps serenely in the arms of her mother, who in turn gives her a gentle hug. Simultaneously, the older woman in another part of the painting bowed her head in despair, displaying her old-aged belly. Infirmity and youth stand side by side, reminding of the inevitability of what is to come. Despite the sad context, the work is brilliant and recognized as a masterpiece of world painting.
«Family,» Egon Schiele
Schiele is a pupil of Klimt who has gone his own way. Unlike his teacher, Schiele’s masterpieces are much darker and more tragic. Some works border on pornography and are more like the perverse images of a person with schizophrenia. The picture presented above is not his vilest work, but its meaning can cause hysteria. The painter wrote it at the age of 28, before his death shortly after his pregnant wife’s end. The painting depicts the artist himself, his beloved, and his unborn child.
«Two Frids,» Frida Kahlo
A beautiful and slightly creepy picture of the hand of a legendary Mexican woman. As you know, most of the paintings by the artist are self-portraits. She explained that she knows herself best, so Frida herself is the best subject for paintings. On this particular canvas, the Mexican woman depicted her male and female origins, joined together by the same vessels. The latter in this image demonstrates the integrity and continuity of the two halves.
«Waterloo Bridge. Fog Effect», Claude Monet
This series of Monet’s works are not terrible paintings at all, but very unusual ones. When viewed closely, the canvas appears to be a chaotic combination of strokes and color transitions. But the further away from the canvas, the clearer the full picture is. The viewer’s eyes reveal a beautiful landscape. First comes the figures of the boats, and then the outlines of the famous Waterloo Bridge.
«Alchemy,» Jackson Pollock
For many abstractions, these are strange and incomprehensible pictures that mean nothing. Why are they so popular? Apart from the genius of the color solution, Pollock’s painting is very unusual. In making it, the Master used everything he could find: knives, ropes, chopsticks, broken glass, and even a shovel! The artist admitted that he had gradually moved away from the artist’s classical instrumentation in favor of unusual objects that expanded his art capabilities.
«Man and woman in front of a pile of excrement,» Joan Miro
The name of the work is already a source of anger. But it was this effect that the author achieved, illustrating the adversities of the Spanish Civil War. The man and the woman in the picture reach out to each other but standstill. Disgusting and enlarged genitalia, acid shades, and excrement aim to create an atmosphere of gross sexuality, fear, and disgust.
«Hands against him,» Bill Stoneham.
Look at this picture carefully. Look at the details, look into the boy’s eyes. Brr. Creepy? That’s what every person who looks at it at least once thinks. The piece sold on eBay for only $1,000, but after its publication, the buyer inundates with letters asking him to burn the painting away from sin.
There were rumors that there were ghosts or demons attached to this canvas, that many were beginning a panic attack. The author himself claims that it is just a self-portrait. He portrayed himself as a child, and the closed-door symbolizes the line between sleep and reality. The hands-on the glasses are other lives and possibilities; the doll next to you is a conduit between alternate worlds.
«Beating Babies,» Peter Rubens
The 5 million euro Rubens canvas can make mothers cry. It’s a delightfully, beautiful but scary canvas. The renowned Master captured an unpleasant episode from a newfound story. Surprisingly, beating babies is a religious subject. The point is that young children are considered martyrs after death. The image itself symbolizes the cruelty to innocent people.
«Triptych», Francis Bacon
It’s hard to see at first sight, but this picture is a sketch of a portrait of a man. In 2008, it broke the art market record and selling to Roman Abramovich for $86 million. The surrealist painting is based on the ancient Greek myth of the persecution of Orestes by furies. But instead of a mythical character, we see the artist himself and his torment.
«Silver Car Accident,» Andy Warhol
Tragic events and plots often form the basis of art. But each Master presents a story differently. Andy Warhol, who became a real sensation of the mid-20th century, did it extraordinarily. One day, the foreman saw a picture of a car accident in the paper and shouted, “Eureka”! The artist cut the photo and repeated it by silkscreen, filling only part of the picture. An unusual piece was released and sold for millions of dollars.
«Dora Maar with a cat,» Pablo Picasso
Dora Maar is an artist and photographer who spent nine years with Pablo Picasso as her lover. The Master liked to paint portraits of his lovers, which were not few in his life. Distorted facial shapes and features can cause unpleasant associations, but not from the buyer. In 2004, the piece went with a $100 million gavel.
«Three sketches with Lucien Freud,» Francis Bacon
Bacon’s strange and original manners were to the liking of many art lovers. His paintings sell well worldwide; it’s this triptych that “blew up” the bidding. It’s an early masterpiece written during his studies. The paintings traveled the globe separately for many years and auctioned as a single lot in 2013.
«Flower basket girl,» Pablo Picasso
This picture is distinctly different from other works of Picasso and has aroused a storm of interest among art lovers. The painting depicts a naked young girl, almost a girl. Children’s eyes and nudity carry contradictory elements of innocence and experience, and their expression can cause discomfort. The painting was sold to an anonymous buyer for $115 million, becoming one of the most expensive paintings by the author.
«Light of Anna,» Barnett Newman
It’s hard to find a hidden meaning in a canvas almost entirely covered in red paint. Modern art is meaningless and ruthless, but it doesn’t make it any less interesting. For example, Newman’s work seems bottomless only at first glance and when looking at a digital copy on the Internet. But in reality, the picture may surprise you. Slowly moving along the canvas, you will “drown” in the enchanting transition of color.
«No name», Jean-Michel Basquia
Every painting of a neo-expressionist from New York City evokes mixed emotions. The extravagant manner of writing seems too audacious and screaming, more like graffiti from the wall of an abandoned house. The secret is simple – it’s street art! The author started as an illegal graffiti artist, but after a successful exhibition and an article in a well-known magazine became a real star. In 1982, the young man even met Warhol and created several vivid works with him. Interestingly, the Master put hidden meanings and messages into his work. In this painting, for example, we found two invisible arrows written in UV paints.
«Scream,» Edward Munk
You’ve probably seen this picture because it’s spread all over the Internet. It’s got a lot of parodies and imitations and imitations. There are many rumors about the author himself because his life is linked to a series of tragedies. Munk has put a lot of grief into his work, so many people believe his paintings have negative energy.
The painting clearly does not favor those who “offend” it. One guard who accidentally dropped the painting in the museum suffered from severe headaches and killed himself. A second guard who had made such a mistake was in a terrible car accident. A visitor to the gallery who touched the canvas burned to death in a fire. It makes you wonder, don’t you think?
«Where have we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?» Paul Gauguin
The artist’s idea is to read the painting from right to left. In the extreme corner, there are three women, and the baby is a symbol of the beginning of life. A group of people in the center – an illustration of maturity, an old woman in the left-hand corner – a sign of inevitability and approaching old age. The work has become a landmark in the life of the artist Master himself has stated that it is an excellent painting and that it is the best that he will ever write. After finishing the job, Gauguin even wanted to commit suicide but never dared. The Master died five years later without writing anything more brilliant.
«Guernica», Pablo Picasso
The terrible picture of the Master is the scenes of violence and cruelty. They are painted against a cruelly black background. The canvas illustrates the raid on the city of Guernica, in which the city of 6,000 was completely destroyed. The painting contains all the horrors of fascism, cruelty, suffering, and human brutality. Goosebumps, right?
It is interesting that because of this picture, Picasso found himself in the Gestapo of Paris. The Masters asked: «Did you do it?». To which the artist replied: «No, it was you.»
«Portrait of the Arnolfini couple,» Jan van Eyck
The picture, to put it mildly, stands out against other members of the Western school of painting of the Northern Renaissance. The canvas is filled with hidden symbols, messages, and references. What the inscription “Jan van Eyck was here” stands for, which highlights the reality of those events and the artist’s presence. In recent years, the work has spread over the Internet due to Arnolphini’s funny similarity to Vladimir Putin. And another interesting fact: the picture can be seen on the screen of the popular series “Desperate Housewives.”
«Demon sitting,» Mikhail Vrubel
We used to see demons as evil and powerful creatures, but Vrubel has his own opinion. He portrayed the image of a sad man who sits thoughtfully and shackled. The author himself said that the demon is not so much evil as suffering and mourning. At the same time, his powerful figure can feel strength and greatness, albeit tormented by some doubts.
«Apotheosis of War,» Vasily Vereshhagin
The picture is based on a metaphor, but it’s not that hard to make sense of it, especially after reading the title. The artist painted a mountain of skulls in the middle of a lifeless desert to emphasize the cruelty and pointless nature of wars. Human conflict brings only death and nothing else – that’s the idea behind the canvas. When you look into the skull, you begin to see in every one of someone’s crippled destiny.
«American Gothic.»
You can’t tell from the first glance that this canvas is full of frightening symbolism. At first, the harsh faces of heroes – a tough father and a concerned daughter – are striking. In more detail, you start to see sharp pitchforks and stitches on the farmer’s clothing, repeating their shape. The author has captured the image of true puritanism, which conceals cruelty and strict morals.
«Lovers,» Renee Magritte
One of the most mysterious paintings of modern times is actively discussed in the world art community. This is a living example of how one image can have a dozen meanings. One sees in a couple of Magritte with closed faces a message of “love is blind,” others insist on the idea of all-consuming love. All the interpretations are kind of true, but you never get to know the truth. Either way, the couple looks pretty creepy.
«Portrait of Paul Eluard», Salvador Dalí
El Salvador Dalí is known to everyone, although his work hardly needs to be hung in front of the bed in the bedroom. The King of Surrealism writes such unusual and sometimes disgusting paintings that the viewer often has goosebumps. Paul Eluard’s portrait is not an exception to the rules. His most expensive work was sold in 2011 for $22 million. As is known, the work was written for Eluard himself, Gala’s ex-husband, whom Dalí took from under his nose while working on the painting.
«The Great Masturbator», Salvador Dalí
Perhaps out of love for Dalí’s work, consider another masterpiece of the Spanish Master. “The Great Masturbator” is filled with fears, subconscious experiences, and perverse representations of the author. Here, secularity appears to us as something terrible and disgusting, which underscores locusts and other symbols. Sex and suffering go hand in hand in almost every piece of Dalí’s work. Much of this is due to the psychological trauma: as a child, the artist’s father showed him pictures of genitalia. They are affected by venereal diseases.
«Saturn devouring his son,» Francisco Goya
Most of us heard myths about the father of all gods, who was not very good at raising his children. In Greek mythology, God was named Kronos, and in Roman mythology, Saturn. The Father-God ate his own children so that they would not encroach on his throne. Goya’s ghastly painting depicts the exact moment of the murder. Strangely, it was this beastly piece the artist decided to write on the wall of his own house. Goya’s home was adorned with several other such creations under the common name “Black Painting.”
«The Great Red Dragon and the Sea Monster,» William Blake
During the life of the artist, as is often the case, little was appreciated. He mainly painted engravings and illustrations in a romantic style, but this series of paintings was painted with watercolors. Here, Bake portrays the Great Red Dragon, a character from the Book of Revelation. The dragon embodies the devil himself, sitting on a giant monster. It makes many people uncomfortable. By the way, the work played a significant role in the plot of the famous film about Hannibal, “The Red Dragon.”
«Severed Heads,» Theodore Jericho
In addition to his wonderful portraits, many of his works are devoted to the fierce historical battles and ancient Greek myths. Before working with large canvases, Geriko often painted “training” paintings of small size. This was the warm-up of “Beheaded Heads.” Did the Master write from nature? Shocking, but yes. The author often used real chopped-up body parts that he borrowed from the morgue.
«Still Life from Masks,» Emil Nolde
Nolde is much less well known among Expressionists than Munk. However, his works are no less vivid. This work was inspired by the Berlin Museum. The already scary masks that passed through the prism of the author’s thinking became even more frightening.
ARE SUCH PAINTINGS SUITABLE FOR AN INTERIOR?
First of all, do you believe in superstition, energy, and other things? If not, then “Scream” or “Hands Against Him” can be boldly hung in your living room. Paintings with explicit negative content, such as “Decapitated Heads,” psychologists and designers do not recommend hanging, especially in the bedroom. Believe me; you don’t want to see “The Red Dragon” every night before bed. But no matter what advice you get, you have to focus on how you feel.
If it’s not a scary painting, it’s just an unorthodox painting; it’s definitely in the living room. Isn’t it nice to surprise guests with an unusual piece of art? But remember, all famous strange paintings with the world’s name are very expensive. Here comes a canvas print, which allows you to enjoy your favorite paintings without emptying your wallet.