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The most unusual and shocking artists of the world. The most unusual paintings by famous artists: photos and descriptions of the 20 strangest paintings in the world

Among noble works arts that please the eye and cause only positive emotions, there are canvases, to put it mildly, strange and shocking. We present to your attention 20 paintings belonging to the brush worldwide famous artists that make you terrified...

"Losing mind over matter"

A painting painted in 1973 by the Austrian artist Otto Rapp. He depicted a decaying human head, put on a bird cage, in which lies a piece of flesh.

"Suspended living Negro"

This gruesome creation by William Blake depicts a Negro slave who was hung from the gallows with a hook threaded through his ribs. The work is based on the story of the Dutch soldier Steadman - an eyewitness to such a cruel massacre.

"Dante and Virgil in Hell"

Adolphe William Bouguereau's painting was inspired by a short scene about a battle between two damned souls from Dante's Inferno.

"Hell"

Painting "Hell" German artist Hans Memling, written in 1485, is one of the most terrible artistic creations of its time. She was supposed to push people towards virtue. Memling heightened the scene's horrific effect by adding the caption, "There is no redemption in hell."

"The Great Red Dragon and the Sea Monster"

The famous 13th-century English poet and artist William Blake, in a moment of insight, created a series of watercolor paintings depicting the great red dragon from the Book of Revelation. The Red Dragon was the embodiment of the devil.

"Water Spirit"

The artist Alfred Kubin is considered the largest representative symbolism and expressionism and is known for his dark symbolic fantasies. “The Spirit of Water” is one of these works, depicting the powerlessness of man in the face of the sea.

"Necronom IV"

This scary creation by renowned artist Hans Rudolf Giger was inspired by the movie Alien. Giger suffered from nightmares and all his paintings were inspired by these visions.

"Flaying Marsyas"

Created by an artist of times Italian Renaissance Titian's painting "The Flaying of Marsyas" is currently in National Museum in Kroměříž in the Czech Republic. Piece of art depicts a scene from Greek mythology, where the satyr Marsyas is flayed for daring to challenge the god Apollo.

"The Temptation of Saint Anthony"

Matthias Grunewald portrayed the religious scenes of the Middle Ages, although he himself lived during the Renaissance. Saint Anthony was said to have faced trials of his faith while praying in the wilderness. According to legend, he was killed by demons in a cave, then he resurrected and destroyed them. This painting depicts Saint Anthony being attacked by demons.

"Severed Heads"

The most notable work Théodore Géricault is The Raft of the Medusa, a huge painting painted in a romantic style. Gericault tried to break the boundaries of classicism by moving to romanticism. These paintings were initial stage his creativity. For his work, he used real limbs and heads, which he found in morgues and laboratories.

"Scream"

This famous painting Norwegian Expressionist Edvard Munch was inspired by a serene evening walk during which the artist witnessed the blood-red setting sun.

"Death of Marat"

Jean-Paul Marat was one of the leaders French Revolution. Suffering from a skin disease, he spent most of his time in the bathroom, where he worked on his recordings. There he was killed by Charlotte Corday. The death of Marat has been depicted several times, but it is the work of Edvard Munch that is particularly cruel.

"Still life of masks"

Emil Nolde was one of the early expressionist painters, although his fame was overshadowed by others such as Munch. Nolde painted this painting after studying masks in Berlin Museum. Throughout his life he has been fascinated by other cultures and this work is no exception.

"Gallowgate Lard"

This painting is nothing more than a self-portrait by Scottish author Ken Currie, who specializes in dark, socially realistic paintings. Curry's favorite subject is the drab urban life of the Scottish working class.

"Saturn Devouring His Son"

One of the most famous and sinister works Spanish artist Francisco Goya was painted on the wall of his house in 1820-1823. The plot is based on Greek myth about the titan Chronos (in Rome - Saturn), who feared that he would be overthrown by one of his children and ate them immediately after birth.

"Judith Killing Holofernes"

The execution of Holofernes was portrayed by such great artists as Donatello, Sandro Botticelli, Giorgione, Gentileschi, Lucas Cranach the Elder and many others. On painting by Caravaggio, written in 1599, depicts the most dramatic moment of this story - the decapitation.

"Nightmare"

The painting by the Swiss painter Heinrich Fuseli was first shown at the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy in London in 1782, where it shocked both visitors and critics.

"Massacre of the innocents"

This outstanding work of art by Peter Paul Rubens, consisting of two paintings, was created in 1612, believed to have been influenced by the works of the famous Italian artist Caravaggio.

"Study of the portrait of Innocent X Velasquez"

This terrifying image of one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, Francis Bacon, is based on a paraphrase famous portrait Pope Innocent X by Diego Velasquez. Spattered with blood, with a painfully distorted face, the Pope is depicted seated in a metal tubular structure, which, upon closer inspection, is a throne.

"The Garden of Earthly Delights"

This is the most famous and frightening triptych of Hieronymus Bosch. To date, there are many interpretations of the painting, but none of them has been conclusively confirmed. Perhaps Bosch's work represents the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Earthly Delights and the Punishment that will have to be suffered for mortal sins committed during life.

Some works of art seem to hit the viewer on the head, dumbfounded and amazing. Some of them draw you into thought and in search of semantic layers, secret symbolism. Some paintings are covered with secrets and mystical mysteries, and some surprise with an exorbitant price.

“Weirdness” is quite a subjective term, and everyone has their own amazing paintings that stand out from a number of other works of art.

Edvard Munch "Scream"

1893, cardboard, oil, tempera, pastel. 91×73.5 cm

National Gallery, Oslo

The Scream is considered a landmark expressionist event and one of the most famous paintings in the world.
“I was walking along the path with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red, I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned against the fence - I looked at the blood and flames over the bluish-black fjord and the city - my friends went on, and I stood, trembling with excitement, feeling the endless scream piercing nature, ”said Edvard Munch about the history of the painting.
There are two interpretations of what is depicted: it is the hero himself who is seized with horror and silently screams, pressing his hands to his ears; or the hero closes his ears from the cry of the world and nature sounding around him. Munch wrote 4 versions of The Scream, and there is a version that this picture is the fruit of a manic-depressive psychosis from which the artist suffered. After a course of treatment at the clinic, Munch did not return to work on the canvas.

Paul Gauguin "Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?"

1897-1898, oil on canvas. 139.1×374.6 cm

Museum fine arts, Boston

A deeply philosophical picture of the post-impressionist Paul Gauguin was written by him in Tahiti, where he fled from Paris. At the end of the work, he even wanted to commit suicide, because "I believe that this canvas is not only superior to all my previous ones, and that I will never create something better or even similar." He lived another 5 years, and so it happened.
At the direction of Gauguin himself, the picture should be read from right to left - the three main groups of figures illustrate the questions posed in the title. Three women with a child represent the beginning of life; middle group symbolizes the daily existence of maturity; in the final group, according to the artist, "an old woman approaching death seems reconciled and given over to her thoughts", at her feet "a strange white bird ... represents the futility of words."

Pablo Picasso "Guernica"

1937, oil on canvas. 349×776 cm

Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid

The huge fresco "Guernica", painted by Picasso in 1937, tells about the raid of the Luftwaffe volunteer unit on the city of Guernica, as a result of which the six thousandth city was completely destroyed. The picture was painted in just a month - the first days of work on the picture, Picasso worked for 10-12 hours and already in the first sketches one could see main idea. This is one of the best illustrations the nightmare of fascism, as well as human cruelty and grief.
Guernica presents scenes of death, violence, atrocities, suffering and helplessness, without specifying their immediate causes, but they are obvious. It is said that in 1940 Pablo Picasso was summoned to the Gestapo in Paris. The conversation immediately turned to the painting. "Did you do that?" “No, you did it.”

Jan van Eyck "Portrait of the Arnolfinis"

1434, oil on wood. 81.8×59.7 cm

London National Gallery, London

The portrait supposedly of Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife is one of the most complex works Western school of painting of the Northern Renaissance.
The famous painting is completely and completely filled with symbols, allegories and various references - up to the signature "Jan van Eyck was here", which turned it not just into a work of art, but into a historical document confirming a real event that the artist was present at.
In Russia recent years the picture gained great popularity due to the portrait resemblance of Arnolfini with Vladimir Putin.

Mikhail Vrubel "Seated Demon"

1890, oil on canvas. 114×211 cm

Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The painting by Mikhail Vrubel surprises with the image of a demon. The sad long-haired guy is not at all like the universal ideas of how he should look evil spirit. The artist himself spoke about his most famous painting: “The demon is not so much an evil spirit as a suffering and mournful one, with all this a domineering, majestic spirit.” This is an image of the strength of the human spirit, internal struggle, doubts. Hands clasped tragically, the Demon sits with sad, huge eyes directed into the distance, surrounded by flowers. The composition emphasizes the constraint of the figure of the demon, as if sandwiched between the upper and lower crossbars of the frame.

Vasily Vereshchagin "The Apotheosis of War"

1871, oil on canvas. 127×197 cm

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Vereshchagin is one of the main Russian battle painters, but he painted wars and battles not because he loved them. On the contrary, he tried to convey to people his negative attitude towards the war. Once Vereshchagin, in the heat of emotion, exclaimed: “More battle paintings I will not write - that's it! I take what I write too close to my heart, cry out (literally) the grief of every wounded and killed. Probably, the result of this exclamation was the terrible and bewitching painting "The Apotheosis of War", which depicts a field, crows and a mountain of human skulls.
The picture is written so deeply and emotionally that behind every skull lying in this pile, you begin to see people, their fates and the fates of those who will no longer see these people. Vereshchagin himself, with sad sarcasm, called the canvas a “still life” - it depicts “dead nature”.
All the details of the picture, including the yellow color, symbolize death and devastation. The clear blue sky emphasizes the deadness of the picture. The idea of the "Apotheosis of War" is also expressed by the scars from sabers and bullet holes on the skulls.

Grant Wood "American Gothic"

1930, oil. 74×62 cm

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

« american gothic"- one of the most recognizable images in American art of the 20th century, the most famous artistic meme of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The picture with a gloomy father and daughter is overflowing with details that indicate the severity, puritanism and retrogradeness of the people depicted. Angry faces, a pitchfork right in the middle of the picture, old-fashioned clothes even by the standards of 1930, an exposed elbow, seams on the farmer's clothes that repeat the shape of a pitchfork, and therefore a threat that is addressed to anyone who encroaches. All these details can be looked at endlessly and cringe from discomfort.
Interestingly, the judges of the competition at the Art Institute of Chicago perceived "Gothic" as a "humorous valentine", and the people of Iowa were terribly offended by Wood for portraying them in such an unpleasant light.

Rene Magritte "Lovers"

1928, oil on canvas

The painting "Lovers" ("Lovers") exists in two versions. On one, a man and a woman, whose heads are wrapped in a white cloth, are kissing, and on the other, they “look” at the viewer. The picture surprises and fascinates. With two figures without faces, Magritte conveyed the idea of the blindness of love. About blindness in every sense: lovers do not see anyone, we do not see their true faces, and besides, lovers are a mystery even to each other. But with this seeming clarity, we still continue to look at the Magritte lovers and think about them.
Almost all of Magritte's paintings are puzzles that cannot be completely solved, since they raise questions about the very essence of being. Magritte talks all the time about the deceitfulness of the visible, about its hidden mystery, which we usually do not notice.

Marc Chagall "Walk"

1917, oil on canvas

State Tretyakov Gallery

Usually extremely serious in his painting, Marc Chagall wrote a delightful manifesto of his own happiness, filled with allegories and love. "Walk" is a self-portrait with his wife Bella. His beloved soars in the sky and looks to be dragged into the flight and Chagall, who is standing on the ground precariously, as if touching her only with the toes of his shoes. Chagall has a tit in his other hand - he is happy, he has a tit in his hands (probably his painting), and a crane in the sky.

Hieronymus Bosch "The Garden of Earthly Delights"

1500-1510, oil on wood. 389×220 cm

Prado, Spain

"The Garden of Earthly Delights" - the most famous triptych of Hieronymus Bosch, which got its name from the theme of the central part, is dedicated to the sin of voluptuousness. To date, none of the available interpretations of the picture has been recognized as the only true one.
The enduring charm and at the same time the strangeness of the triptych lies in the way the artist expresses the main idea through many details. The picture is full of transparent figures, fantastic structures, monsters that have become hallucinations, infernal caricatures of reality, which he looks at with a searching, extremely sharp look. Some scientists wanted to see in the triptych an image of human life through the prism of its vanity and images of earthly love, others - the triumph of voluptuousness. However, the innocence and some detachment with which individual figures are interpreted, as well as the favorable attitude towards this work on the part of the church authorities, make one doubt that the glorification of bodily pleasures could be its content.

Gustav Klimt "Three Ages of Woman"

1905, oil on canvas. 180×180 cm

National Gallery contemporary art, Rome

"Three Ages of Woman" is both joyful and sad. In it, the story of a woman's life is written in three figures: carelessness, peace and despair. The young woman is organically woven into the ornament of life, the old woman stands out from it. The contrast between the stylized image of a young woman and the naturalistic image of an old woman becomes symbolic meaning: the first phase of life brings with it endless possibilities and metamorphoses, the last one brings constant constancy and conflict with reality.
The canvas does not let go, it gets into the soul and makes you think about the depth of the artist's message, as well as about the depth and inevitability of life.

Egon Schiele "Family"

1918, oil on canvas. 152.5×162.5 cm

Belvedere Gallery, Vienna

Schiele was a student of Klimt, but, like any excellent student, he did not copy his teacher, but was looking for something new. Schiele is much more tragic, strange and frightening than Gustav Klimt. In his works there is a lot of what could be called pornography, various perversions, naturalism and, at the same time, aching despair.
"Family" - his latest work, in which desperation is taken to the absolute, despite the fact that this is the least strange-looking picture of him. He painted it just before his death, after his pregnant wife Edith died of a Spanish flu. He died at the age of 28 just three days after Edith, having managed to draw her, himself and their unborn child.

Frida Kahlo "The Two Fridas"

Hard life story Mexican artist Frida Kahlo became widely known after the release of the film "Frida" with Salma Hayek in leading role. Kahlo painted mostly self-portraits and explained it simply: “I paint myself because I spend a lot of time alone and because I am the subject that I know best.”
Frida Kahlo does not smile in any self-portrait: a serious, even mournful face, fused thick eyebrows, a slightly noticeable mustache over tightly compressed lips. The ideas of her paintings are encrypted in the details, the background, the figures that appear next to Frida. The symbolism of Kahlo is based on national traditions and is closely connected with the Indian mythology of the pre-Hispanic period.
In one of the best pictures- "Two Fridas" - she expressed the masculine and feminine, connected in it by a single circulatory system, demonstrating its integrity.

Claude Monet Waterloo Bridge. Fog effect»

1899, oil on canvas

State Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

When viewing the picture from a close distance, the viewer sees nothing but the canvas, on which frequent thick oil strokes are applied. All the magic of the work is revealed when we gradually begin to move away from the canvas to a greater distance. First, incomprehensible semicircles begin to appear before us, passing through the middle of the picture, then, we see the clear outlines of the boats and, having moved a distance of about two meters, all connecting works are sharply drawn and lined up in a logical chain in front of us.

Jackson Pollock "Number 5, 1948"

1948, fiberboard, oil. 240×120 cm

The strangeness of this picture is that the canvas of the American leader of abstract expressionism, which he painted, pouring paint over a piece of fiberboard spread out on the floor, is the most expensive picture in the world. In 2006, at the Sotheby's auction, they paid $ 140 million for it. David Giffen, a film producer and collector, sold it to Mexican financier David Martinez.
“I continue to move away from the usual tools of the artist, such as the easel, palette and brushes. I prefer sticks, shovels, knives and pouring paint or a mixture of paint with sand or broken glass or whatever. When I am inside a painting, I am not aware of what I am doing. Understanding comes later. I have no fear of changing or destroying the image, as the painting has a life of its own. I'm just helping her get outside. But if I lose contact with the painting, it's dirty and messy. If not, then this is pure harmony, the ease of how you take and give.

Joan Miro "Man and Woman in Front of a Pile of Excrement"

1935, copper, oil, 23×32 cm

Joan Miro Foundation, Spain

Good title. And who would have thought that this picture tells us about the horrors of civil wars.
The painting was made on a sheet of copper in the week between 15 and 22 October 1935. According to Miro, this is the result of an attempt to portray the tragedy civil war in Spain. Miro said that this is a picture about a period of unrest. The painting depicts a man and a woman reaching out for each other's arms, but not moving. The enlarged genitals and ominous colors have been described as "full of revulsion and repugnant sexuality".

Jacek Jerka "Erosion"

The Polish neo-surrealist is known worldwide for his amazing pictures in which realities unite, creating new ones. It is difficult to consider his extremely detailed and to some extent touching works one by one, but such is the format of our material, and we had to choose one - to illustrate his imagination and skill. We recommend to read.

Bill Stoneham "Hands Resist Him"

This work, of course, cannot be ranked among the masterpieces of world art, but the fact that it is strange is a fact.
Around the picture with a boy, a doll and palms pressed against the glass, there are legends. From "because of this picture they die" to "the children in it are alive." The picture looks really creepy, which gives rise to a lot of fears and conjectures in people with a weak psyche.
The artist, on the other hand, assured that the painting depicted himself at the age of five, that the door was a representation of the dividing line between the real world and the world of dreams, and the doll is a guide that can lead the boy through this world. The hands represent alternative lives or possibilities.
The painting gained notoriety in February 2000 when it was listed for sale on eBay with a backstory that said the painting was "haunted". "Hands Resist Him" was bought for $1,025 by Kim Smith, who was then inundated with letters from creepy stories and demands to burn the painting.

The world is full creative people and every day there are hundreds of new paintings, new songs are written. Of course, in the world of art, there are some missteps, but there are such masterpieces of real masters that are simply breathtaking! We will show you their work today.

pencil augmented reality

Photo artist Ben Heine continued to work on his project, which is a mixture of pencil drawings and photography. First, he makes a freehand sketch with a pencil on paper. Then he photographs the drawing against the background of a real object and refines the resulting image in Photoshop, adding contrast and saturation. The result is magic!

Illustrations by Alisa Makarova

Alisa Makarova - talented artist from Saint-Petersburg. In an age when most of the images are created using a computer, the interest of our compatriot in traditional forms of painting is respected. One of her latest projects is the triptych "Vulpes Vulpes", which shows charming fiery red foxes. Beauty, and more!

Fine engraving

Wood artists Paul Rodin and Valerie Lou have announced the creation of a new engraving entitled "Moth". Painstaking work and graceful craftsmanship of the authors do not leave indifferent even the most stubborn skeptics. The engraving will be on display at an upcoming exhibition in Brooklyn on November 7th.

Ballpoint pen drawings

Probably, at least once in lectures, instead of writing down the words of the teacher, everyone drew various figures in a notebook. Was the artist Sarah Esteje (Sarah Esteje) among these students is unknown. But the fact that her drawings with a ballpoint pen are impressive is an indisputable fact! Sarah just proved that you don't need to have any special materials at all in order to create something really interesting.

Surrealistic worlds of Artem Chebokha

Russian artist Artem Chebokha creates incredible worlds where there is only sea, sky and endless harmony. For his new works, the artist chose very poetic images - a wanderer traveling through unknown places and whales circling in clouds-waves - this master's flight of fantasy is simply limitless.

Spot portraits

Someone thinks about the stroke technique, someone thinks about the contrast of light and shadow, but the artist Pablo Jurado Ruiz draws with dots! The artist developed the ideas of the pointillism genre, which was still inherent in the authors of the neo-impressionism era, and created his own own style where the details are absolutely everything. Thousands of touches to paper as a result create realistic portraits which you want to look at.

Pictures from diskettes

In an era when many things and technologies become obsolete at the speed of an express passing by, quite often you have to get rid of unnecessary rubbish. However, as it turned out, not everything is so sad, and old objects can be made very even contemporary work art. English artist Nick Gentry collected square floppy disks from friends, took a jar of paint, and painted amazing portraits on them. It turned out very nice!

On the verge of realism and surrealism

Berlin artist Harding Meyer loves to paint portraits, but in order not to become another hyperrealist, he decided to experiment and created a series of portraits on the verge of reality and surrealism. These works provide insight into human face as something more than just a "dry portrait", highlighting its basis - the image. As a result of such searches, Harding's work was noticed by the Gallery of Modern Art in Munich, which will exhibit the artist's work on November 7th.

Finger painting on iPad

Many contemporary artists experimenting with materials to create paintings, but the Japanese Seikou Yamaoka (Seikou Yamaoka) surpassed them all, taking his Ipad as a canvas. He simply installed the ArtStudio application and began not only to draw, but to reproduce the most famous masterpieces art. Moreover, he does this not with some special brushes, but with his finger, which is admired even by people who are far from the world of art.

"Wooden" painting

Using everything from ink to tea, woodworking artist Mandy Tsung has created truly mesmerizing paintings filled with passion and energy. As the main theme, she chose the mysterious image of a woman and her position in the modern world.

hyperrealist

Every time you find the work of hyperrealist artists, you involuntarily ask yourself the question: “Why are they doing all this?” Each of them has their own answer to this and sometimes a rather contradictory philosophy. But the artist Dino Tomik says bluntly: "I just love my family very much." Day and night he painted and tried not to miss a single detail from the portrait of his relatives. One such drawing took him at least 70 hours of work. To say that the parents were delighted means to say nothing.

Soldier portraits

October 18 at the London gallery Opera Gallery launched an exhibition of works by Joe Black (Joe Black) called "Ways of Seeing". To create his paintings, the artist used not only paints, but also the most unusual materials - bolts, badges and much more. However, the main material was .... toy soldiers! by the most interesting exhibits expositions include portraits of Barack Obama, Margaret Thatcher and Mao Zedong.

Sensual oil portraits

Korean artist Lee Rim (Lee Rim) was not so famous a couple of days ago, but her new paintings "Girls in Paint" caused a wide response and resonance in the art world. Lee says: main theme my work are human emotions and psychological state. Even though we live in different environments, at some point in time we feel the same when we look at an object.” Perhaps that is why, looking at her work, I want to understand this girl and feel her thoughts.

Painting, if you do not take realists into account, has always been, is and will be strange. Metaphorical, looking for new forms and means of expression. But several strange pictures stranger than others.

It is clear that "strangeness" is a rather subjective concept, and for everyone there are amazing paintings that stand out from a number of other works of art. For example, the works of Salvador Dali are deliberately not included in this selection, which completely fall under the format of this material and are the first to come to mind.

Salvador Dali

"A young virgin committing sodomy with the horns of her own chastity"

1954

Edvard Munch "Scream"
1893, cardboard, oil, tempera, pastel. 91x73.5 cm
National Gallery, Oslo

The Scream is considered a landmark expressionist event and one of the most famous paintings in the world.

"I was walking along the path with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red, I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned against the fence - I looked at the blood and flames over the bluish-black fiord and the city - my friends went on, and I stood, trembling with excitement, feeling the endless cry piercing nature," Edvard Munch said about the history of the painting.

There are two interpretations of what is depicted: it is the hero himself who is seized with horror and silently screams, pressing his hands to his ears; or the hero closes his ears from the cry of the world and nature sounding around him. Munch wrote 4 versions of "The Scream", and there is a version that this picture is the fruit of a manic-depressive psychosis from which the artist suffered. After a course of treatment at the clinic, Munch did not return to work on the canvas.

Paul Gauguin "Where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?"
1897-1898, oil on canvas. 139.1x374.6 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

At the direction of Gauguin himself, the picture should be read from right to left - the three main groups of figures illustrate the questions posed in the title. Three women with a child represent the beginning of life; the middle group symbolizes the daily existence of maturity; in the final group, according to the artist, "an old woman, approaching death, seems reconciled and given over to her thoughts", at her feet "a strange white bird ... represents the futility of words."

Pablo Picasso "Guernica"
1937, oil on canvas. 349x776 cm
Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid

"Guernica" presents scenes of death, violence, brutality, suffering and helplessness, without specifying their immediate causes, but they are obvious. It is said that in 1940 Pablo Picasso was summoned to the Gestapo in Paris. The conversation immediately turned to the painting. "Did you do that?" - "No, you did it."

Jan van Eyck "Portrait of the Arnolfini"
1434, oil on wood. 81.8x59.7 cm
London National Gallery, London

The portrait, presumably of Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife, is one of the most complex works of the Western school of painting of the Northern Renaissance.

The famous painting is completely filled with symbols, allegories and various references - up to the signature "Jan van Eyck was here", which turned it not just into a work of art, but into a historical document confirming a real event, which was attended by the artist.

In Russia in recent years, the picture has gained great popularity due to the portrait resemblance of Arnolfini with Vladimir Putin.

Mikhail Vrubel "Seated Demon"
1890, oil on canvas. 114x211 cm
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The painting by Mikhail Vrubel surprises with the image of a demon. The sad long-haired guy is not at all like the universal ideas of what an evil spirit should look like. The artist himself spoke about his most famous painting: "The demon is not so much an evil spirit as a suffering and mournful one, with all this a domineering, majestic spirit."

This is an image of the strength of the human spirit, internal struggle, doubts. Hands clasped tragically, the Demon sits with sad, huge eyes directed into the distance, surrounded by flowers. The composition emphasizes the constraint of the figure of the demon, as if sandwiched between the upper and lower crossbars of the frame.

Vasily Vereshchagin "The Apotheosis of War"
1871, oil on canvas. 127x197 cm
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The picture is written so deeply and emotionally that behind every skull lying in this pile, you begin to see people, their fates and the fates of those who will no longer see these people. Vereshchagin himself, with sad sarcasm, called the canvas "still life" - it depicts "dead nature".

All the details of the picture, including the yellow color, symbolize death and devastation. The clear blue sky emphasizes the deadness of the picture. The idea of the "Apotheosis of War" is also expressed by the scars from sabers and bullet holes on the skulls.

Grant Wood "American Gothic"
1930, oil. 74x62 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

"American Gothic" is one of the most recognizable images in American art of the 20th century, the most famous artistic meme of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The picture with a gloomy father and daughter is overflowing with details that indicate the severity, puritanism and retrogradeness of the people depicted. Angry faces, a pitchfork right in the middle of the picture, old-fashioned clothes even by the standards of 1930, an exposed elbow, seams on the farmer's clothes that repeat the shape of a pitchfork, and therefore a threat that is addressed to anyone who encroaches. All these details can be looked at endlessly and cringe from discomfort.

Interestingly, the judges of the competition at the Art Institute of Chicago perceived "Gothic" as a "humorous Valentine", and the people of Iowa were terribly offended by Wood for portraying them in such an unpleasant light.

Rene Magritte "Lovers"
1928, oil on canvas

The painting "Lovers" ("Lovers") exists in two versions. On one, a man and a woman, whose heads are wrapped in a white cloth, are kissing, and on the other they are "looking" at the viewer. The picture surprises and fascinates. With two figures without faces, Magritte conveyed the idea of the blindness of love. About blindness in every sense: lovers do not see anyone, we do not see their true faces, and besides, lovers are a mystery even to each other. But with this seeming clarity, we still continue to look at the Magritte lovers and think about them.

Almost all of Magritte's paintings are puzzles that cannot be completely solved, since they raise questions about the very essence of being. Magritte talks all the time about the deceitfulness of the visible, about its hidden mystery, which we usually do not notice.

Marc Chagall "Walk"
1917, oil on canvas
State Tretyakov Gallery

Usually extremely serious in his painting, Marc Chagall wrote a delightful manifesto of his own happiness, filled with allegories and love.

"Walk" is a self-portrait with his wife Bella. His beloved soars in the sky and looks to be dragged into the flight and Chagall, who is standing on the ground precariously, as if touching her only with the toes of his shoes. Chagall has a tit in his other hand - he is happy, he has a tit in his hands (probably his painting), and a crane in the sky.

Hieronymus Bosch "The Garden of Earthly Delights"
1500-1510, oil on wood. 389x220 cm
Prado, Spain

The enduring charm and at the same time the strangeness of the triptych lies in the way the artist expresses the main idea through many details. The picture is full of transparent figures, fantastic structures, monsters that have become hallucinations, infernal caricatures of reality, which he looks at with a searching, extremely sharp look.

Some scientists wanted to see in the triptych an image of human life through the prism of its vanity and images of earthly love, others - the triumph of voluptuousness. However, the innocence and some detachment with which individual figures are interpreted, as well as the favorable attitude towards this work on the part of the church authorities, make one doubt that the glorification of bodily pleasures could be its content.

Gustav Klimt "Three Ages of Woman"
1905, oil on canvas. 180x180 cm
National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome

"Three Ages of Woman" is both joyful and sad. In it, the story of a woman's life is written in three figures: carelessness, peace and despair. The young woman is organically woven into the ornament of life, the old woman stands out from her. The contrast between the stylized image of a young woman and the naturalistic image of an old woman takes on a symbolic meaning: the first phase of life brings with it endless possibilities and metamorphoses, the last one is an unchanging constancy and conflict with reality.

The canvas does not let go, it gets into the soul and makes you think about the depth of the artist's message, as well as about the depth and inevitability of life.

Egon Schiele "Family"
1918, oil on canvas. 152.5x162.5 cm
Belvedere Gallery, Vienna

"Family" is his latest work, in which despair is brought to the absolute, despite the fact that this is the least strange-looking picture of him. He painted it just before his death, after his pregnant wife Edith died of a Spanish flu. He died at the age of 28 just three days after Edith, having managed to draw her, himself and their unborn child.

Frida Kahlo "The Two Fridas"
1939

The story of the difficult life of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo became widely known after the release of the film "Frida" with Salma Hayek in the title role. Kahlo painted mostly self-portraits and explained it simply: "I paint myself because I spend a lot of time alone and because I am the subject that I know best."

Frida Kahlo does not smile in any self-portrait: a serious, even mournful face, fused thick eyebrows, a slightly noticeable mustache over tightly compressed lips. The ideas of her paintings are encrypted in the details, the background, the figures that appear next to Frida. The symbolism of Kahlo is based on national traditions and is closely connected with the Indian mythology of the pre-Hispanic period.

In one of the best paintings - "Two Fridas" - she expressed the masculine and feminine principles, connected in her by a single circulatory system, demonstrating her integrity. For more information about Frida, see HERE a beautiful interesting post

Claude Monet "Waterloo Bridge. Fog Effect"
1899, oil on canvas
State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

When viewing the picture from a close distance, the viewer sees nothing but a canvas on which frequent thick oil strokes are applied. All the magic of the work is revealed when we gradually begin to move away from the canvas to a greater distance.

First, incomprehensible semicircles begin to appear before us, passing through the middle of the picture, then, we see the clear outlines of the boats and, having moved a distance of about two meters, all connecting works are sharply drawn and lined up in a logical chain in front of us.

Jackson Pollock "Number 5, 1948"
1948, fiberboard, oil. 240x120 cm

The strangeness of this picture is that the canvas of the American leader of abstract expressionism, which he painted by pouring paint over a piece of fiberboard spread out on the floor, is the most expensive painting in the world. In 2006, at the Sotheby's auction, they paid $ 140 million for it. David Giffen, a film producer and collector, sold it to Mexican financier David Martinez.

"I keep moving away from the usual tools of an artist, such as an easel, palette, and brushes. I prefer sticks, scoops, knives, and flowing paint, or a mixture of paint with sand, broken glass, or whatever. When I'm inside a painting, I don't realize what I do. Understanding comes later. I have no fear of changing or destroying the image, because the picture has a life of its own. I just help it come out. But if I lose contact with the picture, it becomes dirty and messy. If not, then this is pure harmony, the ease of how you take and give.

Joan Miro "Man and woman in front of a pile of excrement"
1935, copper, oil, 23x32 cm
Joan Miro Foundation, Spain

Good title. And who would have thought that this picture tells us about the horrors of civil wars. The painting was made on a sheet of copper in the week between 15 and 22 October 1935.

According to Miro, this is the result of an attempt to portray the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War. Miro said that this is a picture about a period of unrest.

The painting depicts a man and a woman reaching out for each other's arms, but not moving. Enlarged genitals and ominous colors have been described as "full of disgust and disgusting sexuality".

Jacek Jerka "Erosion"

The Polish neo-surrealist is known worldwide for his amazing paintings, in which realities come together to create new ones.

Bill Stoneham "Hands Resist Him"
1972

This work, of course, can hardly be considered a masterpiece of world art, but the fact that it is strange is a fact.

Around the picture with a boy, a doll and palms pressed against the glass, there are legends. From "because of this picture they die" to "the children in it are alive." The picture looks really creepy, which gives rise to a lot of fears and conjectures in people with a weak psyche.

The artist assured that the picture depicts himself at the age of five, that the door is a representation of the dividing line between the real world and the world of dreams, and the doll is a guide that can lead the boy through this world. The hands represent alternative lives or possibilities.

The painting gained notoriety in February 2000 when it was listed for sale on eBay with a backstory that said the painting was "haunted".

"Hands Resist Him" was bought for $1,025 by Kim Smith, who was then inundated with letters with creepy stories about how hallucinations appeared, people really went crazy looking at the work, and demands to burn the painting