Spooky Paintings by the Masters (Halloween)

It goes without saying, everyone will have a different sensitivity to the paintings to follow. If you have no idea who Freddy Krueger (see Day 111) or Jason Voorhees are, then most of them will be shocking. If you feel yourself trembling in fear, just repeat after me; “they are only paintings, they are only paintings.”

Ok, did I build that up enough?

This first one by John William Waterhouse (see Day 320) is called “Magic Spell,” and is rather tame compared to others. It presents a witch who is in the process of conjuring up a spell. Aside from the pumpkin, the witch is the most popular symbol of Halloween, but they usually have a broom and pointed hat. Waterhouse gives us something much more imaginative. 

Notice the details of herbs in her waist and on the ground by the frog. She’s also holding a sickle, and on the ground there’s a crow standing on a skull. 

Something to point out is the dominant diagonal being created by her stick and arm, which locks into the overlapping root 4 grids (see #419). We can also use the eyes of the grids to locate the crows on the ground. Waterhouse used the overlapping grids to create a triangular enclosure (see Day 32) as well. 

This is another witch painting by John Collier called “An Incantation.” The word “incantation” means a series of words said as a magic spell. Can you see the nice arabesque (see Day 17) running down from her hand through her body?

We’ve also got a serpent slithering by her legs and a pot boiling over the fire…probably something frightfully tasty.

Now, Francisco Goya was known for his dark paintings, and we’ll see two of them next. This first one called “Flight of the Witches” has a few witches floating as they hold a screaming man. Looks like they are eating his flesh, but you never know…it could be a tickle party.

Can you see the triangular enclosure being created by the witches? Kind of resembles an upside down ice cream cone.

This one by Goya is called “Witches Sabbath” and shows a group of people listening to a horned creature. The group is forming an ellipse (see Day 34), which provides unity and movement.

Of all the paintings we’ll see today, I think Francis Bacon has some of the creepiest. If you look at his body of work, they are mostly disturbing and warped. He chooses colors that go well with his intentions.

This one is also by Bacon and is called “Figure with Meat.” It looks like a scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a great Halloween movie.

More meat! You may be surprised by who painted this one. It’s Rembrandt! Who would’ve thought.

Odd Nerdrum (see Day 357) is no stranger to disturbing imagery. Was he inspired by Rembrandt? You know he was! Actually, he’s heavily inspired baby him and his artistic style is very similar.

Here’s Vincent Van Gogh painting a skull. It would be much scarier if he used less cheerful colors, like red, brown or black.

You can’t look at master paintings without seeing a few severed heads. This one is “David with the Head of Goliath” by Caravaggio (see Day 100).

Medusa isn’t doing so well in this painting by Peter Paul Rubens. Be sure to check out the analysis of this one because you know Rubens is using tons of design techniques (see Day 145).

Salvador Dali (see Day 268) joins the list of scary paintings with his masterpiece “The Face of War.”

When Pablo Picasso (see Day 103) was getting older, he started to fear death more and more. This drawing was made with crayons and was created less than a year from his passing.

This next well-known painting is by Theodore Gericault and is less graphic compared to the next one. You’ve been warned!

This painting of severed heads depicts the aftermath of a guillotine. Evidently, Gericault did several morbid studies like this for his masterpiece “The Raft of Medusa.”

Here’s another complex painting by Rubens called “Fall of the Damned.” The level of detail is stunning and must’ve taken him forever! Can you see the dominant baroque diagonal created by the mass of bodies?

Here’s a detail that shows the bodies falling towards the fierce creatures below.

You may recognize these shocking paintings from another article (see #509). 

These two with the severed head of Orpheus can’t be ignored either. The first one by Emile Levy (see #584) is more violent than the melancholy one by Gustave Moreau (see #625). Levy definitely wins the award for best composition!

Scared of spiders? This one is created by another artist we introduced recently, Odilon Redon (see #625).

Here’s an epic painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder called “The Triumph of Death” (see Day 58). Why did he name the painting this? Let’s look at some details!

The first detail to follow might remind you of the White Walkers and their zombie horses from Game of Thrones (see Day 26).

See the red horse being ridden by the skeleton swinging a scythe? I’m sure George R.R. Martin, writer of The Game of Thrones, was inspired by this battle scene.

Here’s another detail where we can see the skeletons are showing no mercy for the humans.

Have you seen the classic sci-fi movie Aliens? Well, the artist that created the Alien creature is H.R. Giger.

This painting “Descent Into Hell” is by Hieronymus Bosch. It’s full of hauntingly creative creatures, and we’ll see those below.

These detail images will show the chaos he’s created to depict Hell.

Nightmarish scene, right?

Gustave Dore (see #386), who is mostly known for his printmaking, created this chilling painting called “Dante and Virgil in the 9th Circle of Hell.” We can see Dante and Virgil watching as creatures come up through the surface and eat people like zombies. No wonder where The Walking Dead comes from! All of these master paintings certainly provided great inspiration for them.

If those paintings got you all scared to sleep at night, just look deep into this Bob Ross painting for a few minutes. It’s full of happy trees and fluffy clouds to put your mind at ease.