When it comes to horror, we often refer to a genre of literature or film, but not so often to paintings. However, a big part of art history is actually built on morbid art and rather disturbing and scary paintings, many of which belong to the period of 'rebirth.' The Renaissance saw not only the making of some of the most famous paintings in art history but also numerous creepy paintings depicting the inherent darkness of the human condition.
While plenty of drawings and paintings from medieval times could be deemed frightening or disturbing, the most well-known examples of scary artworks depicting ominous, macabre themes were made during the Renaissance. Renaissance painters were finally liberated from strict Christian doctrine, which dominated people's lives and subjects portrayed in art. Although biblical scenes were still a common painting subject during the period, artists could explore other themes such as mythology, history, portraiture, and practice realism.
Following the 'rebirth' of art, the notion that artworks convey the feelings of the artist first surfaced with Romanticism and then continued with Expressionism, both related through the interest in themes of darkness, fear, and melancholy. Likely the first image that pops into one's mind thinking of a scary painting is The Scream (1893) by Edvard Munch, one of the best-known examples of Expressionist art. And indeed, this rather scary artwork depicting a panic-stricken creature resulted from Munch's emotional turmoil as he grappled with trauma and mental illness during his lifetime.
Below, we've compiled a list of dark paintings and creepy art that illuminate the darkness of society and human nature. While the scary art of the time might not make you jump out of your skin, this collection of scary paintings is sure to thrill both art enthusiasts and fans of the horror genre. Also, let us remind you that the order of the list is entirely up to you, so make sure to upvote those scary paintings you would like to see higher on the list!
#1 The Smiling Spider
Artist: Odilon Redon | Year (completed): 1887 | Periods: Symbolism
The creatures of Odilon Redon's noirs, or "black things," as Redon himself affectionately refers to his charcoal drawings and lithographs, are equally terrifying and fascinating. They include smiling spiders, cyclopes, grotesque animals, and plants with human heads. In the painting above, there's a spider with ten legs as opposed to its usual eight, who dances sideways while grinning mischievously. While The Smiling Spider is an amusing work of art, art historians and critics have debated its exact meaning and interpretation for many years simply because the noirs are all enigmatic. This is because Redon himself was responsible for their composition and meaning. Redon had a keen interest in science, natural history, and the emerging fields of psychiatry and dreams. The invisible world made apparent by the microscope particularly fascinated him. In The Smiling Spider, Redon merges his fascination with science with his dreamy realm. The outcome contains a distinctive trait of noirs - a combination of the surreal and the realistic.
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44points
#2 Untitled
Artist: Zdzislaw Beksinski | Year (completed): 1984 | Style: Surrealism
Zdzislaw Beksinski produced numerous works over a long career in various fields of art, including sculpture, photography, graphic arts, drawing, and painting. Interestingly, Beksinski left all of his paintings untitled as he didn't want them to be interpreted metaphorically. In fact, Polish horror artist Zdzislaw Beksinski is the reason the Dystopian Surrealism genre became popular. Beksinski's dystopian paintings reflect his love of Gothic and ominous Baroque art. The hallmark of dystopian art is an imagined place or circumstance where things seem unpleasant or dreadful.
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41points
#3 The Abbey In The Oakwood
Artist: Caspar David Friedrich | Year (completed): 1810 | Periods: Romanticism, German Romanticism
This large eerie picture illustrates how Friedrich used his artistic abilities to depict concerns related to everyday life. Barely seen in the center, several people enter the abbey carrying a casket. The artist attempts to evoke a sense of time passing by depicting a person's demise. There is an air of coldness in the vicinity. A smashed window with no glass left behind may be seen among the abbey's ruins. What is evident is that, unlike man's transient creations, nature persists forever. The Abbey In The Oakwood ultimately examines the human condition. The surroundings take on metaphysical implications and highlight how brief our existence is compared to the eternal and natural timelines. It's a horrific masterwork that perfectly portrays the unappealing themes of Romanticism.
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32points
#4 Medusa
Artist: Caravaggio | Year (completed): 1597 | Period: Baroque
Both of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s depictions of Medusa, one from 1596, named after poet Gaspare Murtola, and the other from 1597, show the precise moment when Perseus slew her. Caravaggio toys with the idea by swapping Medusa’s face with Perseus’ to demonstrate his resistance to her terrifying gaze. The painting is seen to go well with Caravaggio’s particular fascination with brutality and reality due to its odd and complicated style. Apparently, Cardinal del Monte commissioned Caravaggio to paint two versions of Medusa to rival Leonardo da Vinci’s earlier depiction of her. Unfortunately, da Vinci’s Medusa is lost. Thus we can never know how closely Caravaggio’s rendition matched up with da Vinci’s.
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28points
#5 Study After Velázquez's Portrait Of Pope Innocent X
Artist: Francis Bacon | Year (completed): 1953 | Style: Expressionism
In 1649, Pope Innocent X commissioned Velázquez to paint his portrait. Many artists and critics deem Portrait of Innocent X the finest portrait ever created. Velázquez, however, did not flatter his subject or try to showcase him in a better light. The Pope's portrait is renowned for its realism. It honestly portrays a highly educated, cunning, but aging man. Despite seeing it just once, Francis Bacon used Velázquez's painting as the source material. It’s important to note that Bacon never painted from life and preferred to use various visual sources, such as commissioned and found paintings. In Study After Velázquez's Portrait Of Pope Innocent X, Bacon could paint the Pope in an even less favorable manner than Velázquez did. In Bacon's interpretation, the Pope is depicted screaming, but the enclosing draperies and the deep, dark colors seem to "hush" his voice. The dark background hues give the picture a horrible and nightmare-like tone. Bacon's response to why he kept returning to Velázquez's portrait was that he had nothing against popes and was only looking for "an excuse to use these colours."
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28points
#6 Takiyasha The Witch And The Skeleton Specter
Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi | Year (completed): 1844
Kuniyoshi, renowned for his renderings of historical and mythical scenes, merged the two when he portrayed Takiyasha, a princess from the tenth century, calling forth a skeletal apparition to frighten Ōya no Mitsukuni. The princess in the picture utters a spell from a handscroll that summons a huge skeleton. It rears out of the shadows, using its skeletal fingers to smash through the tattered palace blinds and threaten Mitsukuni and his companion.
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26points
#7 The Garden Of Earthly Delights
Artist: Hieronymus Bosch | Year (completed): 1505 | Period: Northern Renaissance
The crux of the painting shows an unrestrained, wildly imaginative romp. However, Bosch’s main point - and the elaborate, cunning symbolism that drives it - is unquestionably more complicated. A lot is going on, and multiple sittings at the painting may not be enough to analyze the whole picture. It’s replete with sin, punishment, and hell themes. Few pieces of art better capture the crazed thrill and bizarreness of lust than Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. A cluster of naked people can be seen in one place, intertwining and devouring a giant, juicy strawberry. Others sway rapturously from something resembling clumsy reproductive organs and seed pods about to explode. Fruits are picked, clear blue water flows directly into the mouth, open clam shells and plump nectarines are strewn about. More than 500 years later, it’s hard to distinguish a single message left by the author. Some people thought it was about how mankind fell into sin and lust, ultimately meeting their own demise in hell. Some believe it was painted with moralistic and religious motives. Whatever the reason, Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych, known to modern audiences as The Garden of Earthly Delights, and arguably his most puzzling work, gives a graphic portrayal of the anxieties that characterized medieval life.
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25points
#8 Young Holding His Dead Daughter In His Arms
Artist: Pierre-Auguste Vafflard | Year (completed): 1804
Pierre-Auguste Vafflard displayed this stunning picture of love and death at the Salon in 1804. Here, fatherly love is what prompts poet Edward Young to struggle yet continue to carry his deceased daughter's body in the cold moonlight. It is now known that this scene was based on a real-life conflict between beliefs involving Young's evacuation of his deceased daughter, who was eighteen at the time, to Lyon's Swiss cemetery after being turned away from the Catholic cemetery because she was a Protestant.
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24points
#9 Premonition
Artist: Henryk Weyssenhoff | Year (completed): ~1893
Interestingly, there's not much information available about Henryk Weyssenhoff or his artwork, and little analysis has been made to examine his works. Premonition, or originally Przeczucie, one of his most recognized works, is believed to have been created around 1893. The artwork seems to portray a ghostly-looking Grim Reaper standing in the center of the picture in what appears to be a quiet village or a farmstead. In the painting, there are also two dogs who appear to be howling at the presence of Death.
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24points
#10 Girl With Death Mask
Artist: Frida Kahlo | Year (completed): 1938 | Influenced by: Abstract expressionism, Fantastic art, Postmodern art
This painting by Frida shows a young girl wearing a skull mask, who is believed to be Frida herself when she is four years old. This particular style of face covering is customary at the yearly Mexican holiday called the "Day of the Dead," where death is honored rather than grieved. The young girl is portrayed clutching a yellow blossom in her hands, similar to the tagete bloom that Mexicans place on graves during the "Day of the Dead." She is by herself as she stands on a vast, deserted plain beneath a dark sky. Another mask of a carved wooden tiger is placed by her feet. Both masks appear inappropriate for the weak and vulnerable 4-year-old and serve as reminders of her tragic fate.
21points
#11 The Nightmare
Artist: Henry Fuseli | Year (completed): 1781 | Period: Romanticism
In The Nightmare, a demonic-looking incubus is crouched on the woman’s chest while she lies in profound sleep with her arms and head hanging off the end of the mattress. The figure on the woman’s chest is frequently referred to as an imp or an incubus, a kind of spirit that is purported to sit on individuals while they sleep or even engage in sexual activity with sleeping women. The woman may be merely dreaming because Fuseli’s artwork is suggestive yet vague. Nevertheless, the incubus and the horse (which allegedly was not present in the drawing but added to the painting later) from her dream seem to take dreadful physical shape. The Nightmare’s jarring blend of morbidity, eroticism, and horror has ensured its enduring fame. The Nightmare became a symbol of Romanticism and a representative example of Gothic horror. It inspired numerous authors, including the poet Erasmus Darwin (Charles Darwin’s grandfather), Mary Shelley, and Edgar Allan Poe.
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20points
#12 Skull Of A Skeleton With Burning Cigarette
Artist: Vincent Van Gogh | Year (completed): 1886 | Periods: Post-Impressionism, Realism
This painting is thought to have been painted in the winter when van Gogh attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, to study drawing and painting. He reportedly had several disputes with different teachers throughout his time in the academy due to his unorthodox artistic approaches. Thus, it is possible that Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette was created as a piece of an anatomy study in which students learned to draw skeletons. Some believe van Gohn painted it to make fun of the academic establishment. Others claim it might have been a "Memento Mori," and that it may have been motivated by the passing of his father.
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20points
#13 Knight, Death And The Devil
Artist: Albrecht Dürer | Year (completed): 1513 | Period: Northern Renaissance
This exquisite engraving by Albrecht Dürer invites viewers to consider their inevitable mortality. A lot is happening in the picture. The skeletal, deteriorating figure of Death sits atop his old steed. Lurking behind the knight on his mighty warhorse, the figure holds the ticking hourglass of Time. Death and the knight are shown close to each other, implying the knight’s impending death. Although this soldier appears to be prepared for battle, no amount of armor will be able to save him (and the rest of mankind) from death, even though he displays no outward signs of fear or temptation by the devil, who is right behind him. The viewer can also spot a lizard, sometimes considered a sign of impending danger, who darts to the right, and a skull, a symbol of death, lying on a tree stump in the left foreground.
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20points
#14 The Phantom Of Kohada Koheiji
Artist: Katsushika Hokusai | Year (completed): 1831 | Period: Ukiyo-e
The subject of this eerie print from the One Hundred Ghost Stories series, actor Kohada Koheiji, is believed to have lived in Edo during the end of the Edo Period. It's thought that his wife had an affair and plotted to have him assassinated along with her lover. Koheiji turned into a ghost and followed them. Apparently, he slayed his wife, and her boyfriend went insane and committed suicide. In Hokusai's creepy print, the deceased actor Kohada Koheiji is portrayed like a zombie with his skin and hair still hanging from his skull in the skeleton image.
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19points
#15 Witches' Sabbath
Artist: Francisco De Goya | Year (completed): 1798 | Style: Romanticism
Witches' Sabbath depicts the devil as a goat surrounded by a coven of deformed, elderly, and young witches in a desolate moonlit setting. The goat is crowned with an oak leaf wreath and has big horns. An elderly witch is holding a malnourished baby. Although widespread superstition held that the devil frequently preyed on infants and fetuses of humans, it appears that the devil is serving as the priest during the child's initiation ritual. Two child skeletons may be seen, one lying on the ground to the left and the other cradled by a crone in the foreground. Goya's artwork has been interpreted in a Spanish context as a protest against individuals who defended and implemented the principles of the Spanish Inquisition, which participated in witch-hunting in the seventeenth century.
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19points
#16 The Picture Of Dorian Gray
Artist: Ivan Albright | Year (completed): 1943 | Style: Magic Realism
This grisly, hallucinogenic, almost trippy painting was created by Ivan Albright for the Oscar-winning film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. For those unfamiliar with the novel, in Wilde's story, Dorian Gray commissions a painting of himself as a handsome young man and later exchanges his soul for an eternally youthful appearance. As the still-attractive Gray follows a more sinister and terrible life, his painted likeness rots and decays, exposing the depth of his moral depravity. Albright was selected by the film's director, Albert Lewin, to create the horrifying depiction of Gray because of his notoriety as a painter of the macabre. Although the movie was shot in black and white, Lewin chose to highlight Gray's startling metamorphosis by filming the painted portrait in color.
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18points
#17 Lucifero
Artist: Francesco Scaramuzza | Year (completed): 19th Century | Period: Romanticism
There's little information known about the painting or the artist who painted Lucifero. Francesco Scaramuzza was an Italian painter and poet who lived during the Northern Italian Romantic era. He mainly created mythological and historical works of art. Still, he is best renowned for his interpretations of literary figures such as Dante, a project to which he devoted decades of his life. The artwork above depicts Lucifer from Dante's Inferno.
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17points
#18 Skeletons Fighting Over A Pickled Herring
Artist: James Ensor | Year (completed): 1891 | Style: Expressionism
In Skeletons Fighting over a Pickled Herring, the artist, Ensor himself, is depicted as a "pickled herring" being pulled between two critics, representing the peculiar, gothic style for which Ensor became best known. The comical scene visualizes how he is being ripped apart by art critics after receiving negative comebacks to his work. Ensor's flamboyantly scary masks and skeletons, which he painted in a bright palette, provided the ideal vehicle for parodying bourgeois life.
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16points
#19 Ivan The Terrible And His Son Ivan On November 16th, 1581
Artist: Ilya Repin | Year (completed): 1885 | Style: Realism
The painting depicts a troubled Ivan the Terrible, the Tsar of Russia, cradling his dying son, the Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich, shortly after he struck his son fatally in a fit of rage. The older Ivan's agony and guilt are depicted in the artwork, along with the tenderness of the dying Tsarevich, blood flowing down the side of his face, and a lone tear on his cheek. This is by far Repin's most psychologically intense work. After Alexander II was assassinated, Repin began considering painting this historical incident. He painted this piece to recollect past violent incidents in Russian history and demonstrate his opposition to violence and bloodshed.
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16points
#20 The Bewitched Man
Artist: Francisco De Goya | Year (completed): 1798 | Style: Romanticism
With dancing shadows and lamplight, the painting has a spooky, ghostly feel to it. The devil is depicted offering the lamp to the priest Don Claudio. Don Claudio is portrayed filling the lamp with oil as eerie horses can be seen in the distance standing on their hind legs. The subject can be seen experiencing intense mental anguish and torture as he believes he is bewitched and his life depends on keeping a lamp alight.
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16points