The Terrifying, the Grotesque, and the Creepy

Sometimes a work of art requires a bodily response from its viewer: the feeling of “getting under the skin”, the queasiness of stomach, or shudders through the spinal cord.  More often than not, these responses come from looking at artworks of the terrifying, the grotesque, the creepy, or sometimes all of the above.  But how can an artist achieve these feelings?  How have artists attempted to portray these adjectives through the ages?

The Terrifying, the Grotesque, and the Creepy explores the different, and yet often similar, ways in which artists have sought to invoke these feelings through the ages. The exhibit is chronological in format, moving from Bosch and his followers in the Netherlands, to the Romantic era, and finally to the surrealist movement of the 20^th century.  Using these divisions, the works can be thought of in pairs.  However, all the paintings show some sort of overlap with each other.  Frequently, artists use a warm color palette with many neutrals with either dark or gradated backgrounds.  Perhaps more important to note however, is the way in which creatures are combined to make new creatures, body parts are dismembered or distorted, and odd parings are placed together.  Ultimately, though, whether or not these works are successful achieving a physical response is up to the viewer to decide.

Hieronymus Bosch, Death and the Miser, 1485/1490, National Gallery of Art, 1952.5.33

Although Hieronymus Bosch painted from about 1450 to 1516, he defies the inventiveness, which invoke feelings of terror of the grotesque. Here, Bosch places the viewer at the scene of someone dying.  The realities of death are shown as a as a gangly skeletal creature is literally knocking at the door.  At the same time, he creates tension between the worldly and the heavenly, as the angel looks upward towards a crucifix.  Here, Bosch uses a primarily warm color palette with red-orange and warm neutrals.

Follower of Hieronymus Bosch, Christ’s Descent into Hell, 1550-60, Oil on wood, MET museum, 26.244

Christ’s Descent into Hell is by one of Bosch’s many followers, often imitating Bosch’s firey landscapes filled with fantastical creatures throughout the 16^th and 17^th centuries.  However, Walter Gibson, a scholar of Bosch, contends that “the deeply religious and didactic content of Bosch’s imagery quickly evaporated, leaving only whimsical forms capable at most of arousing a pleasant shudder in the spectator”¹, implying that the richness of Bosch’s paintings become lost.  Although certainly containing terrorizing and creepy elements, Christ’s Descent into Hell, lacks inventiveness compared with an authentic Bosch painting.  Again, note the warm color palette.

Henry Fuseli, The Night-Hag Visiting Lapland Witches, 1796, oil on canvas, MET museum, 1980.411

Fuseli continues in the line of inventiveness combining elements of unlike creatures, most notably in the seemingly faceless, rough head on the beautiful body of a woman.  Along with this combining technique Bosch often used, Fuseli also uses warm neutrals and a gradated background.  Unlike the paintings by Bosch and his followers, however, places the viewer directly in front of the action, making his audience a part of the scene.  Furthermore, by making the scene about an action about to happen, Fuseli creates tension within his viewers as they anticipate the fate of the child.

Francisco de Goya, Saturn Eating His Son, 1819-1823, Museo Nacional del Prado, P00763

The palette of warmth continues with Goya.  However, instead of creating a background of eerie gradations, the figure emerges from a background of pitch black.  Saturn himself is of orange gradations, as though he is glowing with fire.  Goya paints with physical strokes giving a painterly quality that adds to the haphazard and wild look of Saturn.  Finally, the bright red lines along the tattered parts of the dismembered son draws attention to the most grotesque part of the painting, forcing the viewing to focus on the eating of the son.

 

Hans Bellmer, La Poupée, 1936, Gelatin silver print, MET museum, 1987.1100.444

Although this photo contains magenta spots and the door seems to have a yellowed tinge, the black and white quality of the print gives off a feeling of coolness, discontinuing the theme of the warm color palette.  Like the Goya, the “figures” emerge out of a background.  Furthermore, the theme of misappropriation continues as the legs are out of place and dismembered from their bodies.  Like the Fuseli painting, femaleness is put out of place and gives a similar feeling of being confronted as the close-up of legs are placed directly in front of the viewer.

Salvador Dali, Bulgarian Child Eating a Rat, 1939, oil on canvas, private collection

Dali embodies the paring of the unlikely to create creepiness and grotesque in Bulgarian Child Eating a Rat.  Similar to Death and the Miser, there is tension between the heavenly and death, or what is not supposed to be.  The child is painted with soft, pastel like colors.  This, along, with the yellow glow, give the child a sweet, heavenly quality.  This is directly contrasted with the rat in the child’s mouth.  The lines of the rat are sharper and more clear and the colors more cool.  Like the Goya, the red blood causes the viewer to focus on the utter grotesqueness.

Notes

1 Gibson, Walter. Hieronymus Bosch. Singapore: C.S. Graphics, 1973, 151.