Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Discussion Are there any paintings that freak you out?

Joesph Leigh

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J
For me, it's the Thousand Yard Stare by Thomas Lea. It's on the TV-Tropes page for, well, Thousand-Yard-Stares, and it freaked me out a little. I guess it had it's intended effect, because i'm pretty sure any soldier would be freaked out by someone who's been so profoundly affected by combat that their brain just disassociates emotionally and makes them stare out into space.
 

Dimitri Voltura

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D
Mine would probably be the colloquial works of Botticelli's depictions of Divine Comedy. I've always been a fan of Renaissance art, with Botticelli's depictions of Dante's Inferno being beautiful, but haunting at the same time.
 
See with eyes unclouded by hate
I always found Hieronymus Bosch's Paintings to be pretty visceral and chaotic. I do like looking at the paintings some just to find different details I hadn't noticed before. What freaked me out with them was there sort of depictions of hell as being Lovecraftian in their bizarre nature. Looking a Renaissance painting with the tones of something like Junji Ito on a macro scale. I won't link it since it has some stylized gore and violence but I think Christ in Limbo is the most haunting.
 
Scores of paintings by Zdzisław Beksiński.

No doubt whatsoever, my favorite artist of all time is the one who disturbs me most. Being raised in Poland during WWII is an obvious influence, and really his paintings can be seen as the nightmares of a child translated through the hand of a troubled adult. I'm not saying he was neurotic, he was known as a humorous and friendly (albeit shy) man. But you can tell he dealt with the trauma through his work. He didn't seek to explain them, he didn't try to make some statement about art or painting in general, and he even shied away from the public eye. That's because in reality his art was a release, a coping mechanism for something that no one should have to experience.

Edit: Sorry for the the mini lecture but I gotta talk about the work themselves now

The OTHER reason they are just so unsettling is Beksiński's masterful use of color and rendering. While they were darkly themed he did not shy away from explosions of color, yet even with vibrant hues he managed to make you feel uncomfortable with them. Bright colors weren't a safety net. Like take this
untitled work. It's architecture, it's bright, yet there is a foreboding here that is just so good. Again, with this or this one.
 
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