ART DEMANDS VICTIMS

Suddenly burnt down houses. People who are crazy from scratch. Sudden deaths and endless mystical stories. What does all this have in common? Damned pictures, as you might have guessed. Even just seeing what is in my hands now, you can die of laughter. Yes, I’m such an artist, but contemporary art is not a fountain, so the initial price is $ 15,000. And this is already at a discount, I did not find myself in the trash. Well, now seriously, you certainly have stumbled across the top of damned pictures on the Internet. Scary vidos on YouTube, stories on the forums. Of course, cinema also does not bypass such things, shooting horror films, sometimes even based on real events. Everything as we love. And each case with such a picture defies scientific explanation. At least that's what they present to us. But we are not here to read these terrible stories. We are here to explain them. Netflix recently released the movie Velvet Chainsaw. And in it they again tell us about the paintings that kill. And all because, the artist wrote them with his blood. And in general, he was a crazy killer, so he invested part of his soul in the picture, its darkest part. History, frankly, is not new. In literature, plots about the mystical influence of painting, especially portraits, have been used for a long time. Just recall the portrait of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol or the portrait of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde, and then Stephen King took up this subject with his story “Road horror rushing north”. Where in the story a person who has bought a terrible picture begins to notice that it is changing. I advise you to read, perhaps one of my most beloved, and, in combination, the most terrible computer games “Layers of fear” was based on this idea. And each time the same thing was repeated, the pictures killed or brought misfortune. But only in the works of Gogol and Wilde it was a literary device. The Russian writer spoke about the path of a genius whom craving for money led to disaster, and Wilde wrote about the value of spiritual beauty. It was a metaphor, but the mass public does not understand the metaphor, it likes to take everything literally. Nevertheless, today we are not talking about stories and films, but about real paintings that kill. It sounds loud evenly until you come across stories about them on the Internet. Some set fire to houses, others drove crazy. And the question is slipping through my head anyway, or maybe it really works? Not surprisingly, almost no one checks the real facts. Everyone loves to believe in beautiful and scary stories. Let's go over them today and find out where the truth is. No seriously. My method of finding true information is primarily to check the high-profile stories that are involved in this. In 90% of cases this is enough. Let's see if this is the case. Well, let's go. The portrait of Maria Lopukhina was painted by Vladimir Borovikovsky in 1797 and is now exhibited in the Tretyakov Gallery. Fairly muddy story. There was a young girl; her husband ordered her portrait. And after it was finished, she died of consumption, although at the time of painting, although at the time of painting, she looked beautiful and did not complain. Rumors began that the portrait takes the lives of those girls who look at her.

*"Borovikovsky’s painting is an encrypted message. Maria Lopukhina is surrounded by plants, each of which is associated with the other world."*

Many say that this picture has more than 10 victims. And all because in the colors remained part of the soul of Mary. Well, you can’t argue against statistics very much if it were. Of course, it does not exist, but we know that consumption, now we call it tuberculosis, at the beginning of the 19th century was very common and was an almost incurable disease. You don’t have to go far, one of the most famous paintings by Edward Munch, “The Sick Girl”, just shows us the artist’s memories, like a little girl, his sister, dying from torment in pain. This disease still kills people in huge quantities, and this despite the existence of effective medical therapy, which was not 2 centuries ago. Then you coughed and you can already write a will, roughly speaking.

*"Goodbye father."*

Folk remedies like eating moss with sugar and using bloodletting and electric shocks did not really help. You understand. And with such medicine, Maria Lopukhina was less likely to survive than I became an artist. That’s all I can do.

*"It sucks."*

*"You don’t understand, it’s useless to talk to you, this guy’s work is wonderful."*

The story of the death of an unhappy girl is simply terrible statistics of the time. And of course the young girls who saw the portrait, too, could die, and not only the girls and not only young ones, because the disease did not spare anyone. But Pavel Tretyakov put an end to this. I bought and hung this picture in my gallery. Many still swelled, but how so, hung a damned picture? But still, thousands of people looked at her and there was no outbreak of mortality, which completely contradicts the legend. And all because at about this time they understood what tuberculosis is and started prevention. Everything is simple and logical. But notice how I started the story about this girl. She died after the portrait of this portrait was completed. Yes, it's true after that. After 5 years, to be exact. And there is no connection. After all, a person usually dies of old age, and the media write that he died after he hanged a damned picture at home. Only in the newspapers they won’t write that he hung it 48 years ago. And it turns out I became a blogger after I fell from the 3rd floor. It even sounds a little annoying. In general, newspapers are modern carriers of diseases called fake. Whatever newspaper you open, most likely there will be some unverified rumor or obvious stuffing, but more on that later. Back to the pictures. For example, the story of a crying boy. Imagine, an artist paints a picture of his own son, who does not want to cry. And this is necessary for the thought, therefore, this psycho-artist lit matches in front of his face while the boy was afraid of fire. And then one day the poor kid freaked out and shouted: "Burn yourself," and something happened. The curse happened. The artist completed the painting, but the child died of pneumonia in a couple of weeks. Then the workshop itself burned with the artist himself.

*"Apparently the boy died pretty quickly after writing this picture."*

This is the urban legend at the moment, but it all started very interesting. In 1985, the Desant newspaper published an article telling about a family whose house was burned down. Everything burned, except for the painting “The Crying Boy”. In confirmation of this, it was written that firefighters confirmed this. Moreover, they said that now there are many fires and almost in every house, the surviving painting “The Crying Boy” was found, written by Giovanni Bragolin.

*"I saw reports that were made by firefighters at the scene. The houses seemed to flare up themselves, as if under the influence of some kind of magic."*

And they said that the picture is damned. It is necessary to clarify that because of the general panic, absolutely every picture of this author was considered damned, so each article came out with different images. And it began, another article, another article. The city is in a panic. They allegedly call the publisher and beg them to tell you what to do. I bought a painting and burned out. I threw the picture into the lava, but the lava burned out. My grandmother hung this picture 150 years ago, and now the house burned down. Help me. And the brave heroes from the newspaper take a desperate step and tell everyone that the pictures definitely cause a fire. Urgently hand them over to the newspaper and we will burn them. We will burn pictures that do not burn. We know what we do, paintings that do not burn. We know what we are doing, the roof of our building. Bravery and stupidity. Only firemen said

*"No. Are you completely already?"*

In general, everyone around them understood that they were raising an artificial hype around this. After all, they still went out of town and burned all the paintings that do not burn. And they made another article out of it.

*"After that, the fires in northern England ceased."*

The city is saved. Foldable and all right, readers thought. Not many people learn that it turns out firefighters never said that the paintings are damned. This is the editors have come up with. All the fires arose not just like that, but because careless families forgot cigarette butts, pans, and so on. Each case was explained and even an official response from the fire service came out that the fires and paintings were not connected in any way. Although who cares, right?

*"The experts found no signs of arson, nor signs of careless handling of fire."*

*"Shut up."*

Cheap paintings with crying children were sold in shops and it is not surprising that often in houses where there was a fire, there was this picture too. But here the main question arises, how could these paintings survive in a fire? This is really interesting. But for starters, here's what you need to know. Very often, during fires, paintings remain unharmed, and copies and originals, which will be described in the next report. But this is such an absurdity that I could not resist making a cut of what was said.

*"But as it turned out, the canvas does not burn in the fire and does not sink in the water, but it was seriously damaged in the fire. The canvas had to be redrawn. The work was transferred to a new canvas, but as it turned out, the canvas does not burn in the fire, but was seriously damaged in a fire."*

*"This is taken out of context."*

And of course, all this is attributed to miracles and paranormalism. But a logical explanation does not interest newspaper readers. The fire service officer said that the material on which the picture was printed was very dense, it was difficult to set fire to it. If this is not an argument, then in one of the programs the BBC set fire to a reproduction of this picture and it really burned very reluctantly. It was revealed that the paintings for sale were treated with varnish, which is very fire resistant. But if this is not an argument, then most likely in a fire the rope behind the picture burned the fastest and it simply and it just fell flat and, as a matter of fact, survived. Yes, and if in principle we are talking about paintings that do not burn, and this applies to mysticism. Have you ever tried to burn canvases? Try to set fire to a primed canvas, it will take some time. Of course, it will light up sooner or later, but even when it lights up, the flame will not cover it when it lights up, the flame will not cover it completely and most likely it will go out. Try to do this experiment yourself at home, just don’t burn anything.

*"I authoritatively declare to you that probably the worst that I have seen in my life, moreover, this is a fake. I will give you 3.50 for her. What?"*

The newspaper in general then screwed up at the start of the whole story when they told about the next fire due to the damned picture. But they did not take into account that this was a completely different artist. Artist Anna Zinkeisen. But if a crying child is painted, then he is also cursed. Well, clinical idiots. Of course, in the end it turned out that the artist did not lose any of the children. His house in Venice never burned. And he died at the age of 70 from cancer of the esophagus, and not in a fire. He painted not only crying boys, but also landscapes, and sometimes girls. He found them by advertisement, he didn’t scare anyone, he even painted tears on the finished canvas. But admit the real story is boring, like our lives. Moreover, these are not the only pictures that caused fires. But folklore researcher Professor Dayana Purkis told us the following. People are not very rational, especially when an unexpected disaster occurs. Actually, it’s much more pleasant to believe that your house was burned down due to a damned picture than to believe that it was just an accident or to blame yourself for not turning off the stove. If the cursed image caused a fire, you are not only not responsible, but it is much more interesting than if you just left a little fat in the pan. But they smoothly lay, people really often want to throw off their responsibility on others, but the result is simple. It’s very easy for us to inspire something. Very often, when newspapers begin to force Old that a ghost has wound up in the city, be prepared that everyone will begin to see it. Even if there was never a ghost. People. And even if the picture is not damned, it has such a backstory that even the most ardent critics would not particularly like it for themselves. I would hang if I really liked her.

*"Okay, scared?"*

Yes, really would have hung. In general, with newspaper stuffing, everything is clear. After all, there are paintings that drove their creators crazy and then influenced the lives of those who saw them. The cry of Edward Munch for example. You probably saw this picture, did it drive its creator crazy or not? Munch was really in a psychiatric clinic, but the reason was not in the picture, but in his childhood. Eternal poverty, mother died of tuberculosis, her beloved sister also died from him after 9 years. He was in poor health, nightmares, his younger sister was diagnosed with a mental illness, his father became a religious fanatic, and his brother died a few months after the wedding. Not life, but hopeless disappointment, I would call. Perhaps all this affected his general condition. He thumped, he began to persecute mania and he went to hospital. There, they really helped him and upon the return of his paintings ceased to be so pessimistic. But back to the picture itself. Mystical stories naturally arose. They say that one of the employees of the Munch Museum in Oslo, in which the painting “Scream” is stored, once dropped the painting. Shortly afterwards, severe headaches began to torment him. Intolerable migraines eventually brought the museum employee to suicide. Another museum employee dropped the picture during a change of exposure. Soon after, he had a terrible car accident. A visitor to the museum, who quietly decided to touch the picture, a week later burned alive in his own house. Yes. Here it is necessary to give up and say that the picture is really damned, because there are no such coincidences. Only now how do I even know that this really happened. These are just rumors. In general, it’s rather strange when you consider that the painting was stolen twice, found in poor condition and restored, and there was nothing for the attackers, except that they were punished by law. Mismatch is obtained. The picture must have been shocked by the arrogance of thieves and could not do anything to them. The picture itself is really very mysterious. I don’t particularly rummage, but Nikolay Zharinov, the cultural expert and host of the Artifex channel, will help me tell about her. Nikolay is your word.

*"Edward Munch's “Scream” painting does have a frightening effect on the audience, but all this is easily explained from the point of view of psychology. This is not only the abundance of red tones that the artist uses, it is also the background to the painting itself. The fact is that this anthropomorphic figure was not invented by Munch. This is the image of the Peruvian mummy, which he first saw at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. And this image struck him so much that then he repeatedly used it on his canvases. Another question is, what is the meaning of this canvas? It seems that this anthropomorphic figure literally draws you into the canvas and draws you into this whole completely apocalyptic landscape. But here it is interesting where this figure is looking. She looks behind the audience. The fact is that Scream crowned the cycle of the frieze of life, which was dedicated specifically to human life. In fact, in this image, Munk saw the soul of a person who was thrown into this world, and finding himself in this terrible state, the only thing she could do was scream. That is why the figure looks behind the back of the viewer, because it is there that real life is located and it is this real life that terrifies it. Therefore, looking at this canvas, you involuntarily want to turn around, see what you have there. What so frightened this figure. Yes, the picture scares you, but all this is understandable from the point of view of psychology. But horror films also scare us. This is the influence that the artist masterfully exerts on your psychology, but this is only art and there is no mysticism."*

I would like to believe that now we have not attributed to her any completely different meaning. It would be awkward.

*"This is because you are still too young to understand the hidden meaning."*

*"Yes there is no hidden meaning there."*

On the other hand, it is a picture and everyone himself has the right to interpret it as he wants. And this by the way often plays a cruel joke with the viewer. Take for example a picture of the same Munch. Dead mother. A terrible drawing, a terrible plot, the reputation of Munch’s paintings, all together gives us something frightening. People saw their eyes watching them. And this often happens with damned pictures. Even here, scientists were able to explain this. Dr. James Toth of Ohio University explains to us that this is a very common technique. The artist must draw a person in the picture, who will seem to be looking exactly at the viewer. And when we move away from the picture, it does not change, the object on it does not begin to look in the other direction. The optical illusion is such that it follows us even when we move aside. If the picture pointed a gun at you, then wherever you go, the gun will always be put on you. Well, in the study it is described mathematically and, of course, all this can be explained also by auto-suggestion. After all, as I said, if you know that the picture is damned, the likelihood that you will see something in it is higher. Also, television programs added fuel to the fire, so to speak. In 2005, in the Italian program, so to speak. In 2005, in the Italian program, she does not express any particular emotions, but a random shot of this picture was shown and a woman smiles at her. Well, to be honest, it's even a little creepy. Imagine how you would have managed if you were left alone with the picture. And she began to crush her forehead. This is all scary if you do not take into account the fact that you cannot see this with the ordinary eye. No one shows the video. It was just a screenshot of a shot taken on a super old camera and it is worth recalling that this program spread the rumor about John Tyter, a time traveler. A release about him was already on the channel. In general, of course, this can be photo manipulation, even if not, then the volunteers from the committee to combat pseudoscience have already armed themselves with old cameras and were able to repeat this optical effect. And finally, my favorite story. “A painting called hands oppose him” by American artist Bill Stonehen. They say that the picture depicts perfumes. They move, come to life at night, and indeed the picture is damned.

*"The next night, the child shouted that the children had left the picture and walked outside the door."*

It was written in 1872. According to the author, this old photograph formed the basis, and the picture depicts him himself at the age of five. The door separates the real world and the world of dreams, and the doll is a kind of vehicle. Hands represent alternative lives or opportunities. Typical surrealism is nothing unusual. More interesting. When the picture hit the exhibition, it was bought by actor John Marley and soon passed away. The gallery owner and newspaper critic who watched this picture also died. In general, everyone who was somehow connected with her was dying.

*"The art critic of the Los Angeles Times, who criticized the painting at the exhibition, passed away the next day. Then the canvas was acquired by actor John Marley and soon died under mysterious circumstances in his own house."*

This is really strange, you must agree, until you start digging. In fact, John Marley sold his painting before his death. He was 76 and he died after heart surgery. Could not resist. Very certainly amazing. And the critic was called Henry Seldis, if you believe the New York Times, of course, and that’s all we have, he committed suicide after a long depression and drug abuse. And the gallery owner was also old, but that. Probably the creators of the story simply did not double-check. But most importantly, everyone forgot about the picture for more than 20 years. Until she appeared at the Ebay auction, where the terrible truth about her was painted. The new owners allegedly found her in an abandoned place, brought home and hanged her little daughter in the room. What for? This is too stupid to be true, and therefore resembles a cheap urban legend. After all, children are generally impressionable. They and clowns sometimes scare to death, and then hands in the dark and a doll in the picture. Moreover, we will not forget about the phenomenon of the ominous valley, when a person does not scare us, but a doll that tries to be like a person is very scary. My daughter began to see at night how the children in the picture are fighting. And generally paranormal. And Dad, like a noble skeptic, hung up a camera there, which reacts to movement and she began to react. Fearfully. Of course there will be no proofs. Probably evil spirits deleted the record, in short. What am I trying to say, this is all frivolous. But still, the picture was sold at auction for $ 1000. Not so much for an auction meme, to be honest. I probably would even have bought. But people on the site complained of headaches, heart attacks. Well, if only when you know that the picture is damned, you also will not imagine such a fantasy. All this only raised interest in the picture. It was bought by a certain Kim Smith, who considered that she would serve as a decoration for his exhibition. And do you know what he said after some time? I would be glad to tell something unusual, but nothing happened. The strangest thing that happened was the letters of people who found out who bought this painting. There were demands to burn it, bury it, cause exorcists, turn to Warren, Ed and Lorraine, our beloved detectives of any paranormal.

*"Do not say that you do not know such."*

*"American psychics Ed and Warren Lorraines conducted an examination of the canvas and concluded that the souls of the murdered children were infused into the picture."*

*"No."*

In general, some crazy posters were knocking. By the way, the author of the picture, Bill Stonehen, is now still alive, but as you know, they are not damned. But after learning that his painting became so popular, he returned to the profession of an artist, which he abandoned for a long time and began to parasitize on his own work. He painted the prequels and sequels of this picture. That one is a psychedelic. No mystery is yet seen in him. Until they see. There is a man who tells everyone that he found a damned picture of an unknown author in the attic and it makes sounds, opens doors and generally falls. There is evidence. Well this is really funny. They put scary music on the vidos, walks around and says, guys, I'm a skeptic. I don’t believe in ghosts at all, but here they are. Nobody can do it, I’m definitely not lying to you. Of course no one. But gullible people were found in full.

*"And the next lot is the most damned picture. Starting price of 12 dollars. I do not see your hands. May be you? May be you? I see sulfur in the third row with a silly expression."*

*"I will not buy anything, I just came."*

*"Fearless lord. Sold to the fearless gentleman in the third row. Faster give him the picture before he escapes. Cool picture, cool choice."*

It would be very embarrassing if his picture is really mystical, just the dude has no sense of taste, how to present his find. I get angry over him, I hope they don’t curse me for it. But if that I love you. These at the moment were the main and most interesting stories with damned pictures. And as you can see they are all dummies. Just an urban legend that has forever settled in people's memory. But it has gone so far that your parents will never buy a picture that was supposedly cursed. Even if it's just a fictional story. In general, there are a lot of these stories about paintings, but not one of them can withstand criticism. No one argues that art has an impact on our psychological state. You cry, laugh, be sad while watching movies, while reading books. And there is no mysticism. It’s just that any real artist is a skilled psychologist who masterfully manipulates your feelings. Or maybe you yourself think out the meaning of a picture and are afraid of your own thoughts about it. I would like to say a big thank you to Nikolai Zharinov personally for helping to prepare the release for the Artifex channel. Go to their channel, because you will see

*"There are a lot of interesting things. Firstly, painting, and history, and literature, and cartoons. In short, a lot of everything. Watch our video about Vincent Van Gogh. This is exactly the artist that you need to talk about, and about which you need to know a lot."*

I vouch for the quality personally, because I look. This is some kind of madness. Thank you very much for your help and not the last time we work, that's for sure. In general, imagine that you can still portray what will unite our world and what is still inaccessible to us, if it certainly exists. I would like to believe that it is possible, but it is hard to believe. Maybe you can take it to us, we drew it ourselves. Here with the signatures on the back. There’s just nowhere to put it. Go to the live channel, there will soon be a vlog from these shootings. I will tell you how to win it. 90% of subscribers have already cut this video, so I can ask you to subscribe to these instagrams. One two Three. What more could I say? And we now have a sponsor button on the channel, if you want us, we’ll be very grateful. And we will soon launch a new format that will be completely ad-free, just like a top secret, so as not to disturb the terrible atmosphere. Bye then.