METAL ON METAL

Robert Oscar Lenkiewicz

2012-02-14T18:11:00.020+02:00

Dead Mother

Robert Oscar Lenkiewicz (1941 – 2002) was one of England's most celebrated artists of modern times. Perennially unfashionable in high art circles, his work was nevertheless popular with the public.

He painted on a large scale, usually in themed Projects investigating hidden communities (Vagrancy 1973, Mental Handicap 1976) or difficult social issues (Suicide 1980, Death 1982). Inspired by the example of Albert Schweitzer, Lenkiewicz threw open the doors of his studios to anyone in need of a roof – down and outs, addicts, criminals and the mentally ill congregated there. These individuals were the subjects of his paintings as a young man. However, such colourful characters were not welcomed by his neighbours and he was obliged to leave London in 1964. He spent a year living in a remote cottage in Cornwall, supporting his young family by teaching, before being offered studio space on the Barbican in Plymouth. The artist's home and studios once more became a magnet for vagrants and street alcoholics, who then sat for paintings. Their numbers swelled and Lenkiewicz was forced to commandeer derelict warehouses in the city to house the 'dossers'. One of these warehouses also served as a studio and in 1973 became the exhibition space for the Vagrancy Project.

He first came to public attention when the media highlighted his giant mural man on Plymouth's Barbican in the 1970s. Another furore occurred in 1981 when he faked his own death in preparation for the forthcoming project of paintings on the theme of death (1982): "I could not know what it was like to be dead," said the artist, "but I could discover what it was like to be thought dead."

Lenkiewicz, aged 60, died of a heart attack in 2002. Despite painting 10,000 works rated of 'national importance' by the British Museum he had only £12 cash in his possession (having never opened a bank account), and owed £2 million to various creditors. Since his death examples of his best paintings have fetched ever-rising prices in London auction rooms. In his obituary of Lenkiewicz, art critic David Lee observed: "Robert's greatest gift was to show us that an artist could be genuinely concerned about social and domestic issues and attempt the difficult task of expressing this conscience through the deeply unfashionable medium of figurative painting. In that sense he was one of few serious painters of contemporary history."

Lenkiewicz investigated some of society's most persistent taboos in Projects such as Vagrancy, Mental Handicap, Jealousy, Orgasm, Suicide and Sexual Behaviour. Here, Lenkiewicz often adopted an allegorical pictorial style to portray human physiology in extremis. Lenkiewicz came to the conclusion that the kinds of sensations people felt when a lover abandoned them or when their cherished beliefs were threatened were identical in kind to the 'withdrawal symptoms' and anxieties experienced by addicts or alcoholics over their preferred narcotic. These Projects thus became an extended study in 'addictive behaviour'.

The conclusions drawn from his own observations were supported by his private library, which he viewed as a history of 'fanatical belief systems'. Lenkiewicz contended that in the absence of any good reasons for our beliefs or emotions we must always look to human physiology for an explanation of fanatical or obsessive behaviour and that it is there that we shall discover the roots of fascism – the tendency to treat another person as property. Lenkiewicz saw all his Projects (21 in all) as part of a large-scale investigation into the origins of fascism - the tendency to treat other people as property - and the roots of obsessive and fanatical behaviour.

On and off, for nearly 30 years, he worked on his great masterpiece, the Riddle Mural in the Round Room at Port Eliot house, home of the Earl of St. Germans, but died before its completion. Half of the mural, in the 40-foot-diameter (12 m) room, shows death, destruction, insanity, unrequited love, and the apocalyptic end of the world. The other half reflects love and affection, friendships, harmony, proportion and consensus. Hidden in the work are various references to family skeletons, art history and cabalistic mysteries, hence the name - the Riddle Mural.

Diogenes

(Diogenes was the nickname of a tramp that was his most famous model. When he died he embalmed him and his body was part of painter's exhibitions of Diogenes' paintings about Vangrancy, Death and Old Age)

Bernie Wrightson

2012-02-10T19:00:00.014+02:00

Bernie Wrightson (1948-) is an American artist known for his horror illustrations and comic books. His first professional comic work was the story "The Man Who Murdered Himself" which appeared in House of Mystery #179 (March-April 1969). He continued to work on a variety of mystery and anthology titles for both DC and its principal rival, Marvel Comics. With writer Len Wein, Wrightson co-created the muck creature Swamp Thing in House of Secrets #92 (July 1971) in a stand-alone horror story set in the early 20th century. The following year, the Swamp Thing returned in his own series, set in the contemporary world and in the general DC continuity. Wrightson drew the first ten issues of the series. Wrightson spent seven years drawing approximately 50 detailed pen-and-ink illustrations to accompany an edition of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. Wrightson illustrated the comic book adaptation of the film Stephen King-penned horror film Creepshow. This led to several other collaborations with King, including illustrations for the novella "Cycle of the Werewolf", the restored edition of King's apocalyptic horror epic, The Stand, and Wolves of the Calla, the fifth installment of King's Dark Tower series. Wrightson has contributed album covers for a number of bands, including Meat Loaf ("Dead Ringer" 1981). The "Captain Sternn" segment of the animated film Heavy Metal is based on a character created by Wrightson.

from Frankenstein

The Swamp Thing

The Swamp Thing is a humanoid mass of vegetable matter who fights to protect his swamp home, the environment in general, and humanity from various supernatural or terrorist threats. He found perhaps his greatest popularity during the 1980s and early '90s. Outside of an extensive comic book history, the Swamp Thing property has inspired two theatrical films, a live-action television series, and a five-part animated series among other media.

Meat Loaf "Dead Ringer" 1981 album cover

Captain Sternn

Captain Sternn, as written by Wrightson, is an amoral space captain whose adventures are set in the future. Sternn is sometimes considered a criminal with charges ranging from rape to piracy. He is drawn as a caricature of Superman, although his clothing is different; he wears a pseudo-military uniform. He is always accompanied by a small, levitating one-eyed robot, named Beezer, that is his most faithful companion.

Anton Semenov

2012-02-06T19:18:00.005+02:00

Anton Semenov is a young about 30 years old Russian sureal-horror artist. He creates either by painting or by using photoshop. His work is quite creepy like comimg from our nightmares causing a feeling of anxiety when you look at them. You can see more of his work HERE and HERE

Jean Delville

2012-02-02T13:26:00.011+02:00

The Portrait of Mrs. Stuart Merrill (1892)

Jean Delville (1867–1953) was a Belgian symbolist painter, writer, and occultist. During the last decades of the 19th century, many people in the West reacted to the materialism and hypocrisy of the period by developing an interest in esoteric, occult and spiritual subjects. The enthusiasm for these ideas reached its peak during the 1890s, the decade when the Belgian painter and writer Jean Delville was at the height of his powers.

Delville became committed to spiritual and esoteric subjects during his early twenties. In 1887 or 1888 he spent a period in Paris, where he met Sâr Joséphin Péladan, an eccentric mystic and occultist, who defined himself as a modern Rosicrucian, descended from the Persian Magi. Delville was struck by a number of Péladan’s ideas, among them his vision of the ideal artist as a spontaneously developed initiate, whose mission was to send light, spirituality and mysticism into the world. He exhibited paintings in Péladan's Salons between 1892 and 1895.

Despite all his work and ability, however, Delville never achieved the recognition he would have liked. As Brendan Cole says in his thesis, he almost certainly paid a price for refusing to compromise his ideals. By 1951, Delville had become almost completely ignored and forgotten. He died two years later and did not live to see the revival of interest in his work. This was marked by exhibitions in London in 1968, and Paris in 1972. Today Delville’s pictures are once again recognised for their unusual qualities. Although they do not correspond with everyone’s taste, many people now see them as outstanding and fascinating expressions of otherworldly subjects.

Satan’s Treasures (1895)

One of Delville’s best works is "Satan’s Treasures", first exhibited in 1895. Here the artist depicts Satan with a wild, fiery head of hair and huge red tentacles instead of wings. Scarlet waves surround his left arm, as he presides over a river of unconscious men and women. The nude bodies of these figures appear orange and yellow in reproductions, but in the original they are a subtle mixture of acid pinks and yellows, highlighted with touches of green. They lie transfixed in the centre of a luxuriant coral reef, surrounded by coins, jewels and strange fish. Beyond the reef one can see vast vistas filled with jagged rock formations, and painted in shades of orange, yellow and brown.

Though the full interpretation is again left to the viewer, it clear that Satan’s Treasures is not a traditional vision of hell. It reveals a fascination with decadence and the erotic which was typical of the period. At the same time there is probably an underlying theme of initiation.

Delville’s vast undersea world, ruled by Satan, is almost certainly an image of the material abyss. Satan, lord of the physical realm, presides over its sleeping inhabitants. Wrapped in delusion, the dreaming men and women are mesmerised by Satan’s spell, and trapped by their own desires. Satan’s “treasures” include not only their sensuality, but also their attraction to worldly riches, represented by the pearls, coins and corals which surround them. Above all, the entranced people themselves are the treasures of Satan.

Swedish Thrash Metal band Hexenhaus used this painting for the cover of their album "A Tribute to Insanity" (1988), while American death metal group Morbid Angel used this painting also for the cover of their second album, "Blessed Are the Sick" (1991).

Lam Qua's medical portraits

2012-01-30T21:00:00.006+02:00

Lam Qua (1801–1860) was a Chinese painter who specialized in Western-style portraits intended largely for Western clients. Lam Qua was the first Chinese portrait painter to be exhibited in the West. He is known for his medical portraiture. From 1836 to 1855, Lam Qua produced a series of medical portraits of patients under treatment with physician Peter Parker, a medical missionary from the United States. Parker commissioned Lam Qua to paint pre-operative portraits of patients who had large tumors or other major deformities. Some of the paintings are now part of a collection of Lam Qua's work held by the Yale University in the Peter Parker Collection at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library; others are in the Gordon Museum, Guy's Hospital, London.

Edvard Munch's dark and macabre works

2012-01-26T12:04:00.013+02:00

Kiss of Death

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art. His works express deep emotions, of love, fear, anxiety, death. Munch was an expressive painter and was not primarily interested in literal renderings of what he had seen.

The Scream

In a page in his diary, Munch described his inspiration for the image thus:
I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.

It has been suggested that the proximity of both a slaughterhouse and a madhouse to the site depicted in the painting may have offered some inspiration of the red background. At the time of painting the work, Munch's manic depressive sister Laura Catherine was interned in the mental hospital at the foot of Ekeberg. In 1978, the Munch scholar Robert Rosenblum suggested that the strange, sexless creature in the foreground of the painting was probably inspired by a Peruvian mummy, which Munch could have seen at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris. This mummy, which was crouching in a fetal position with its hands alongside its face, also struck the imagination of Munch's friend Paul Gauguin: it stood model for the central figure in some of his paintings. Recently, an Italian anthropologist speculated that Munch might have seen a mummy in Florence's Museum of Natural History which bears an even more striking resemblance to the painting. The environment of The Scream is often compared to that which an individual suffering from depersonalization disorder experiences, such a feeling of distortion of the environment and one's self. Indeed, the deranged person feels all the world trembling, in contrast to the people behind who enjoy cool and serene the view and the sunset

Madonna
Although it is a highly unusual representation, nevertheless, this painting is of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Until the 20th century Mary was usually represented in high art as a chaste, mature woman. True to the Norwegian cultural beliefs and way of life, the painting is a strong dose of conceivable realism. Sigrun Rafter, an art historian at the Oslo National Gallery suggests that Munch intended to represent Mary in the life-making act of intercourse, with the sanctity and sensuality of the union captured by Munch. The usual golden halo of Mary has been replaced with a red halo symbolizing the love and pain duality. The viewer's viewpoint is that of the man who is making love with her. Even in this unusual pose, she embodies some of the key elements of canonical representations of the Virgin: she has a quietness and a calm confidence about her. Her eyes are closed, expressing modesty, but she is simultaneously lit from above; her body is seen, in fact, twisting toward the light so as to catch more of it, even while she does not face it with her eyes. These elements suggest aspects of conventional representations of the Annunciation.

"Vampire" or "Love and pain"?

The above painting is famous because of a misinterpretation by an art critic who thought that woman don't consoling her mourning lover, relieving his pain, but is a female vampire that sucks blood from her male victim. Then this painting became more famous with the wrong title “Vampire” than the original by the painter “Love and Pain”. But knowing about an artist’s unsuccessful romance with a woman, this painting can hold both interpretations, Love and Pain coexist in a relation and from Munch’s perspective this woman dominated his life, either as a lover or as a painful partner.

The Harpy

Melancholy

Ashes

Adam and Eve commiting the Sin

The Murder of Marat

By the Deathbed

Study of a Model

but it can be interpreted as

Woman and Death

Death and the Maiden

Heir Apparent, album: Graceful Inheritance (1986)

2012-01-21T15:13:00.007+02:00

An old and forgotten power metal diamond. Only two albums this band has released, but this piece is enough to worth remembering again for today's Metal Youth. More in Metal Archives

Michael Hutter

2012-01-17T19:38:00.007+02:00

Michael Hutter is a contemporary surealist artist of erotic, macabre, grotesque and horror themes. As he said: I developed some techniques which consists of my way to deal with literature, art, music, philosopy, science, religion and pseudo-science afar from mainstream culture. I dont care for reality or the probability that something is true, only for its potential to stimulate my thought. In my opinion truth is somehow an illusion anyway. I mix that with my obsession, passions, desires and fears and choke what happens in the abyss of my personality back on the surface.

Andres Serrano "The Morgue"

2012-01-12T19:55:00.003+02:00

Could corpses at various macabre, decaying and gory conditions become subjects of artistic significance? Of course Death and macabre issues always produce a strange attractive-repelling feeling, so they have formed one of the most important theme in art beside Portraits, Beauty, Eros, Nature and Landscapes. By seeing such disturbing works from various contemporary photographers, like Andres Serrano, Sally Mann and Tsurisaki Kiyotaka, you find yourself in such a bipolar and confusing feeling at its stongest.

The series of photographs by the notorious Andres Serrano “The Morgue” (1991) , based on details of dead bodies, with info about the cause of death (murder, illness, burning, suicide, poisoning, etc), is related to the fascination of death present in the romanticism of the 19th century , particularly the works of Theodore Gericault, whose series inspired him. As Serrano said: “I use photography as a painter uses his canvas”.

Chet Zar

2012-01-04T13:42:00.005+02:00

Chet Zar (1967-) is an American artist notable for his dark visual art, make-up effects, and digital animation. He is most widely known for his work with Tool's music and live videos. He is the stepson of American fantasy artist James Zar. Zar's works vary according to the medium he is using. His interest in art and horror movies led to a career in the motion-picture industry. His contributions to the industry were in the form of sculpture and make-up effects. Zar designed and created prosthetic effects for such movies as The Ring, Planet of the Apes, and Darkman.
His canvassed works are generally oil-based portraits. He considers his works to be extensions of his doodles, and describes the figures in his art as "very ugly and freakish on the surface" while still retaining "innocence about them". In addition to creating digital animations for Tool's live shows, Zar has created his own DVD of digital loops, entitled Disturb the Normal. His 'animated paintings' are made using Lightwave 3d and Adobe After Effects. On December 18, 2007, Tool released a DVD for their single "Vicarious", which contains a documentary with an appearance by Zar as a key member of the "Vicarious" video team.

John Baizley

2012-01-01T20:20:00.014+02:00

2008 "Full Scale Assault" by Vitamin X

John Baizley is a painter and musician based in Savannah, Georgia. He is notable for his album cover art and t-shirts for artists including Kylesa, Pig Destroyer, Darkest Hour, Daughters, Skeletonwitch, Torche, Cursed, Black Tusk, Kvelertak, Vitamin X, Flight of the Conchords, The Red Chord, Gillian Welch and his own band, Baroness for which he is the singer and rhythm guitarist.

from Pig Destroyer’s Phantom Limb 2007

from Pig Destroyer’s Phantom Limb 2007

from Pig Destroyer’s Phantom Limb 2007

Kvelertak’s debut 2010

artwork for the upcoming
Tiger! Tiger! album, out March 10, 2012

Black Tusk’s “Set The Dial” 2011

Black Tusk’s “Passage Through Purgatory” 2008

Black Tusk’s “Taste the Sin” 2010

Baroness "Blue Record" 2009

Baroness "Red Album" 2007

Seth Siro Anton (Spyros Antoniou)

2011-12-30T10:45:00.010+02:00

Seth Siro Anton ("Spyros Antoniou" his real name) is a multitalented Greek artist: member of Septic Flesh (bass, vocals), painter and photographer, internationally famous designer for numerous album covers of Heavy Metal bands, some of them very famous, like Paradise Lost, Moonspell, Kamelot, Rotting Christ, Draconian, etc. His style is dark, sometimes disturbing, horrible, nightmarish, gory and dystopian, based, either in paganistic rituals and magic, or in Freudian subconsious and science fiction. Vist his SITE for more of his work.

Some of his illustrations for album covers:

Septic Flesh - The Great Mass

Psycho Choke - Unraveling Chaos

Flowing Tears - Thy Kingdom Gone

Kamelot - Poetry for the Poisoned

SIC - Fighters they Bleed

Dylath-Leen - Cabale

Paradise Lost - Paradise Lost

Odilon Redon

2011-12-28T17:39:00.010+02:00

The Green Death

Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon (1840 – 1916) was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist. Redon describes his work as ambiguous and undefinable: "My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined."

Angel Executions

Darkness

Crying Spider

Redon's work represent an exploration of his internal feelings and psyche. He himself wanted to "place the visible at the service of the invisible"; thus, although his work seems filled with strange beings and grotesque dichotomies, his aim was to represent pictorially the ghosts of his own mind. A telling source of Redon's inspiration and the forces behind his works can be found in his journal A Soi-même (To Myself). His process was explained best by himself when he said: "I have often, as an exercise and as a sustenance, painted before an object down to the smallest accidents of its visual appearance; but the day left me sad and with an unsatiated thirst. The next day I let the other source run, that of imagination, through the recollection of the forms and I was then reassured and appeased."

Cactus Man

Cyclops

Spirit of the Forest

Head of a Martyr

Cauldron

Valente Celle Tomb, 1893, The Staglieno Cemetery, Genoa - Italy

2011-12-24T22:52:00.007+02:00

Valente Celle Tomb, 1893,

The Staglieno Cemetery, Genoa - Italy

Sculptor: Giulio Monteverde ( 1837 -1917)

The funeral monument called “Eternal Drama” represents a real Dans macabre, the futile attempt of life to escape the inevitable embrace of death. The sculptor Giulio Monteverde underlines, in this sculpture, the contrast between the sensuality of the beautiful young woman who personifies Life (caught in the moment in which , wearied by the vain struggle, she is about to surrender herself to the terrible spectre who has chosen her as his prey) and the rigid impassiveness of Death which seizes her.

Staglieno owes its popularity and historic value not only to the fame of the great personalities who rest there but, avove all, to its many sculptural and architectural monuments which share the same area creating a variegated harmony. Althought still unfinished, the cemetery was officially inaugurated on January 1, 1851. Giovanni Battista Resasco was entrusted to continue the original project of his master, the architect Carlo Barabino (1768-1835).

The architecture of the cemetery reveals the same Neoclassic style of many representative Genoese buildings of that period, such as the Carlo Felice Theatre and the Palazzo dell'Accademia. The plant of the original nucleus is quadrangular; in the run of the years the cemetery spread up to include the surrounding vegetation, creating a very picturesque fusion with the natural environment.

The artistic languages of over a century, from Neoclassicism to Realism, up to Symbolism, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and on, are here displayed and they find their interpreters in a school of sculptors whose works are known far beyond the regional and national borders. Nietzsche, Guy de Maupassant, Mark Twain and Elisabeth of Austria (the famous Empress Sissi) are some of the many great historic and literary scholars, travellers, artists and philosophers who were deeply fascinated by Staglieno and left written testimonies of their impressions.

Photographer and Narrator: Carlo Natale. Visit his photoset to see many photos and sculptures from this cemetery.

Grzegorz Kmin

2011-12-22T10:43:00.008+02:00

Pain

Grzegorz Kmin is a contemporary Polish artist, born in 1972. Neurophysiologist by profession, artist by choise, as he wrote in his biographic note.He works with photoshop creating a variety of themes, dark and bloody thematology in general. I choose some of his work with psycho-sociological interest, where he combines his profession and his choice very creatively.

He quotes a Polish poet's quote that desrcibes his work quite successfully: "I prefer ungliness, it's closer to blood circulation" Stanislaw Grochowiak.

Visit his SITE to see his whole work.

Depression

Addiction

Violence

Schizophrenia

Sanitarium

Conscience

Selfdamage

Telemaniac

Duality

Concentration Camp

Cleaner

Workers

Mark Riddick

2011-12-19T19:08:00.011+02:00

Mark Riddick was born in Bossier City, Louisiana in 1976 and raised in Northern Virginia. Mark holds a BA degree in Studio Art from Greensboro College, North Carolina. Riddick is a well known gore illustrator and graphic artist for the death metal and black metal music communities. Riddick's work has been published by small underground bands and fanzines and international recording acts on major metal labels alike. His themes are blasphemy, gore, perverted sexuality ans satanism. He played in many extreme Death metal bands and his last solo effort is Fetid Zombie. See more of his extreme work in his site RIDDICKART

When dolphins cry

2011-12-15T11:35:00.017+02:00

Αυτή η φρίκη αποτελεί όντως «παράδοση» σε κάποιες περιοχές της Ιαπωνίας και της Ευρώπης. Αλλά το γεγονός ότι αποτελούν παραδόσεις δεν τους δίνει την παραμικρή ηθική νομιμοποίηση για να διατηρούνται και να συνεχίζονται. Ποιος σας είπε πως κάθε λογής παράδοση είναι καλή και σεβαστή μόνο και μόνο επειδή είναι παράδοση; Ποιος σας είπε ότι κάθε λογής παράδοση και έθιμο πρέπει να συνεχίζεται ανά τους αιώνες έξω από ιστορικά πλαίσια, αναγκαιότητες και κοινό αίσθημα; Μήπως ο κανιβαλισμός, η δουλεία, η κατωτερότητα των γυναικών, η παιδεραστία, κλπ ευρέως καταδικασμένα έθιμα και βάρβαρες παραδοσιακές πρακτικές δεν θα έπρεπε να καταργηθούν μόνο και μόνο επειδή ήταν «παραδόσεις»; Οι παραδόσεις των λαών και των πολιτισμών δεν είναι ipso facto καλές και ευγενικές πρακτικές και δείγμα πολιτισμού. Κάποιες είναι όντως καλές και προάγουν τον πολιτισμό, κάποιες όμως είναι απεχθέστατες και ευρέως απαράδεκτες σήμερα.

This horrible stuff is unquestionably a tradition, in some places in Japan, Europe, etc. But the fact that they are traditions doesn’t give them a single excuse to be preserved and continued. Who told you that any kind of tradition is good and respectful for the reason because it's a tradition? Who told you that any kind of tradition must be kept intact through the ages, out of historical context, necessities and common sense? Do cannibalism, slavery, pederasty, female inferiority, and various old violent customs, widely condemned nowadays, keep on being in practice today because they were traditions? Traditions are not ipso facto good and noble. Some traditions are good and noble and some are bad, disgusting and widely inacceptable.

Whale and Dolphin hunting has been the tradition of the inhabitants of Faroe Islands (near Denmark) since the 10th century. And most of the descendants of the medieval whalers have passed this tradition from generations to generations. For the record, there are 17 villages in the island that have these kind of scenario every year which are authorized to conduct such massacre. After killing the whales in methods so gruesome, the villages part take the meat of their hunt and distribute them among the inhabitants. Some carcasses or what has been left from meat scraping and fat extractions of the killed whales and dolphins are laid right on the pier where most birds and flies scavenge on what is left of the poor creature, skin and bones.

This Tradition has met worldwide outrage and criticism that even Greenpeace Activists tried to stop this from ever occurring again. But the islanders insist that the outsiders doesn’t know the implication of this tradition to their identity and culture as Faroe islanders. Activists however argued that during the medieval times, Faroe islanders have shortage of food comphttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifare to this time of ours that food is already abundant and that using tradition as an excuse for the slaughter of these gentle animals is truly unacceptable. (Romuald Matthieson)

The Jananese small town of Taiji, located in the Higashimuro District of Wakayama, is a place of picturesque beauty and hidden horrors. To travelers not aware of its dark secret, Taiji could easily be viewed as just another quaint, historic Japanese village. However, this is not the case. Beginning in September of every year dolphins and small whales are corralled by fisherman and slaughtered in the coves that dot the Taiji shores. Hundreds of dolphins are killed in these coves between September and March. Fishermen slay the dolphins by driving a pin into their necks, by slashing their throats with knives or by spearing them with long harpoons from their boats. In addition, members of the international dolphin display industry attend these dolphin slaughters to purchase show-quality dolphins for use in captive dolphin shows and dolphin swim programs; the dolphins not selected are slaughtered. This is the largest scale dolphin slaughter in the world and unfortunately very few know it even takes place. Even in Japan, not many people are aware of this atrocity occurring.

How is it possible for these acts to continue to take place? The answer is not simple, yet it is fair to say that in large part this problem persists due to lack of education, and a lack of knowledge about what is taking place in Japan. Basically, the Japanese government does not want the international community to become aware of the annual slaughter. It is up to everyone, especially travelers visiting Japan, to spread the word.

Japan is not alone in hunting cetaceans, which are any of an order of aquatic mammals that includes whales, porpoises, dolphins, and related forms. But it’s fair to say that Japan is a global leader when it comes to continuing these practices. It has been argued that the Japanese are keeping an ancient tradition alive by allowing these slaughters to continue, but the case that they are killing dolphins for “the preservation of tradition” isn’t a strong one.

Travelers are not allowed anywhere near the coves where the killings take place and are not encouraged to seek information about this “cultural tradition” of dolphin hunting in the town of Taiji. Also, harsh punishments can result if travelers are too inquisitive around the Taiji coves. It is recommended that you don’t get involved in any protests or activist movements when visiting Japan, because arrests and imprisonment may result, followed by deportation. (Charles Timko)

Edward Gorey (1925-2000)

2011-12-13T17:25:00.010+02:00

Edward Gorey (1925-2000) was an American writer and artist noted for his macabre illustrated books.
He illustrated works as diverse as Dracula by Bram Stoker, The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. In later years he produced cover illustrations and interior artwork for many children's books by John Bellairs. Gorey's illustrated (and sometimes wordless) books, with their vaguely ominous air and ostensibly Victorian and Edwardian settings, have long had a cult following. Gorey became particularly well-known through his animated introduction to the PBS series Mystery! in 1980, as well as his designs for the 1977 Broadway production of Dracula, for which he won a Tony Award for Best Costume Design.

Gorey is typically described as an illustrator. His books can be found in the humor and cartoon sections of major bookstores, but books like The Object Lesson have earned serious critical respect as works of surrealist art. His experimentations — creating books that were wordless, books that were literally matchbox-sized, pop-up books, books entirely populated by inanimate objects — complicates matters still further.

Gorey has become an iconic figure in the Goth subculture. Events themed on his works and decorated in his characteristic style are common in the more Victorian-styled elements of the subculture, notably the Edwardian costume balls held annually in San Francisco and Los Angeles, which include performances based on his works. The "Edwardian" in this case refers less to the Edwardian period of history than to Gorey himself, whose characters are depicted as wearing fashion styles ranging from those of the mid-19th century to the 1930s.

The Gashlycrumb Tinies: or, After the Outing is an abecedarian book written by Edward Gorey that was first published in 1963. Gorey tells the tale of 26 children (each representing a letter of the alphabet) and their untimely deaths in rhyming dactylic couplets, accompanied by the author's distinctive black and white illustrations. It is one of Edward Gorey's best-known books, and is the most notorious amongst his roughly half-dozen mock alphabets. It has been described as a "sarcastic rebellion against a view of childhood that is sunny, idyllic, and instructive". The morbid humor of the book comes in part from the mundane ways in which children die, such as falling down the stairs or choking on a peach. Far from illustrating the dramatic and fantastical childhood nightmares, these scenarios instead poke fun at the banal paranoias that come as a part of parenting.

Director Mark Romanek's music video for the Nine Inch Nails song "The Perfect Drug" was designed specifically to look like a Gorey book, with familiar Gorey elements including oversized urns, topiary plants, and glum, pale characters in full Edwardian costume:

Esteban Maroto, epic-horror-erotic fantasy

2011-12-10T21:10:00.004+02:00

Esteban Maroto (1942-) is a Spanish comic book artist. He started to be known in his own country in 1970 when the magazine Trinca published Alma de Dragón. He designed the "metal bikini" for the character Red Sonja, in Savage Tales #3, Comixscene #5, and in the first issue of The Savage Sword of Conan and pencilled her first solo story, which was inked by Neal Adams and Ernie Chan. He also redesigned Satana for Marvel Comics and drew her second solo story in Vampire Tales #3. In issue 4 of the same series he drew an outstanding adaptation of the short story "The Drifting Snow" by August Derleth.

Maroto joined Warren Publishing in November 1971 when artists from the Spanish agency Selleciones Illustrada started appearing in the their three horror magazines, Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella. Maroto's first story, "Wolfhunt", appeared in Vampirella #14. Maroto quickly became one of the most well known and critically acclaimed Spanish artists at Warren. He would eventually draw 101 stories for them, more than any other artist except Jose Ortiz. Maroto won the Warren Award for best artist/writer in 1972, and his story "A Scream in the Forest" won the best art in a story award in 1973. Maroto remained with Warren until its folding in 1983.

"Individual Thought Patterns" by Death (1993)

2011-12-06T19:38:00.004+02:00

A classic Death Metal album and a band that gived to Death Metal sound something more that only heavy sound and brutal vocals. More in allmusic

Eternal love and beauty (some macabre true or urban legend stories)

2011-12-02T10:55:00.021+02:00

The Lovers of Valdaro, is a pair of human skeletons locked in an eternal embrace discovered by archaeologists at a Neolithic tomb (5000-4000 BC) in S.Giorgio near Mantova, Italy, in 2007.
Archaeologist Elena Maria Menotti led the excavation. Scientists believe that the pair is a man and woman no older than 20 years old and approximately 5'2" in height. They were removed from the ground intact and sent to Musei Civici in Como where they are undergoing tests.

Το 2007 οι αρχαιολόγοι στην Ιταλία βρέθηκαν μπροστά σε ένα μοναδικό εύρημα. Σε μια διπλή ταφή της Νεολιθικής εποχής, 5000-4000 πΧ, οι σκελετοί, (ενός αγοριού και ενός κοριτσιού, 20 περίπου ετών) βρίσκονταν πρόσωπο με πρόσωπο, αγκαλιασμένοι σε μια αιώνια αγκαλιά. Ονομάστηκαν οι Εραστές του Valdaro, από το όνομα του χωριού κοντά στο οποίο βρέθηκαν. Αποφασίστηκε η διατήρηση του ευρήματος όπως ακριβώς βρέθηκε και αφού αποκολλήθηκε μαζί με το περιβάλλον χώμα, μεταφέρθηκε σε μουσείο για περαιτέρω έρευνα και συντήρηση.

Rosalia Lombardo was an Italian child born in 1918 in Palermo, Sicily. She died of pneumonia on December 6, 1920. Rosalia's father, General Lombardo, was sorely grieved upon her death, so he approached Alfredo Salafia, a noted embalmer, to preserve her. Her body was one of the last corpses to be admitted to the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo in Sicily. Thanks to Salafia's embalming techniques, the body was well-preserved. X-rays of the body show that all the organs are remarkably intact. Rosalia Lombardo's body is kept in a small chapel at the end of the catacomb's tour and is encased in a glass covered coffin, placed on a marble pedestal. A 2009 National Geographic photograph of Rosalia Lombardo shows the mummy is beginning to show signs of decomposition, most notably discoloration. To address these issues the mummy was moved to a new drier spot in the catacombs, and her original coffin was placed in a hermetically sealed glass enclosure with nitrogen gas to prevent decay. The mummy is one of the best preserved bodies in the catacombs. Recently, the mummification techniques used by Salafia were discovered in a handwritten memoir of Salafia's. Salafia replaced the girl's blood with a liquid made of formalin to kill bacteria, alcohol to dry the body, glycerin to keep her from overdrying, salicylic acid to kill fungi, and zinc salts to give her body rigidity.Accordingly, the formula's composition is "one part glycerin, one part formalin saturated with both zinc sulfate and chloride, and one part of an alcohol solution saturated with salicylic acid."

H Rosalia Lombardo ήταν ένα κοριτσάκι που γεννήθηκε το 1918 και πέθανε δυο χρονών από πνευμονία. Ο πατέρας της, που ήταν στρατηγός, συντετριμμένος από τον θάνατό της, ζήτησε από ένα δημοφιλή γιατρό εκείνης της εποχής να την βαλσαμώσει για να διατηρηθεί για πάντα. Το σώμα της τοποθετήθηκε στην Κρύπτη των Καπουτσίνων στο Παλέρμο της Σικελίας, όπου βρίσκεται ακόμα. Μάλιστα η τεχνική που χρησιμοποίησε ο γιατρός ήταν τόσο καλή και επιμελής που ακόμα και σήμερα το σώμα της μικρής δείχνει σχεδόν αναλλοίωτο, ακόμα και τα εσωτερικά όργανα που μελετήθηκαν με ακτίνες Χ, και το κοριτσάκι δείχνει σαν να βρίσκεται σ'έναν αιώνιο ύπνο.

L' Inconnue de la Seine (1880) was an unidentified young woman, estimated to be 16 years old, whose death mask became a popular fixture on the walls of artists' homes after 1900. Her visage was the inspiration for numerous literary works. According to an often-repeated story, the body of the young woman was pulled out of the Seine River at the Quai du Louvre in Paris around the late 1880s. The body showed no signs of violence, and suicide was suspected. A pathologist at the Paris morgue was so taken by her beauty that he had a moulder make a plaster cast death mask of her face. The identity of the girl was never discovered. In the following years, numerous copies were produced. The copies quickly became a fashionable morbid fixture in Parisian Bohemian society. Albert Camus and others compared her enigmatic smile to that of the Mona Lisa, inviting numerous speculations as to what clues the eerily happy expression in her face could offer about her life, her death, and her place in society. The popularity of the figure is also of interest to the history of artistic media, relating to its widespread reproduction. The original cast had been photographed, and new casts were created back from the film negatives. These new casts displayed details that are usually lost in bodies taken from the water, but the apparent preservation of these details in the visage of the cast seemed to only reinforce its authenticity. Critic A. Alvarez wrote in his book on suicide, The Savage God: "I am told that a whole generation of German girls modeled their looks on her." According to Hans Hesse of the University of Sussex, Alvarez reports, "the Inconnue became the erotic ideal of the period, as Bardot was for the 1950s. He thinks that German actresses like Elisabeth Bergner modeled themselves on her. She was finally displaced as a paradigm by Greta Garbo." The face of the unknown woman was used for the head of the first aid mannequin Rescue Annie. It was created by Peter Safar and Asmund Laerdal in 1958 and was used starting in 1960 in numerous CPR courses. Therefore, the face has been called by some "the most kissed face" of all time.

Η άγνωστη του Σηκουάνα ήταν μια νέα 16χρονη κοπέλα, της οποίας το πτώμα βρέθηκε το 1880 στο Σηκουάνα και ο θάνατός της αποδόθηκε σε αυτοκτονία. Αυτό που εντυπωσίασε τον γιατρό που εξέτασε το πτώμα ήταν η γαλήνια όψη της και η αποτύπωση σε αυτή μιας απόκοσμης ομορφιάς και ενός αινιγματικού χαμόγελου. Ετσι αποφάσισε να αποτυπώσει το πρόσωπό της σε μια μάσκα από χυτό υλικό, το οποίο φωτογραφήθηκε και αναπαράχθηκε ποικιλοτρόπως, αποτελώντας πλέον μια καλτ μορφή η οποία θα εμπνεύσει πολλές γενιές καλλιτεχνών, ποιητών, συγγραφέων, αλλά και προτύπων ομορφιάς. Επιπλέον, η κούκλα που χρησιμοποιείται στα μαθήματα Πρώτων Βοηθειών αποτελεί έμπνευση από την άγνωστη του Σηκουάνα και το αποθανατισμένο προσωπό της.

In Chihuahua, Mexico, local rumor has it that this mannequin, known as “Pascualita”, is actually an embalmed body. According to legend, a lady named Pascuala Esparza owned a wedding boutique in the city, making dresses for soon-to-be brides. Her own daughter, Pascualita, was engaged to be married, so Pascuala set about to make her a special dress. Everything was planned when, on the day of the wedding, tragedy struck. Supposedly, Pascualita was bitten by a poisonous insect and later died. Distressed by the death of her daughter, Pascuala set out to immortalize her. She embalmed the body, dressed it in her wedding gown, and propped it up in the window of her boutique, for all to see. Today, Pascualita remains standing in the window of “La Popular” in downtown Chihuahua. Although commonly regarded to as a myth, the details in the mannequin (especially in the hands) keep onlookers wondering.

Στην Τσιχουάουα του Μεξικού υπάρχει ένα κατάστημα νυφικών με μια κούκλα στη βιτρίνα, την Πασκουαλίτα. Τοπικός urban legend λέει πως μια γυναίκα, η Pascuala Esparza είχε ένα κατάστημα νυφικών στο κέντρο της πόλης και όταν η κόρη της επρόκειτο να παντρευτεί, της ετοίμασε η ίδια η μάνα της το νυφικό της. Ομως λίγο πριν το γάμο, ένα δηλητηριώδες έντομο τσίμπησε την κόρη, η οποία πέθανε αμέσως. Συντετριμμένη από το χαμό της κόρης της, η μητέρα αποφάσισε να την αποθανατίσει. Βαλσάμωσε με τον καλύτερο τρόπο το σώμα της, το έντυσε με το νυφικό που είχε ετοιμάσει και την τοποθέτησε στη βιτρίνα του καταστήματός της, όπου υπάρχει μέχρι σήμερα. Αν και θεωρείται ως μύθος αυτή η ιστορία, πολλά μέρη της κούκλας, και ειδικά τα χέρια, είναι τόσο ρεαλιστικά σχεδιασμένα που τα ερωτηματικά εξακολουθούν να υπάρχουν.

Judson Huss (1942-2008), horror-fantasy art

2011-11-30T13:09:00.005+02:00

Judson Huss (Yudson Hussey) (1942-2008) was an American-born painter and sculptor of fantastic art. Born in Durham, North Carolina, he later moved with his family to Los Angeles, California where he began to study art. He was also a rock musician, playing guitar and bass with many bands, including Smith (the late 60s band, not Morrisey's Smiths).

Claude Verlinde

2011-11-25T22:22:00.000+02:00

Claude Verlinde (1927-) is a French surrealist artist. He found his vocation very early and entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris at the Academy de la Grande Chaumiere at the age of twenty.Closer to Renaissance artists and certain recognisable styles, he seeks above all the lyricism and freedom of expression. He is very influenced by Hieronymus Bosch , Lucas Cranach the Elder , Francisco Goya , James Ensor, etc

Santiago Caruso

2011-11-24T11:55:00.012+02:00

Santiago Caruso (1982-) is an Argentinian sureal artist. Since 2001 he works professionally. Among his most important publishings you can find: "The Dunwich Horror" by H. P. Lovecraft; "The Bloody Countess" by Alejandra Pizarnik and "The Monk and the Hangman´s Daughter" by Ambrose Bierce; "The Peacock Escritoire" by Mark Valentine; "The Cherry Tree"; "Three Great Plays of Shakespeare" and "Don Quixote".

He has also made covers for Nightshade Books, Miskatonic River Press, Cántaro, Sudamericana, Planeta y Páginas de Espuma, among others. Nowadays, he publish his art on the mythical magazine CARAS Y CARETAS. Recently, he has been chosen to be part of Beinart International Surreal Art Collective, and he is and active member of their exhibitions. His work stands out both for its vigor as well as for its technique. It is no overstatement to say that the work of Caruso, which is well represented in the galleries and museums of Buenos Aires, USA, Mexico and Spain, is currently one of the most pleasant revelations of Latin American plastic arts. (sweet-station.com)

I put here some of his more dark works. Visit his SITE for more of his work

Some of the illustrations from "The Bloody Countess" (2009) by Alejandra Pizarnik:

"Death and the Lady"

2011-11-20T19:42:00.003+02:00

"Death and the Lady" is the title of an old English folk ballad by J. Deacon between 1683 and 1700, which was published in 1906 by "City People", a British newspaper. It was the basis for a vaudeville show Ziegfeld Follies-inspired "Grand Guignol", showing card games and alcohol. Photos of Joseph Hall, a photographer from Brooklyn, also famous for his photographs of theater and sports. You can also read the ballad HERE with more photos of the Ziegfeld's show by Joseph Hall.

DEATH
'Fair Lady, throw those costly robes aside,
No longer may you glory in your pride;
Take leave of all your carnal vain delight,
I'm come to summon you away this night.'

LADY
'What bold attempt is this? Pray let me know
From whence you come, and whither I must go.
Shall I, who am a lady, stoop or bow
To such a pale-faced visage? Who art thou?'

DEATH
'Do you not know me? I will tell you then:
I am he that conquers all the sons of men,
No pitch of honour from my dart is free,
My name is Death! Have you not heard of me?'

LADY
'Yes; I have heard of thee, time after time;
But, being in the glory of my prime,
I did not think you would have come so soon;
Why must my morning sun go down at noon?'

DEATH
'Talk not of noon! you may as well be mute;
There is no time at all for vain dispute,
Your riches, gold, and garments,jewels bright,
Your house, and land, must on new owners light.'

LADY
'My heart is cold; it trembles at such news!
Here's bags of gold, if you will me excuse
And seize on those; and finish thou their strife,
Who wretched are, and weary of their life.

Are there not many bound in prison strong
In bitter grief? and souls that languish long,
Who could but find the grave a place of rest
From all their grief; by which they are opprest.

Besides there's many with a hoary head
And palsied joints; from whom all joy is fled
Release thou them whose sorrows are so great,
And spare my life until a later date!'

DEATH
'Though thy vain heart to riches is inclined
Yet thou must die and leave them all behind.
I come to none before their warrant's sealed,
And, when it is, they must submit, and yield.

Though some by age be full of grief and pain,
Till their appointed time they must remain;
I take no bribe, believe me,this is true.
Prepare yourself to go; I'm come for you.'

LADY
'But if, oh! if you could for me obtain
A freedom, and a longer life to reign,
Fain would I stay, if thou my life wouldst spare.
I have a daughter, beautiful and fair,
I wish to see her wed, whom I adore;
Grant me but this, and I will ask no more?'
(The last part of the music must be repeated
to fit the extra line)

DEATH
'This is a slender frivolous excuse!
I have you fast! I will not let you loose!
Leave her to Providence, for you must go
Along with me, whether you will or no!

If Death commands the King to leave his crown
He at my feet must lay his sceptre down;
Then, if to Kings I do not favour give
But cut them off, can you expect to live
Beyond the limits of your time and space?
No! I must send you to another place.'
(The last part of the music must be repeated
to fit the extra line)

LADY
'Ye learned doctors, now exert your skill,
And let not Death on me obtain his will!
Prepare your cordials, let me comfort find,
My gold shall fly like chaff before the wind!'

DEATH
'Forbear to call! that skill will never do;
They are but mortals here as well as you.
I give the fatal wound, my dart is sure,
And far beyond the doctors' skill to cure.

Flow freely you can let your riches fly
To purchase life, rather than yield and die!
But,while you flourished here with all your store,
You would not give one penny to the poor.

Though in God's name they sue to you did make
You would not spare one penny for His sake.
My Lord beheld wherein you did amiss,
And calls you hence, to give account of this!'

LADY
'Oh! heavy news! must I no longer stay?
How shall I stand at the great Judgement Day?'
Down from her eyes the crystal tears did flow,
She says, 'None knows what I now undergo!

Upon my bed of sorrow here I lie!
My selfish life makes me afraid to die!
My sins are great, and manifold,and foul;
Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on my soul!

Alas! I do deserve a righteous frown!
Yet pardon, Lord, and pour a blessing down!'
Then with a dying sigh her heart did break,
And did the pleasures of this world forsake.

Thus may we see the mighty rise and fall,
For cruel Death shews no respect at all
To those of either high or low degree.
The great submit to Death as well as we.

Though they are gay, their life is but a span,
A lump of clay, so vile a creature's Man!
Then happy they whom God hath made his care,
And die in God, and ever happy are!

The grave's the market place where all must meet
Both rich and poor, as well as small and great;
If life were merchandise, that gold could buy,
The rich would live -- only the poor would die.

Theda Bara, the first "Vamp" (femme fatale) in cinema history

2011-11-17T12:43:00.012+02:00

Theda Bara (1885 – 1955), was an American silent film actress – one of the most popular of her era, and one of cinema’s earliest sex symbols. Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname “The Vamp” (short for vampire). The term “vamp” soon became a popular slang term for a sexually predatory woman. Bara, Valeska Suratt, and Musidora popularized the vamp persona in the early years of silent film . Theda Bara made more than 40 films between 1914 and 1926, but complete prints of only six still exist. At the height of her fame, Bara was making $4,000 per week. She was one of the most popular movie stars, ranking behind only Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford.

Bara’s best-known roles were as the “vamp”, although she attempted to avoid typecasting by playing wholesome heroines. Cleopatra (1917), became one of Bara’s biggest hits. No known prints of Cleopatra exist today, but numerous photographs of Bara in costume as the Queen of the Nile have survived, some of them considered unfit for familly viewing!

Bara is often cited as the first sex symbol of the movies. She was well known for wearing very revealing costumes in her films, which could still be considered risqué by today’s standards, more than 90 years later. Such outfits were banned from Hollywood films after the Production Code started in 1930, and then was more strongly enforced in 1934.

Theda Bara can be considered as a prime example of the earliest Gothic styles. Many Gothic trends such as the dark eyeshadow and clothes are inspired from her styles. She also pozed with a skeleton for some "Death and the Maiden" erotic photos:

The Erotic "Death and the Maiden" Ex Libris of Alphonse Inoue

2011-11-14T18:58:00.006+02:00

Artworks by Alphonse Inoue (pseudonym of a Japanese artist, known for his erotic ex libris). I choose those that deal with the macabre motif "Death and the Maiden".

Michael Whelan, epic, horror fantasy

2011-11-11T12:14:00.008+02:00

Michael Whelan (1950-) is an American artist of imaginative realism. For more than 30 years he worked as an illustrator specializing in science fiction and fantasy cover art. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Whelan in June 2009, the first living artist so honored. According to his Hall of Fame citation,"Michael Whelan is one of the most important contemporary science fiction and fantasy artists, and certainly the most popular. His work was a dominant force in the transition of genre book covers away from the surrealism introduced in the 1950s and 1960s back to realism."

His paintings have appeared on the covers of more than 350 books and magazines, including many Stephen King novels. Cover art by Michael Whelan has graced many music record albums including The Jacksons' Victory; Sepultura's Beneath the Remains, Arise, Chaos A.D., and Roots; Soulfly's Dark Ages; Obituary's Cause of Death; and every album by the Elric-influenced metal band Cirith Ungol. He painted original works for the covers of Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell and The Very Best of Meat Loaf albums and several of his older paintings illustrate the liner notes of the former. Recently he painted the cover art for thrash metal band Evile's album Infected Nations. He has also illustrated cards for the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game. Visit his SITE for more illustrations

Some of his album covers illustrations:

Infected Nations (2009) by the English thrash metal band Evile

Sepultura's Chaos AD cover

Sepultura's Arise cover

Cover of the 1980 album, Frost and Fire by Cirith Ungol.

Gerald Brom, horror-fantasy art

2011-11-09T12:37:00.005+02:00

Gerald Brom (1965-) is an American gothic fantasy artist and illustrator, known for his work in role-playing games, novels, and comics. His artwork also appeared on book covers from authors such as Michael Moorcock, Anne McCaffrey, and Terry Brooks. Brom contributed conceptual work to computer games such as Heretic II, and several top creature houses for films such as Stan Winston Studios; he also co-created, art directed, and illustrated the Dark Age collectible card game. He has since worked as a movie concept artist, and created illustrations for comics (by DC, Chaos, Dark Horse) and computer games (for id Software, Blizzard, Sega and Activision). Brom has also been active with a line of Brom fetish toys from Fewture and a series of bronzes from the Franklin Mint and paintings for novels (by Michael Moorcock, Terry Brooks, R.A. Salvatore, Edgar Rice Burroughs). Visit his SITE for more illustrations

"Autumnal" by Legenda, (1997)

2011-11-04T22:51:00.007+02:00

A two member project playing atmospheric melodic black-goth metal. More information in Metal Archives

Hugo Simberg

2011-11-01T10:47:00.018+02:00

Devil Pot (1897)

Hugo Gerhard Simberg (1873-1917) was a Finnish symbolist painter and graphic artist. The two characters Simberg used most frequently for his art are the "Poor Devil" and Death personified. Simberg's paintings emphasize mainly topics macabre or supernatural.

Kuolema kuuntelee ("Death Listens") (1897). The painting depicts Death, personified as a skeleton wearing a black coat, listening with a bowed head as a young man plays the violin. In the background, there is an old woman lying on a bed, pale and apparently sickly. There is a suggestion that Death is there for the old woman, but that he is pausing so the young man, possibly the dying woman's son, can have time to finish his violin playing.

The Garden of Death (Kuoleman puutarha) (1896) depicts a gloomy, otherworldly scene. The central figures are reminiscent of the classic black-clad Grim Reaper, but paradoxically are tending to gardens; traditionally symbols of birth or renewal.
The Garden of Death is one of the few paintings whose symbolism Simberg explained; typically he preferred to let viewers come to their own conclusions. In a note on one sketch he described the garden as "the place where the dead end up before going to Heaven". The painting was a favourite subject of Simberg's and he made several versions using different techniques. Among the most famous of those is the larger version of the painting that exists in the Tampere Cathedral, which Simberg painted frescoes for in 1905 and 1906 (Second version).

Peasant and Death at the Gates of Heaven and of Hell (1897)

Dance on the Quay (1899)

Simberg's most famous painting The Wounded Angel (1903), is somewhat gloomy, its titular character appearing in the shape of a winged angel with a bandaged head, borne on a stretcher by two somberly dressed boys, one of whom looks toward the viewer with a serious expression. Simberg himself declined to offer any deconstruction, instead preferring the viewer to draw their own conclusions. However, it is known that Simberg had been suffering from meningitis, and that the painting was a source of strength during his recovery. This can also be read metaphorically: meningitis is known to cause neck stiffness, lethargy and light sensitivity, each of which is exhibited by the central figure. If read as lungs rather than wings, such a diagnosis even explains the minor injury, as tuberculor meningitis causes abrasions to the upper lungs.It is one of the most recognizable of Simberg's works, and was voted Finland's "national painting" in a vote held by the Ateneum art museum in 2006. Nightwish's music video, "Amaranth" is based on this particular painting.

Richard Avedon, Death and the Maiden photos

2011-10-30T21:37:00.007+02:00

"In Memory of the Late Mr. and Mrs. Comfort", was the title of a collection of fashion fine art photos by Richard Avedon, featuring model Nadja Auermann and a skeleton, for "The New Yorker" magazine (6 November 1995). The famous danse macabre motif "Death and the Maiden" in modern interpretations.

Ling Chi: Death by a thousand cuts

2011-10-26T12:53:00.007+03:00

JOSÉ GUTIÉRREZ SOLANA (1886-1945)

"SUPLICIO CHINO"

Ling Chi, or Slow slicing, or the lingering death, or death by a thousand cuts , was a form of execution used in China from roughly AD 900 until its abolition in 1905. In this form of execution, the condemned person was killed by using a knife to methodically remove portions of the body over an extended period of time. The term língchí derives from a classical description of ascending a mountain slowly. Lingchi was reserved for crimes viewed as especially severe, such as treason and killing one's parents. It was meted out for offenses against the Confucian value system such as acts of treason, mass murder, parenticide or the murder of one's master or employer. Emperors used it to threaten people and sometimes ordered it for minor offences. There were forced convictions and wrongful executions. Some emperors meted out this punishment to the family members of his enemies.

mailed postcard depicting Ling Chi execution

The process involved tying the person to be executed to a wooden frame, usually in a public place. The flesh was then cut from the body in multiple slices in a process that was not specified in detail in Chinese law and therefore most likely varied. In later times, opium was sometimes administered either as an act of mercy or as a way of preventing fainting. Lingchi could be used for the torture and execution of a living person, or applied as an act of humiliation after death. So, the punishment worked on three levels: as a form of public humiliation, as a slow and lingering death, and as a punishment after death. According to the Confucianism to be cut someone to pieces meant that the body of the victim would not be "whole" in a spiritual life after death.

This method of execution became a fixture in the image of China among some Westerners. The last executions late 19th early 20th cent. were extensively photographed and printed in postcards. Three sets of photographs shot by French soldiers in 1904-1905 were the basis for later mythification. The abolition was immediately enforced, and definite: no official sentences of língchí were performed in China after April 1905.

Virgil Finlay

2011-10-24T11:54:00.005+03:00

Virgil Finlay (1914 –1971) was an American pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrator. While he worked in a range of media, from gouache to oils, Finlay specialized in, and became famous for, detailed pen-and-ink drawings accomplished with abundant stippling, cross-hatching, and scratchboard techniques. Despite the very labor-intensive and time-consuming nature of his specialty, Finlay created more than 2600 works of graphic art in his 35-year career.

Les Edwards, horror-fantasy art

2011-10-21T10:14:00.007+03:00

Les Edwards (born 1949) is a British illustrator known for his work in the horror, science fiction and fantasy genres, and has provided numerous illustrations for book jackets, posters, magazines, record covers and games during his career. In addition to working under his actual name, he also uses the pseudonym Edward Miller to paint in a different style and to overcome restrictions placed on him by his association with horror. He has won the British Fantasy Society award for Best Artist seven times, and was awarded the World Fantasy Award in 2008. A portion of one of his illustrations, originally created for The Devils of D-Day by Graham Masterton was also used as cover art for Metallica's early single, "Jump in the Fire", whilst his painting The Croglin Vampire appeared as the cover of an album by German band Krokus. More recently he produced the cover for the album Music for the Jilted Generation by The Prodigy. Visit his SITE for more illustrations.

And the two artworks for Krokus and Metallica album covers:

Takato Yamamoto

2011-10-17T11:18:00.006+03:00

The exquisite art of Takato Yamamoto (1960-)explores themes of darkness, bondage, vampires, metamorphosis, love and death. The perspective is always calm and serene - never depicting violence - rather, it is impending or just completed. Experimented, refined and developed his Ukiyo-e Pop style to create his "Heisei Estheticism" style, producing illustrations for mainly esthetic novels, fantasy novels, sensual novels, and period novels, and he also did cover paintings for cultural magazines and hardback books, and publicity illustrations for commercial media(akatako.net)

Jacopo Ligozzi, dance macabre

2011-10-14T12:52:00.003+03:00

Jacopo Ligozzi (1547–1627) was an Italian painter, illustrator, designer, and miniaturist of the late Renaissance and early Mannerist styles.

Richard Müller,an important artist approved by Nazism

2011-10-11T17:56:00.006+03:00

Richard Müller 1874-1954, has such an artistic talent that at the age of only 14, he was accepted to the famous School of the Royal Saxon Porcelain Manufactory in Meissen. At the age of 16 he attained a place in the Dresden Academy. In 1895 he met the graphic artist and sculptor Max Klinger, who inspired him to begin with etching and so he became a superlative etcher by the age of 21. In 1900, Müller was appointed professor at the Dresden Academy. His students included George Grosz and Otto Dix. In 1933, shortly after Hitler had seized power, he became president of the Dresden Academy and, in such capacity, confirmed the dismissal of his former student Otto Dix from his professorship. But also Müller lost his professorship two years later because of "subversive tendencies in his art". Nevertheless, Müller remained in high esteem as a painter under the Nazi régime. He exhibited several times at the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich's Haus der Deutschen Kunst, in 1939 with a pencil drawing of Hitler's birthplace. In the final phase of the Second World War, he was included in the Gottbegnadeten Liste (a 36-page list of artists considered crucial to Nazi culture. The list exempted the designated artists from military mobilization during the final stages of World War II). Müller died in 1954 at the age of 80 in Dresden. (WEIMAR)

Ernst Fuchs

2011-10-08T19:53:00.004+03:00

Ernst Fuchs (born February 13, 1930) is an Austrian painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, architect, stage designer, composer, poet, singer and one of the founders of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. Surrealist I think, I also find inspirations from symbolism and Max Ernst. Visit his SITE to see more of his work

The massacres against Waldensians

2011-10-05T20:13:00.007+03:00

Waldensians or Vaudois are names for a Christian movement of the later Middle Ages, descendants of which still exist in various regions, primarily in North-Western Italy. They were persecuted as heretical in the 12th century onwards, and endured near-annihilation in the 17th century. There are active congregations in Europe, South America, and North America. The contemporary and historic Waldensian spiritual heritage describes itself as proclaiming the Gospel, serving the marginalized, promoting social justice, fostering inter-religious work, and advocating respect for religious diversity and freedom of conscience. Modern Waldensians are gathered in the Waldensian Evangelical Church.

In 1179, some Waldensians went to Rome, where Pope Alexander III forbade explanation or critical interpretation (exegesis) without authorization from the local clergy. They disobeyed and began to preach according to their own understanding of the scriptures. Seen by the Roman Catholic Church as unorthodox, they were formally declared heretics by Popes. The members of the group were declared schismatics in 1184 in France and heretics more widely in 1215 by Pope Innocent III during the Fourth Council of the Lateran's anathema. The rejection by the Church radicalized the movement; in terms of ideology the Waldensians became more obviously anti-Catholic—rejecting the authority of the clergy. In 1211, more than 80 Waldensians were burned as heretics at Strasbourg, beginning several centuries of persecution that nearly destroyed the movement.

Outside the Piedmont, the Waldenses joined the local Protestant churches in Bohemia, France, and Germany. After they came out of clandestinity and reports were made of sedition on their part, the French king, Francis I issued on 1 January 1545 the "Arrêt de Mérindol", and armed an army against the Waldensians of Provence. The leaders in the 1545 massacres were Jean Maynier d'Oppède, First President of the parlement of Provence, and the military commander Antoine Escalin des Aimars who was returning from the Italian Wars with 2,000 veterans, the Bandes de Piémont. Deaths in the Massacre of Mérindol ranged from hundreds to thousands, depending on the estimates, and several villages were devastated.

In 1655 the Duke of Savoy commanded the Vaudois to attend Mass or remove to the upper valleys, giving them twenty days in which to sell their lands. In a most severe winter these targets of persecution, old men, women, little children and the sick "waded through the icy waters, climbed the frozen peaks, and at length reached the homes of their impoverished brethren of the upper Valleys, where they were warmly received." There they found refuge and rest. Deceived by false reports of Vaudois resistance, the Duke sent an army. On 24 April 1655, at 4 a.m., the signal was given for a general massacre, the horrors of which can be detailed only in small part. The massacre was so brutal it aroused indignation throughout Europe. Oliver Cromwell, then ruler in England, began petitioning on behalf of the Vaudois, writing letters, raising contributions, calling a general fast in England and threatening to send military forces to the rescue. The massacre prompted John Milton's famous poem on the Waldenses, "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont".

Gustave Dore (1832-1886)

Massacre of the Vaudois of Merindol (1545)

In 1685 Louis XIV guaranteed freedom of religion to his Protestant subjects in France. The cousin of Louis, The Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II followed his uncle in removing the protection of Protestants in the Piedmont. In the renewed persecution, an edict decreed that all inhabitants of the Valleys should publicly announce their error in religion within fifteen days under penalty of death and banishment and the destruction of all the Vaudois churches. Armies of French and Piedmontese soldiers invaded the Valleys, laying them waste and perpetrating cruelties upon the inhabitants.

After the French Revolution, the Waldenses of Piedmont were assured liberty of conscience and, in 1848, the ruler of Savoy, King Charles Albert of Sardinia granted them civil rights.

Samuel Moreland's "History of the Evangelical

Churches of the Valleys of Piedmont" (1658).

The massacre of the Waldenses in 1655.

The young woman being tortured is said to be Anna,

daughter of Giovanni Charboniere of La Torre.

Sidney Sime

2011-10-03T19:03:00.002+03:00

Sidney Sime (1867 – 22 May 1941) was an English artist in the late Victorian and succeeding periods, mostly remembered for his fantastic and satirical artwork, especially his story illustrations for Irish author Lord Dunsany. Sime quickly became famous for drawings and illustrations with fantastic themes. The fantastic treatment often masked biting satire, especially aimed at the rich and at politicians. Illustrator Roger Dean is among many who cite him as an influence. Writer H. P. Lovecraft was also a fan of him (mentioning the artist in the story "Pickman's Model") as was Howard de Walden.

Tomb of Sir Joseph and Lady Elizabeth Nightingale by Louis-François Roubiliac (1761)

2011-10-01T09:57:00.006+03:00

In St Michael’s chapel, off the north transept of Westminster Abbey, is a remarkable monument commemorating Lady Elizabeth Nightingale. She was born in 1704, the eldest of three daughters of Washington Shirley, Earl Ferrers and Viscount Tamworth (d.1729) and his wife Mary. Her sisters were Selina, Countess of Huntingdon (d.1791 aged 83) and Mary, Viscountess Kilmorey who died in1784. On 24 June 1725 Elizabeth married Joseph Gascoigne (1695-1752), son of the Revd. Joseph Gascoigne, Vicar of Enfield in Middlesex.He assumed the surname of Nightingale on becomeing heir to his kinsman Sir Robert Nightingale. Of their three sons, Washington, Joseph and Robert, only the first survived his father but then only by two years. She died on 17 August 1731 following a miscarriage caused by the shock of a violent flash of lightning. The child, Elizabeth, survived and later married Wilmot Vaughan, 1st Earl of Lisburne and died in 1755. The monument was not erected until 1761, and gives an incorrect date of death for Lady Nightingale. The inscription reads: “Here rest the ashes of JOSEPH GASCOIGNE NIGHTINGALE of Mamhead in the county of Devon Esqr., who died July the 20th 1752 aged 56. And of Lady ELIZABETH his wife, daughter and coheir of WASHINGTON Earl Ferrers; who died August the 17th 1734 aged 27. Their only son WASHINGTON GASCOIGNE NIGHTINGALE Esqr. deceas’d, in memory of their virtues, did by his last will order this monument to be erected”. Elizabeth and Joseph are buried in a vault in the north ambulatory nearby.

The monument is by the sculptor Louis Francois Roubiliac. It depicts a skeleton of Death emerging from his prison to aim his deadly dart at the dying figure of Elizabeth above. She is held up by her husband who, in horror, tries to ward off the stroke of death. The idea of this image may have come from a dream that Elizabeth’s brother in law (the Earl of Huntingdon) had experienced when a skeleton had appeared at the foot of his bed, which then crept up under the bedclothes between husband and wife. The figure of Death has lost its lower jaw and the spear is a later wooden replacement. John Wesley called the monument one of the finest in the Abbey, saying ‘the marble seems to speak’. The famous American writer, Washington Irving, declared it ‘among the most renowned achievements of modern art’. It is said that one night a robber broke into the Church but was so horrified at seeing the figure of Death in the moonlight that he dropped his crowbar and fled in terror. The crowbar was displayed for many years beside the monument but it no longer remains. (Westminster Abbey)

Édouard Chimot

2011-09-28T23:36:00.003+03:00

Édouard Chimot (26 November 1880 – 7 June 1959) was a French artist, illustrator and editor whose career reached its peak in the 1920s in Paris, through the publication of fine quality art-printed books.

"Time tell no lies" by Praying Mantis (1981)

2011-09-26T11:11:00.002+03:00

One of the small diamonds of New Wave of British Haevy Metal, early 80s. More in allmusic

and a completely new track the selftitled from their 2011 30 anniversary EP Metalmorphosis:

Rodney Matthews: epic fantasy artwork

2011-09-23T19:38:00.006+03:00

artwork for Nazareth's "No Mean City"

artwork for Praying Mantis' "Time tell no lies"

Rodney Matthews (1945-) is a fantasy artist and illustrator. He has worked with a number of bands on album covers, the most notable of which is Birmingham melodic rock band Magnum for whom he designed the art-work for Chase The Dragon, The Eleventh Hour, On A Storyteller's Night and Sleepwalking as well as various compilations and reissues. He also designed album covers for Thin Lizzy, Tygers of Pan Tang (Crazy Nights), Diamond Head (Borrowed Time), Praying Mantis (Time Tells No Lies, Predator In Disguise), Nazareth (No Mean City), Scorpions (Lonesome Crow), and Eloy (Metromania and the picture disc for Time to Turn). More recently he worked on Magnum's later album, Princess Alice and the Broken Arrow, which was released in March 2007; this is the first Magnum studio album since 1992 to feature his art-work. He has also worked with the rock group Asia. His most recent work to date is on The Immortal, a solo album by Magnum lead singer Bob Catley, released in September 2008.

Alongside his album cover work, he has illustrated a number of books and magazines, primarily fantasy and science fiction. He worked on the covers for the Witch World novels by Andre Norton and many of the novels by Michael Moorcock who introduces a section in "In Search of Forever". He also worked as the artistic designer on Gerry Anderson's 1998 TV series Lavender Castle.

William H. Mortensen (1897–1965)

2011-09-21T19:40:00.006+03:00

Preparation for the Sabbath

William H. Mortensen (1897–1965) was an American art photographer, primarily known for his Hollywood portraits in the 1920s-1940s in the pictorialist style. Although he was well known at the time, he has been dismissed as an unimportant figure more recently. Larry Lytle says "Due to his approach—both technically and philosophically in opposition to straight or purist adherents — he is amongst the most problematic figures in photography in the twentieth-century... Over the last few years historians and critics have described his images as "...anecdotal, highly sentimental, mildly erotic hand-colored prints...", "...bowdlerized versions of garage calendar pin-ups and sadomasochist entertainments...", "...contrived set-ups and sappy facial expressions...", and finally he was described by Ansel Adams as alternately the "Devil", and "the anti-Christ."

Possessed

Death of Hypatia

Amour

Vampire

Pendulum

Grand Guignol (Γκραν Γκινιόλ)

2011-09-18T10:59:00.009+03:00

The Grand Guignol was a theatre of legendary cult status, operating in Paris for 65 years, between 1897 and 1962. From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962 it specialized in naturalistic horror shows. It produced, almost exclusively, one-act plays from 10 to 40 minutes in length, and was infamous for the production of violent and erotic works of horror.

The theatre was opened by Oscar Metenier, a writer and police secretary, who created slice-of-life plays about the Parisian underlife and stories of true crime. Metenier was a follower of Naturalism: a movement in late 19th Century theatre that attempted to create a perfect illusion of reality. Naturalistic works often exposed the dark harshness of life, with themes of poverty, racism, sex, prejudice, disease, prostitution, and filth.

Max Maurey incorporated melodrama into the Grand-Guignol’s acting style to heighten the emotion of the more sensational elements while keeping Naturalism as the guiding principle for characters and situations. It was under Maurey that the style of the Grand Guignol became renowned throughout Europe and, eventually, the world. The term ‘Grand Guignol’ has even passed into the English language, as a phrase referring to any bloody spectacle or violent entertainment.

Paula Maxa was one of the Grand Guignol’s best-known performers. From 1917 to the 1930s, she performed most frequently as a victim and was known as “the most assassinated woman in the world”. During her career at the Grand Guignol, Maxa’s characters were murdered more than 10,000 times in at least 60 different ways and raped at least 3,000 times.

Spectators would regularly faint in the early days of the theatre: indeed, a doctor was reputedly kept on hand at all times – although on one occasion when the doctor’s assistance was required, he was unable to help, having already fainted himself!

Audiences waned in the years following World War II, and the Grand Guignol closed its doors in 1962. Management attributed the closure in part to the fact that the theater’s faux horrors had been eclipsed by the actual events of the Holocaust two decades earlier. “We could never equal Buchenwald,” said its final director, Charles Nonon. “Before the war, everyone felt that what was happening onstage was impossible. Now we know that these things, and worse, are possible in reality."(Theatre of Blood)

Το Grand Guignol ήταν ένα θρυλικό θέατρο που λειτούργησε στο Παρίσι για 65 χρόνια, από το 1897 μέχρι το 1962 που ειδικευόταν σε θέματα φυσικών (νατουραλιστικών, όχι υπερφυσικών) σόου τρόμου, εξ ου και το όνομα Γκραν Γκινιόλ που το χρησιμοποιούμε για να περιγράφουμε παραστάσεις τρόμου και φρίκης. Οι παραστάσεις διαρκούσαν από 10 έως 40 λεπτά και αφορούσαν σαδιστικά εγκλήματα, πάθους, ερωτικής διαστροφής, περιπτώσεις παρανοϊκών δολοφόνων, ή καταστάσεις τρέλας και ψυχιατρείων με σκηνοθεσία αυτών των τελετουργικών ή εξαιρετικά βίαιων φόνων με τον πιο ωμό τρόπο που μπορούσε να παιχτεί σε θέατρο.

Η πιο γνωστή ηθοποιός που συμμετείχε σε αυτές τις παραστάσεις ήταν η Paula Maxa, η οποία από το 1917 μέχρι το 1930 συμμετείχε ως θύμα σχεδόν σε όλες τις παραστάσεις και χαρακτηρίστηκε ως «η πιο δολοφονημένη γυναίκα του κόσμου». Οι χαρακτήρες, τους οποίους υποκρινόταν, δολοφονήθηκαν πάνω από 10.000 φορές, με 60 διαφορετικούς τρόπους και βιάστηκαν τουλάχιστον 3.000 φορές.

Το να λιποθυμούν από το σοκ και τη φρίκη θεατές ήταν πολύ σύνηθες φαινόμενο, γι’αυτό υπήρχαν και γιατροί στις παραστάσεις για να επεμβαίνουν σε τέτοιες περιπτώσεις. Αλλά σε μια τέτοια περίπτωση που χρειαζόταν γιατρό, είχε λιποθυμήσει και ο ίδιος ο γιατρός!

Το θέατρο άρχισε να παρακμάζει μετά τον Β’ Παγκόσμιο πόλεμο και το θέατρο έκλεισε για πάντα το 1962. Η διοίκηση του θεάτρου απέδωσε την παρακμή στο γεγονός ότι η σκηνοθετημένη φρίκη των παραστάσεων ωχριούσε μπροστά στην πραγματική φρίκη των πραγματικών γεγονότων του Β’ Παγκοσμίου Πολέμου με το Ολοκαύτωμα, το Αουσβιτς, το Μπούχενβαλντ, τη φρίκη της μονάδας Unit 731, κλπ. Όπως δήλωσε και ο τελευταίος σκηνοθέτης του Γκραν Γκινιόλ: «Πριν τον πόλεμο, ο καθένας αισθανόταν πως αυτά που έβλεπε στη σκηνή ήταν αδύνατο να συμβούν. Σήμερα γνωρίζει πως αυτά που έβλεπε στη σκηνή μπορούν να συμβούν και μάλιστα ακόμα χειρότερα».

Paul Delvaux (1897-1994)

2011-09-16T22:20:00.005+03:00

Paul Delvaux (23 September 1897 – 20 July 1994) was a Belgian painter, famous for his surrealist paintings of female nudes. The young Delvaux took music lessons, studied Greek and Latin, and absorbed the fiction of Jules Verne and the poetry of Homer. All of his work was to be influenced by these readings, starting with his earliest drawings showing mythological scenes. In the early 1930s Delvaux found further inspiration in visits to the Brussels Fair, where the Spitzner Museum, a museum of medical curiosities, maintained a booth in which skeletons and a mechanical Venus figure were displayed in a window with red velvet curtains. This spectacle captivated Delvaux, supplying him with motifs that would appear throughout his subsequent work. The paintings Delvaux became famous for usually feature numbers of nude women who stare as if hypnotized, gesturing mysteriously, sometimes reclining incongruously in a train station or wandering through classical buildings. Sometimes they are accompanied by skeletons, men in bowler hats, or puzzled scientists drawn from the stories of Jules Verne. Delvaux would repeat variations on these themes for the rest of his long life, although some departures can be noted. Among them are his paintings of 1945-47, rendered in a flattened style with distorted and forced perspective effects, and the series of crucifixions and deposition scenes enacted by skeletons, painted in the 1950s.

Alfred Kubin (1877 – 1959)

2011-09-13T19:33:00.007+03:00

Alfred Leopold Isidor Kubin (April 10, 1877 – August 20, 1959) was an Austrian printmaker, illustrator and occasional writer. Kubin is considered an important representative of Symbolism and Expressionism.In 1896, he attempted suicide on his mother's grave, and a short stint in the Austrian army the following year ended with a nervous breakdown. The aquatint technique used by Klinger and Goya influenced the style of his works of this period, which are mainly ink and wash drawings of fantastical, often macabre subjects. Kubin is considered an important representative of Symbolism and Expressionism and is noted for dark, spectral, symbolic fantasies, often assembled into thematic series of drawings. He illustrated the works of Edgar Allan Poe, E.T.A. Hoffmann and Fyodor Dostoevsky, among others. The best known of Kubin's own books is Die Andere Seite (The Other Side) (1909), a fantastic novel set in an oppressive imaginary land. The Other Side has an atmosphere of claustrophobic absurdity reminiscent of the writings of Franz Kafka.

and this is a series of danse Macabre drawings:

Giovanni Canavesio (1450 – 1500) , hanged Judas

2011-09-10T14:01:00.004+03:00

One of the most creepiest and gory painting about Judas' suicide after his treason. Devil took his soul from his body (not from his head) by disemboeling him! John Canavesio (1450 - 1500) was a Italian painter during the second half of the fifteenth century, born in Piedmont , active in Liguria and the French side of the Maritime Alps.

and a metal cover of Lady Gaga's Judas

Album: Into the Pandemonium, Band: Celtic Frost (1987)

2011-09-07T19:28:00.008+03:00

A classic metal album of the thrash genre with important avant-garde innovations to their sound. More in wikipedia

Theodor Kittelsen

2011-09-05T12:11:00.006+03:00

Forest Troll

Theodor Severin Kittelsen (April 27, 1857 – January 21, 1914) was a Norwegian artist. He is one of the most popular artists in Norway. Kittelsen became famous for his nature paintings, as well as for his illustrations of fairy tales and legends, especially of trolls. His dark attitude was the inspiration for many black and dark metal album covers, like Burzum, Satyricon, Empyrium, etc.

The Plague on the Stair

Water spirits

The two works that were used for Burzum's album covers:

Up in the Hills a Clarion Call rings out

The Pauper

Edmund Joseph Sullivan

2011-09-01T22:15:00.006+03:00

Edmund Joseph Sullivan (1869-1933), usually known as E. J. Sullivan, was a British book illustrator who worked in a style which merged the British tradition of illustration from the 1860s with aspects of Art Nouveau.

Sullivan adapted his style to use the faux-Rococo techniques he had developed in his play-illustrations in order to combine them with bizarre images of strange fantastical figures, drawing on the genre of the grotesque. Sullivan later also illustrated Carlyle's The French Revolution, though his work was far less varied than for Sartor Resartus. He used the same combination of Rococo and Grotesque to emphasise the violence erupting into the decorative world of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette's court. Later books included The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, using images of skeletons and animated pots.

One skeleton image was appropriated by Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley for a Grateful Dead poster in 1966, and album cover in 1971:

Abu Graib by Fernando Botero

2011-08-29T11:46:00.006+03:00

Fernando Botero, born April 19, 1932, is a Colombian figurative artist. His style is fat people with happy childish faces. Except two macabre series, one about the drug cartel terrorism in his country (man hunt and settling accounts executions), and the most prominent, the Abu Graib atrocities. In 2005 Botero gained considerable attention for his Abu Ghraib series, which was exhibited first in Europe. He based the works on reports of United States forces' abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq War. Beginning with an idea he had on a plane journey, Botero produced more than 85 paintings and 100 drawings in exploring this concept and "painting out the poison." The series was exhibited at two United States locations in 2007, including Washington, DC. Botero said he would not sell any of the works, but would donate them to museums.

Maori Mokomokai

2011-08-24T11:10:00.006+03:00

Mokomokai are the preserved heads of Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, where the faces have been decorated by tā moko tattooing. They became valuable trade items during the Musket Wars of the early 19th century. Moko marked rites of passage for people of chiefly rank, as well as significant events in their lives. Each moko was unique and contained information about the person’s rank, tribe, lineage, occupation and exploits. When someone with moko died, often the head would be preserved. The brain and eyes were removed, with all orifices sealed with flax fibre and gum. The head was then boiled or steamed in an oven before being smoked over an open fire and dried in the sun for several days. It was then treated with shark oil. Such preserved heads, mokomokai, would be kept by their families in ornately-carved boxes and brought out only for sacred ceremonies.

In the early 19th century, with the arrival of Europeans in New Zealand, tribes in contact with European sailors, traders and settlers had access to firearms, giving them a military advantage over their neighbours. This gave rise to the Musket Wars, when other tribes became desperate to acquire firearms too, if only to defend themselves. It was during this period of social destabilisation that mokomokai became commercial trade items that could be sold as curios, artworks and as museum specimens which fetched high prices in Europe and America, and which could be bartered for firearms and ammunition. The demand for firearms was such that tribes carried out raids on their neighbours to acquire more heads to trade for them. They also tattooed slaves and prisoners (though with meaningless motifs rather than genuine moko) in order to provide heads to order. The peak years of the trade in mokomokai were from 1820 to 1831. In 1831 the Governor of New South Wales issued a proclamation banning further trade in heads out of New Zealand, and during the 1830s the demand for firearms diminished because of market saturation. By 1840 when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, and New Zealand became a British colony, the export trade in mokomokai had virtually ended, along with a decline in the use of moko in Māori society, although occasional small-scale trade continued for several years.

Τα Mokomokai ήταν τα μουμιοποιημένα με τατουάζ προσώπου κεφάλια κάποιων προσωπικοτήτων των Μαορί της Νέας Ζηλανδίας. Αυτοί εν ζωή στόλιζαν το πρόσωπό τους με τατουάζ (Moko) που αποτελούνταν από πληθώρα σχεδίων που συμβόλιζαν διάφορες στιγμές της ζωής τους, συνήθως κοινωνικής ανόδου, προσωπικές ή της φυλής και της τοπικής κοινωνίας. Οταν κάποιος από αυτούς πέθαινε, το κεφάλι του μουμιοποιούνταν με διάφορες τεχνικές και διατηρούνταν ως κειμήλιο της φυλής. Οταν στις αρχές του 19ου αι. έφτασαν μαζί με τους Ευρωπαίους πυροβόλα όπλα εκεί, τότε αναπτύχθηκε το επαχθές εμπόριο των Μοκομοκάι. Από τη μια οι Ευρωπαίοι ζητούσαν απεγνωσμένα τέτοια "εθνικ" και ξωτικά αντικείμενα για τις συλλογές τους, από την άλλη, οι ντόπιοι αναλάμβαναν να καλύψουν τη ζήτηση, είτε κάνοντας επιδρομές και δολοφονώντας μέλη εχθρικών φυλών με τα νέα όπλα τους, είτε σκοτώνοντας δούλους ή φυλακισμένους, αφού πρωτα τους είχαν ζωγραφίσει τατουάζ στα πρόσωπα, με σχέδια χωρίς νόημα. Μετά το 1831 αυτό το εμπόριο απαγορεύτηκε και σταδιακά εξαφανίστηκε.

Horatio Gordon Robley was a British army officer and artist who served in New Zealand during the New Zealand land wars in the 1860s. He was interested in ethnology and fascinated by the art of tattooing as well as being a talented illustrator. He wrote the classic text on the subject of moko, Moko; or Maori Tattooing, which was published in 1896. After he returned to England he built up a notable collection of 35-40 mokomokai which he later offered to sell to the New Zealand Government. When the offer was declined, most of the collection was sold to the American Museum of Natural History.

Unit 731, the forgotten holocaust.

2011-08-20T19:28:00.009+03:00

This was the first female prisoner of Unit 731
and she was exposed alive to
phosphorus burn experiments

Unit 731 was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japanese personnel. The number of people killed in Unit 731 is around 580,000. Unit 731 was based at the Pingfang district of Harbin in Northeast China). More than 95% of the victims who died in the camp based in Pingfang were Chinese and Korean, including both civilian and military. The remaining 5% were South East Asians and Pacific Islanders, at the time colonies of the Empire of Japan, and a small number of the prisoners of war from the Allies of World War II.

Vivisected when alive pregnant woman and her baby

Test subjects were gathered from the surrounding population and were sometimes referred to euphemistically as “logs” Prisoners of war were subjected to vivisection without anaesthesia. Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Scientists performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body. These were conducted while the patients were alive because it was feared that the decomposition process would affect the results. The infected and vivisected prisoners included men, women, children, and infants. Prisoners had limbs amputated in order to study blood loss. Those limbs that were removed were sometimes re-attached to the opposite sides of the body. Some prisoners’ limbs were frozen and amputated, while others had limbs frozen then thawed to study the effects of the resultant untreated gangrene and rotting. Some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed and the oesophagus reattached to the intestines. Parts of the brain, lungs, liver, etc. were removed from some prisoners. Human targets were used to test grenades positioned at various distances and in different positions. Flame throwers were tested on humans. Humans were tied to stakes and used as targets to test germ-releasing bombs, chemical weapons, and explosive bombs. Prisoners were injected with inoculations of disease, disguised as vaccinations, to study their effects. To study the effects of untreated venereal diseases, male and female prisoners were deliberately infected with syphilis and gonorrhoea, then studied. Prisoners were infested with fleas in order to acquire large quantities of disease-carrying fleas for the purposes of studying the viability of germ warfare. Plague fleas, infected clothing, and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed around 400,000 Chinese civilians. Prisoners were subjected to other torturous experiments such as being hung upside down to see how long it would take for them to choke to death, having air injected into their arteries to determine the time until the onset of embolism, and having horse urine injected into their kidneys. Other incidents include being deprived of food and water to determine the length of time until death, being placed into high-pressure chambers until death, having experiments performed upon prisoners to determine the relationship between temperature, burns, and human survival, being placed into centrifuges and spun until dead, having animal blood injected and the effects studied, being exposed to lethal doses of x-rays, having various chemical weapons tested on prisoners inside gas chambers, being injected with sea water to determine if it could be a substitute for saline and being buried alive.

a young Russian woman prisoner who died
during the test of the ceramic bomb explosion
effect on a human body when alive.
These ceramic bombs were developed for
delivering anthrax and bubonic plague.

Every member of the group was ordered “to take the secret to the grave”, threatened to be found and executed if they failed, and prohibiting any of them from going into public work back in Japan. Potassium cyanide vials were issued for use in the event that the remaining personnel were captured. Skeleton crews of Japanese troops blew the compound up in the final days of the war to destroy evidence of their activities, but most were so well constructed that they survived somewhat intact as a testimony to what had happened there. Many of the scientists involved in Unit 731 went on to prominent careers in post-war politics, academia, business, and medicine. Some were arrested by Soviet forces and tried at the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials; others surrendered to the American Forces. In 2007, Doctor Ken Yuasa testified to the Japan Times that, “I was afraid during my first vivisection, but the second time around, it was much easier. By the third time, I was willing to do it.” He believes at least 1,000 people, including surgeons, were involved in vivisections over mainland China.

a female victim developed gas gangrene
of her buttocks after the test of the ceramic
bomb filled with Clostridium bacterial spores

Η Μονάδα 731 ήταν μια μυστική μονάδα του Ιαπωνικού Αυτοκρατορικού Στρατού στον Σινο-ιαπωνικό πόλεμο (1937-1945) και Β’ Παγκόσμιο πόλεμο, όπου γίνονταν έρευνα για ανάπτυξη βιολογικών και χημικών όπλων. Σε αυτή τη μονάδα έγιναν απίστευτης ωμότητας πειράματα πάνω σε ανθρώπους, Κινέζους και Κορετάτες αιχμαλώτους, στρατιώτες ή αμάχους, ακόμα και μερικούς ευρωπαίους συλληφθέντες στρατιώτες. Υπολογίζεται να έχουν φονευθεί εκεί περίπου 580.000 άτομα σε όλη τη διάρκεια της λειτουργίας της. Βρισκόταν στην περιοχή Pingfang της ΝΑ Κίνας.

A bound chinese woman suffered the
insertion of a live cockroach in her vagina

Οι κρατούμενοι υποβάλλονταν σε πειράματα και χειρουργικές επεμβάσεις, αφαιρέσεις οργάνων και ακρωτηριασμούς χωρίς αναισθησία, αφού πρωτα είχαν μολυνθεί με διάφορους μολυσματικούς ιούς και τοξικά. Τα θύματα μπορεί να ήταν ακόμα και έγκυες γυναίκες, παιδιά και βρέφη. Όλα αυτά τα αποτρόπαια πειραματα γίνονταν για να μελετηθεί η αντίδραση του ανθρώπινου οργανισμού σε εκθέσεις σε τοξικά, ιούς, ακόμα και πόσο μπορεί να ζήσει κάποιος με σοβαρό ακρωτηριασμό και γάγγραινα. Επίσης σε ανθρώπινους στόχους δοκίμαζαν την αποτελεσματικότητα πυροβόλων, βομβών, και φλογοβόλων ανάλογα με την απόσταση. έπαιζαν με ανατομικές τερατογενέσεις, πχ άλλαζαν θέση σε όργανα και μέλη σε ζωντανούς ανθρώπους. Μόλυναν γυναίκες με αφροδίσια νοσήματα, εμβολιάζονταν με θανατηφόρους ιούς, εκτίθονταν σε μολυσμένα έντομα (ψύλλους, κατσαρίδες, κλπ). Μόνο οι συνεπαγόμενες λοιμώδεις αρρώστιες σκότωσαν περίπου 400.000 άτομα σε αυτή τη μονάδα. Αλλοι φυλακισμένοι υφίσταντο διάφορα βασανιστήρια, τους έκαναν ενέσιμο αέρα ή ακόμα και ούρα για να δουν τις επιπτώσεις, θάψιμο ζωντανών, πείνα, δίψα, έκθεση σε ακραίες θερμοκρασίες, ακτινοβολίες και πιέσεις για να μελετηθεί η αντοχή του ανθρώπινου σώματος σε αυτές τις κακοποιήσεις.

Shiro Ishii (1892–1959) was a Japanese microbiologist
and the lieutenant general of Unit 731.
He was never prosecuted for any war crimes.

Οσοι συνένοχοι συμμετείχαν στα πειράματα είχαν δώσει όρκο θανάτου και να πάρουν το μυστικό στον τάφο τους. Για την περίπτωση σύλληψης κάποιου είχαν προμηθευτεί με κυάνιο για να αυτοκτονήσουν. Στο τέλος του πολέμου, ειδικά σώματα στρατιωτών ανατίναξαν τη μονάδα για να εξαφανίσουν κάθε ίχνος και μαρτυρία, αλλά η έκταση και οι θεμελιώσεις ήταν τόσο εκτεταμένες που δεν ήταν αποτελεσματική η επιχείρηση. Όμως, παρόλο που έγιναν γνωστές αυτές οι ωμότητες, ελάχιστοι από τους υπευθύνους δικάστηκαν και καταδικάστηκαν, οι περισσότεροι έκαναν καριέρα στην ιατρική, στην πολιτική, στα πανεπιστήμια και στον επιχειρηματικό τομέα. Το 2007, ένας από τους συμμετέχοντες γιατρούς δήλωσε κυνικότατα: «Στην αρχή με τρόμαζαν οι «ανατομικές επεμβάσεις» αυτές, μετά ήταν πιο εύκολα και τελικά άρχισε να μου αρέσει να το κάνω».

Egon Schiele

2011-08-16T21:50:00.005+03:00

Pregnant Woman And Death (1911)

Egon Schiele (1890–1918) was an Austrian painter. His work is noted for its intensity, and the many self-portraits the artist produced. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele's paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism, although still strongly associated with the art nouveau movement. His nude paintings and his relations with young girls as models led him to persecution and imprisonment, but later the charges of seduction and abduction were dropped, but not the charges for creating "pornographic material" accessible to children. When he get married, he wanted to keep his relation with the young model, but she left him immediately and never saw him again. Under this circumstance he painted the Death and the Maiden (1915). He died in 1918, 28 years old from spanish flu pandemic, three days after his pregnant wife. His paintings Pregnant Woman and Death and Dead Mother, of 1911 and 1910 respectively, tragically seem to forsee their premature death.

Dead Mother (1910)

Death and the Maiden (1915)

Dead Girl (1910)

Death and Man (1911)