KOCHI: Halloween arrives hand in hand with Diwali this year. Though the two festivals may seem like unrelated strangers who accidentally arrived together at a party, the reasons to celebrate are the same — the victory of good over evil and light over darkness. Halloween began as the ancient Celtic Festival of Samhain, around 2000 years ago.
It was celebrated on the night of October 31, which marked the end of summer and the start of a long, cold winter. The Celts believed this was when the walls between the living and the dead became blurry enough for the ghosts of the dead to return to the earth. The festival was intended to frighten away these spirits from another world.
Even though the origins were Celtic, the festival was adapted by different European ethnic communities in the centuries that followed. Eventually, when the Europeans came to the shores of America, an American version of Halloween emerged.
Dressing up in costumes and seeking food or money at doorsteps, a new American tradition was thus born and continues to thrive, with Halloween being the Western World’s most popular festival, after Christmas. As the world shrinks with all the connectivity that has happened in recent years, India too has seen a growing interest in this tradition.
Art history is replete with spine-chilling, scary artworks from around the world and with the Halloween season here, what better time than now to bring them out to celebrate the spookiest time of the year?
FRANCISCO GOYA
Considered one of the most important painters from the late 18th century, Francisco Goya created some of the darkest paintings in history in his later years, after a severe illness left him deaf. In 1819, Goya painted 14 extremely disturbing images directly on the walls of his house for his private viewing. One of his paintings, Saturn Devouring His Son, depicts the Roman God Saturn, eating his children, who he feared would overthrow him if allowed to live. This horrific scene may have also been an indication of his anxiety about his own mortality. It is no wonder that this series was called his ‘Black Paintings’.
SALVADOR DALI
The surrealistic portrayal of the impact of war on humanity in the painting titled The Face of War by Salvador Dali, Spain’s most wildly imaginative artist of the 20th century, is a nightmarish illustration of conflict. Painted in 1940, with the trauma of the Spanish Civil War on his mind, Dali depicted a corpse-like face, with its eye sockets and mouth filled with faces and wearing the look of misery. With biting serpents swarming around the face and set against a barren desert backdrop, the painting is a grim reminder of the psychological decay that war unleashes.
HOKUSAI
Japanese artist, Hokusai, is best known for his artwork The Great Wave off Kanagawa, but it is his work titled The Ghost of Kohada Koheiji, that qualifies for this Halloween list. This work from 1833, depicts the legend of an actor who was killed by his cheating wife and her lover, only to come back as a ghost to haunt them until the wife is killed and the lover takes his own life after undergoing mental torture. The skeletal ghost of the murdered actor peering over the mosquito net at the sleeping couple is a frightening work associated with the occult.
CARAVAGGIO
Italian painter, Caravaggio, known as much for his violent brawls as for his intensely realistic artworks, painted Medusa, depicting her severed head. In Greek mythology, Medusa was a woman who had living snakes as hair on her head and was so hideous-looking that any onlooker would be turned to stone. Her head was beheaded to be used as a weapon to make enemies immobile, and it was this chopped-off head that Caravaggio painted in 1597, replacing her head with his own, thus attempting a gory self-portrait.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Famously recognised for his writings, William Blake was also a painter whose works often had supernatural elements to them. One of his paintings, The Ghost of a Flea, has all the stuff of one’s worst nightmares! It represents a humanised version of the flea, in which he believed, resided the souls of bloodthirsty men. Confined to the body of a flea, their murderous nature can be seen in their angry tongue and the cups they carry to drink blood. Can’t get any creepier than this!
FRIDA KAHLO
Frida Kahlo is recognised for her self-portraits as a woman, but her self-portrayal as a child in Girl with Death Mask from 1938, is a peculiar one where the little girl wears a skull mask — a tradition at the Mexican festival, Day of the Dead, where the dead are celebrated. She stands under a depressing sky, flower in hand, a wooden tiger mask by her feet, symbolising the inhumanity of her destiny perhaps.
VINCENT VAN GOGH
Think Van Gogh and the first images that come to mind are yellow fields and bright sunflowers. One of the Dutch artist’s early works has a very different story to tell though. Titled Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette, the work depicts a smoking skeleton, which although eerie-looking also has a touch of dark humour with its satirical composition. Maybe Van Gogh wanted his skeleton to enjoy that final drag before turning into dust!
The paintings that can give Halloween a fright are innumerable. In addition, there are artworks that are credited with being haunted and the cause of paranormal activities. These grotesque images induce horror and are proof of our secret fascination with death and mortality. Nevertheless, they also reinforce the fleeting nature of fear which lasts only until confronted.