Inside the Legend: Provenance

 

CURSED PAINTINGS

I'm not an expert on all this ghost stuff- but, is the painting supposed to look like that?

Have you ever looked at a painting and wondered what evil lurks within? Surely you all remember the legend of the aging portrait of Dorian Gray. But, what about cursed paintings? Thanks to Kittsbud and LazyCalm I was alerted of several actual cursed paintings. Whether you choose to believe or not is up to you. But, as we all know nothing is ever as it appears.

Marcus Beck

The painting of Marcus Beck, a portrait of a former surgeon, currently located in the Greater London University College Hospital on Gower Street, may actually be responsible for the deaths of countless patients! Legend states that if the shutters were not closed on the painting at night, the patients who fell asleep under the painting would fall ill, some even died as a result. The painting was stolen in 2001 and to this very day it’s whereabouts are unknown.

Pogo the Clown

Seems that even after the 1994 death sentence, John Gacy is still causing destruction to those around him- or the portrait of his alter ego, at least, Pogo the Clown. John “Killer Clown” Gacy, a suburban Chicago contractor, was executed in 1994 at age 52 for the torture and murders of 33 boys and men. He performed as Pogo the Clown at children’s parties. An artist as well, Gacy would often paint his clown alter-ego and these paintings are much sought after. The musician, Nikki Stone, once had one of these paintings and since he got it the painting has caused him nothing but harm, “I just want to get rid of it” he told the Boston Herald. Since Stone got the painting, his dog died and his mother has been diagnosed with cancer! The actor Johnny Depp also invested in a Gacy clown painting before becoming so weirded out by the piece that he developed a pathological fear of clowns and unloaded the artwork. Others who have had one of Gacy’s Pogo the Clown paintings have also been harmed by the painting, ranging from life threatening situations such as car crashes to acts of suicide!

The Crying Boy

From around 1985 onwards, a series of mysterious house fires were brought to the attention of the general public, following the discovery that in each case, the buildings and all their contents were completely destroyed apart from a painting - the "Crying Boy", which remained unscathed. In the years that followed, some 40-50 cases were recorded in which a house fire had destroyed everything except for the picture. It became known as the "Curse of the Crying Boy", and even made headline news at one point. Whether real or not a Yorkshire fireman was so upset that he talked with the “Sun” newspaper in England. They ran his story about how everything in the home was consumed by fire except for a painting of a crying boy. There were at that time more than one of these paintings around and each seemed to have the same effect. The home and all contents would be totally destroyed but the painting of the little crying boy would not show any sign at all of going through a fire. The newspaper began receiving telephone calls from people all over the area that had similar stories to tell about the crying boy painting. One person that called the “Sun” was Dora Mann of Mitcham and she has been quoted as saying "Only six months after I had bought the picture, my house was completely gutted by fire. All my paintings were destroyed, except the one of the crying boy." After one month of hearing all the tales, the “Sun” gave their readers the chance to bring their crying boy paintings and agreed to have a very large bon fire to rid everyone of this cursed or jinxed painting. All paintings that were brought to the newspaper were in fact burned and everyone rejoiced. The picture itself was a portrait painted by a Spanish artist of an orphan. It is said that his studio burnt to the ground, and the boy was later killed in a car crash. The picture is one of the first to be mass produced in the UK, there are several thousand of them in circulation, but the curse still appears to apply to all the copies. It is said that the curse will only effect someone if the owner of the painting becomes aware of it. Some psychics have claimed that the painting is Haunted by the spirit of the boy it depicts. There have been reports of the crying boy painting being found in charred homes untouched since 1985 and as recent as 1988.

HAUNTED PAINTINGS

The Haunted Painting

The Ebay Haunted Painting

ART SCHOOL

Art History course- it’s good for meeting girls.

American Primitive

The term 'primitive art' is broadly used of the sculptures, and to a lesser extent paintings, of people living in tribal societies. It is a dangerous term in that it can easily seem to mean art of an inferior kind - partly because these objects are made by people living an existence less materially developed than our own, but also because tribal art makes no attempt at the realism which has been usually preferred by those who dwell in towns.

But primitive art has no interest in realism. Its purpose is to engage with the spirit world. The images, masks and statues suitable for dealing with spirits are not made according to the laws of perspective. They are seen with the eye of magic.

Grandma Moses produced some 2,000 paintings in all, mainly on masonite board. Her naive style (labeled American primitive) was acclaimed for its purity of color, its attention to detail, and its vigor.

Actually, I’d say its more Grant Wood than Grandma Moses

Grant Wood

(February 13, 1891 – February 12, 1942)

An American painter, born in Anamosa, Iowa. He is best known for his painting depicting the rural American Midwest.

Wood's most famous work is his 1930 painting American Gothic. The two who posed for the painting were Wood's sister, Nan Wood Graham, and the family dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby. The cottage in the background was located in Eldon, Iowa. The painting was first exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago where it won a $300 prize. Ms. Wood Graham, a personality far removed from the dingy repression she embodies in the picture, claimed that the fame it brought her saved her 'from life as the world's worst stenographer'. The painting gained instant renown after newspapers across the country reported the story. In current times, the painting is often satirized, though it remains one of the top examples of Regionalism and American art.

Wood founded the Stone City art colony in 1933, near his hometown. He became a great proponent of regionalism in the arts, lecturing throughout the country on the topic. He is considered Cedar Rapids' patron artist. He taught art at the University of Iowa.

One of his designs is depicted on the 2004 Iowa State Quarter.

Grandma Moses

(September 7, 1860 – December 13, 1961)

She was a renowned American folk artist. Born Anna Mary Robertson in Greenwich, New York. She spent most of her life as a farmer's wife and the mother of five children. She married Thomas Salmon Moses in 1887. They lived in the Shenandoah Valley, then later settling at Eagle Bridge.

She began painting in her seventies after abandoning a career in embroidery because of arthritis.

Her artwork was discovered by Louis J. Caldor, a collector who noticed her paintings in a Hoosick Falls, New York drugstore window in 1938. In 1939 an art dealer named Otto Kallir exhibited some of her work at his Galerie Saint-Etienne in New York City. This brought her to the attention of art collectors all over the world, and her paintings were highly sought after. She went on to have exhibitions of her work throughout Europe and even in Japan, where her work was particularly well received. She continued her prolific output of paintings, the demand for which never diminished during her lifetime.

President Harry S. Truman presented her with the Women's National Press Club Award for outstanding accomplishment in art in 1949. In 1951, she appeared on See It Now, a television program hosted by Edward R. Murrow.

Grandma Moses painted mostly scenes of rural life. Some of her many paintings were used on the covers of Hallmark cards, making the paintings timeless classics.

"Grandma" Moses celebrated her 100th birthday on the 7th of September, 1960. New York governor Nelson Rockefeller proclaimed the day "Grandma Moses Day" in her honor. Her gravestone is inscribed with this epitaph: "Her primitive paintings captured the spirit and preserved the scene of a vanishing countryside." She had outlived most of her children.

She died at Hoosick Falls on December 13, 1961 and is buried at the Maple Grove Cemetery.

Her work is called primitive art, a style of art that is simple and clear. Like Grandma, many primitive artists have not had formal training. But Grandma used her memory, and studied the colors of the world outside. This helped her add true-to-life details to her paintings. They show activities such as catching the Thanksgiving turkey, ice-skating, and bringing in the maple sap.

PAINTING OF A MAD MAN

If you ask me, we’re doing the art world a favor

PROVENANCE

A provenance is a “certificate of origin, like a biography. We can use them to check the history of the pieces- see if anything has a freaky past.” Providences usually state the time and place of production, manufacture, or discovery. The provenance of works of art and antiques is very important as evidence to prove the artifact is the original and has not been altered or reproduced.

 

 

MAUSOLEUM

A mausoleum refers to a building constructed to hold crypts in tombs above ground, rather than a traditional cemetery. Mausolea can be individual, freestanding buildings, or they can be part of a larger facility, such as a church.

 

IRON USED TO REPEL SPIRITS

Iron repels evil spirits, but it's got to be pure!

In theory, if ghosts do not exist and if they do not use electromagnetic energy to manifest, then hypothetically one could use a conductor of electricity, such as iron, to drain or ground out the energy from the spirit. Therefore, touching a grounded, iron object to the spirit itself would drain all the usable energy from that spirit. Based on this theory, many cemeteries, are enclosed by iron fencing to keep the spirits in. Also, it has been said that an iron horseshoe placed at your front door will bring good luck by keeping evil spirits out.

By Dean5339