“The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.” – Vincent Van Gogh
Not only do artists put in a lot of thought and effort into their paintings but are also very skeptical when it comes to naming their paintings.
The title given to a painting is a verbal representation of the painting in itself. Artists are such perfectionists that they see through every imperfection and paint it flawlessly. And once they are done with their perfect masterpiece, an artist then works on naming his brainchild. Every piece of art has a story of its own and what lies within the painting only reaches the viewer after they have read the and the viewers are left to figure out what the painting really means on their own.
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau
But some artists have really gone overboard with it came to naming their paintings. Here’s a list of a few of such bizarrely-named masterpieces that would made you wonder in awe –
The Scream
The Scream by Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch describes his inspiration for this world-renowned oil, tempera, and pastel on cardboard painting in his diary as of 22 January, 1892 –
“One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became The Scream.”
The Scream, also known as The Cry has four versions, the fourth 1895 pastel-on-board version was the most colorful and vibrant of the four versions painted by Munch and the only version whose frame was hand-painted by the artist to include his poem, detailing the work’s inspiration and was sold for $119,922,600 at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art auction on 2 May 2012 becoming the fourth highest nominal priced painting ever sold at an auction.
Well, that’s something huh?
The Kiss
The Kiss by Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt painted this magnificent piece of art in his “Golden Period”, a time when Klimt lavished his work with gold leaf(gold hammered into thin sheets).
The painting was bought at the Austrian auction where it was displayed for the first time, even before Gustav Klimt had added his final golden touches to it.
The Kiss was sold for $135 million, the highest price ever reported on a painting. The work is composed of oil paint with applied layers of gold leaf, only adding to the beauty of this brilliant masterpiece.
The American Gothic
The American Gothic by Grant Wood
Have you ever heard of a painting that was inspired on a house rather than the people illustrated in it?
Well, that’s the story of the Dribble House. Apparently, the artist Grant Wood was on a drive and spotted this house. His artistic mind was instantly drawn to it. Not that the house was very beautiful or anything, he actually found it “absurd and pretentious to have a gothic-styled window on a house with such a flimsy frame”.
But the house intrigued him and he sketched it on an envelope and later, painted after obtaining the permission of the Jones family, Wood made a sketch in oil on paperboard from the house’s front yard. This sketch displayed a steeper roof and a longer window. The people in the painting are merely his assumption of the “type” of people he thought should have lived there!
The painting is now a widely considered masterpiece of the early modern period.
The Son of a Man
The Son of a Man by Rene Magritte
This 1964 painting is a self-portrait by Belgian artist, Rene Magritte.
The painting as bizzare as the name.The man’s face is largely obscured by a green apple, with the man’s eye peeking at the edge. And why do you think is the man’s right arm bending backwards at the elbow?
“Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.” – Rene Magrit.
The Night Watch
The Night Watch by Rembrandt van Rijn
This oversized painting (11.91 ft × 14.34 ft) is a splendid masterpiece depicting the movement in the otherwise static military group portrait. You would be interested to observe Rembrandt’s detail for the use of light and shadow. All these making it one of his best works now placed at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
The Mystical Nativity
The Mystical Nativity by Sandro Botticelli
Sandro Botticelli’s oil painting, ‘The Mystical Nativity’ in a general view is one of the nativity scene, with the Holy family. There are symbolic and unusual iconographies of the angels, demons and the king’s with no gifts and other intriguing details that relate back to the context of Savonarola’s sermons.
The painting from the early Renaissance period is now on display at the National Gallery, London.
The Green Christ
The Green Christ by Paul Gauguin
‘The Green Christ’ and ‘The Yellow Christ’ are two famous works from the French artist, Paul Gauguin.
The paintings are among the best works of Symbolism. ‘The Green Christ was painted by Paul Gauguin in 1888 in France. It is an oil on canvas piece and is currently located at the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique.
The Third of May 1808
The Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya
The painting, along with, ‘The Second of May 1808’, describes the uprising of Spanish people and fight against the French reign.
This oil on canvas painting is 106 × 137 inches long now on display at Museo del Prado, Madrid.
The Snail
The Snail by Henri Matisse
Matisse first drew the snail, then used the colored paper to interpret it.
The painting is a Gouache on paper against a white background. The color patches have a spiral arrangement just like that of a snail’s shell.
Pyramid of Skulls
Pyramid of Skulls by Paul Cézanne
“For in this lethargic world
Perpetually prey to old remorse
The only laughter to still make sense
Is that of death’s heads.” – Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne, a famous French Post-Impressionist painted four human skulls placed in a pyramidal form.
The artist was obsessed with the subject of morality. Even more so after the death of his mother and his deteriorating health inspired a number of still life paintings made by him between 1898 and 1905 of skulls. He also fancied skulls exclaiming, “How beautiful a skull is to paint!
What do you think?