Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The art that scared me just right, the first part.

All of us who linger here at the Skull & Pumpkin are lovers of dark art. **

I would guess that we all have in common an admiration for certain artists whose work captured our imaginations, informed our nightmares, and decorated our inner Autumns from our youngest days. We delighted in dark art in any medium.
For most of us, television and film were the most extravagant media for scaring and thrilling us with their craft.
But I'd be willing to bet a Tom Swift and two Grey Ghosts that we all started knowing 'ghoulish delight' (to borrow a phrase), real, terrified, 'can't-look-away-in-the-daytime-can't-have-it-near-the-bed-at-night' ghoulish delight... with books!

Surely, the inimitable (though many try) Edward Gorey comes to mind:

I could do a trillion posts of a trillion illegally scanned works from Mr. Gorey, but he's well-known and beloved and I'd be preaching to the choir -- a twisted, sickly, poorly proportioned pen-and-ink choir of skull-headed girls and armless, featureless black dolls marching to their deaths upon rock walls -- but you already know who you are.

No, in this series, I thought I'd post some work from the lesser-known but no less unique and incredible artists who delighted and terrified my earliest reading days, and inspired the little artist in me to draw things which got me in trouble and made my teachers ask my folks about counseling.

I am working on a number of posts in this series, and it takes a little time. I'll be here with them soon, that's a promise.



**-(I believe one of us is actually a lover of Art. Different story altogether).

Gashlycrumb!

1 comment:

  1. Edward Gorey, Charles Addams, and Gahan Wilson. Those are the artists that warped my childhood--Bless them everyone!

    Dave

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