Much of the record of the huɱaп side of history comes from the paintings that survive down the centuries. We can see the civilizations and the cultures in the ruins that remain, but it is only in the depictions such cultures left of themselves and those around them that we find the people.
Such paintings are not always easy to understand, and there are ɱaпy strange and haunting depictions of people down the centuries that survive to this day. It is some comfort that such paintings, which seem alien and weird to us, may have also seemed so to those who first saw them.
Here are six of the most disturbing, odd and outright unusual paintings in history.
1. The Garden of Earthly Delights
ɱaпy will be familiar with The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, an ambitious attempt to cover the entirely of huɱaпity from the Garden of Eden to the Last Judgement, which undeniably got weird in the process. Strange organic castles form the backdrop of a scene filled with detail in Bosch’s unmistakable style, and God himself lurks in the top right, possibly wondering what on earth is going on (Hieronymus Bosch / Public Domain)
2. The Ugly Duchess
Brutal! This 1513 (ish) painting by Quinten Matsys, a Flemish artist, combines exquisite skill in the execution with an absolute assassination of the subject, depicting her as a grotesque in finery. Matsys’s commentary on the different aspects of beauty is clear in this painting, and his sympathy for the sitter is shown in the small red flower she holds: a bud that will never bloom, just as she will never find a suitor (Quinten Metsys / Public Domain)
3. Saturn Devouring his Son
The Spanish artist Francisco Goya, once the painter of happy family portraits and slightly trite landscapes, went to an undeniably dark place in his final years. The paintings that adorn the house in which he spent the end of his life are dark and twisted ruminations on madness, and none is so haunting as Saturn Devouring His Son. In Greek myth the Titan Saturn was told that his children would destroy him, and he ate them for self-preservation. But what interests Goya is the horror such an action must have caused, writ large in the face of Saturn himself (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes / CC BY-SA 4.0)
4. The Melun Diptych
Strictly this is only the right hand panel of the Melun Diptych, but this arresting image by Jean Fouquet, painted around 1450, has a lot to say about religious art and is in ɱaпy ways groundbreaking. Mary is commonly portrayed in a maternal fashion for obvious reasons but here Fouquet makes her role purely functional. Christ cannot be portrayed as an innocent, so he becomes wise, and weird in the process. And the red angels, looking for all the world like devils, are simply pointing out that the denizens of hell started as angels themselves: why would they look any different? (Jean Fouquet / Public Domain)
5. Rudolf II as Vertumnus
This is Emperor Rudolph II, portrayed by the Italian artist Guiseppe Arcimboldo as Vertumnus, the Roɱaп god of seasonal fruit. Arcimboldo was famous for his portrayal of his subjects as fruit, apparently preferring literalism to the nuance of metaphor, but there is no denying his imagination. From the turnip Adam’s apple to the cherry lips and unkempt corn hair, this portrait emphasizes the power of the god, and by association Rudolph: every single fruit is ripe and flawless (Giuseppe Arcimboldo / Public Domain)
6. Gabrielle d’Estrées and the Duchess de Villars
What’s going on here, then? Two bathers, presumed to be Gabrielle d’Estrées and her sister the Duchess de Villars, are portrayed bathing together. Gabrielle is pinching her sister’s nipple, all while both maintain an uncomfortable eye contact with the viewer. There is believed to be a coded meaning in this painting: the Duchess de Villars was the mistress of the French king Henry IV, and the nipple pinch has been glossed as a suggestion she is pregnant. Still, bit weird nonetheless (Unknown Author / Public Domain)