Myth or curse? Stories of the most terrible paintings. “Cursed” paintings Japanese school painting cursed

Do not attribute unhealthy tendencies to the artist: he is allowed to depict everything.
Oscar Wilde

In July 1890, Oscar Wilde's famous novel The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published in London's Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Critics trashed the novel, calling it inappropriate and immoral, but ordinary readers were delighted. To some extent, it was this novel that led to the emergence of many different stories about artists who signed agreements with the devil, about characters emerging from paintings, about the magic of the palette and brush. We will analyze a number of legends associated with “devilish” paintings and try to understand what underlies the superstitious attitude towards works of art.

A little about Dorian Gray

It is worth briefly recalling the plot of Wilde's novel. A young man named Dorian Gray is incredibly handsome. His friend, the artist Basil Hallward, paints a wonderful portrait of Gray. Dorian dreams of always remaining as young and beautiful as in the portrait - and his wish comes true. No matter how hard the young man faces, all the traces of his adventures are absorbed by the portrait of Hallward, and he himself does not change over time, does not age. The number of Gray's crimes is growing, the portrait is becoming more and more monstrous.

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” is still popular - not long ago the feature film “Dorian Gray” directed by Oliver Parker appeared in cinemas. The film was a success in cinemas in the UK and the USA, although it did not gain wide popularity in Russia.

Actually, the portrait by Hallward is a classic version of the “mysterious picture”. The person depicted on it changes over time; It is the movement or change of objects on canvases that is the most typical urban legend associated with a work of art.

Although it was Wilde's novel that made art gallery visitors look more closely at the details of paintings and believe in the possibility of bringing characters to life, tales of living paintings existed long before that. Even the ancient Egyptians attached serious importance to images: numerous patterns covering palaces and tombs were designed to protect the inhabitants - living and dead, and to preserve their peace. But in Egypt, such an attitude was determined by religious dogmas, and this was three thousand years ago. Today, belief in the paranormal power of the painting can only be explained by ineradicable human superstitions.

We will look at the most famous, legendary paintings and events associated with them. It is possible that there are grains of truth in some stories.

Hand resistance

Perhaps we should start not with ancient times, but with a modern fairy tale that stirred up the online community about ten years ago.

In February 2000, an anonymous seller put up a painting by an unknown artist called Haunted Painting for auction on eBay. It is quite possible that the appearance of this lot would have gone unnoticed if not for the comments that accompanied the image. In them, the seller told in detail a chilling story.

The “Haunting Picture” belonged to a simple Californian couple. After purchasing it, the owners hung it in their little daughter’s room, reasoning that the image of a boy and a doll would be just right there. But on the very first night, a four-year-old girl ran into her parents’ bedroom screaming that the boy and the doll in the picture were fighting each other. The parents reassured the child, but the next night the characters left the picture straight into the girl’s room - and this continued for several nights.

Look carefully at the picture. Would you hang such a canvas in a child's bedroom opposite the bed? Never in my life. So the child’s fear is justified, and the explanation is the exceptional stupidity of the parents. Moreover, despite the fact that the girl regularly ran to her mom and dad in tears at night, her father (who is also a canvas seller) did not hang the painting in another room, but installed a video camera in the nursery aimed at the painting. Screenshots from the video camera were included with the eBay listing. And they were terrifying.

Because - unless this is Photoshop, of course - in one of the screenshots the doll had a gun in her hands: she was forcing the child to walk into the darkness behind the door. On another, a doll and a boy get into a fight. The motion sensor in the room went off several times during the night. Only after this did the husband decide to sell the painting for the starting price of $199. As a result, it “went” for 1025 - quite inexpensive. Only after the sale did journalists trumpet the story of the mysterious painting to the whole world. It’s scary to even imagine how much “The Haunting Picture” costs today.

Naturally, journalists also found the author of the mysterious painting. It turned out to be Californian artist and graphic artist William Stoneham. As it turned out, a lot of interesting events happened between the time the painting was painted and the time it appeared on eBay.

Stoneham created the painting while still very young, at the age of 25 - in 1972. He took the plot motifs from a childhood photograph where he, five years old, stands next to a little girl on the threshold of an orphanage in Chicago. Stoneham grew up an orphan: he never knew his father, and his mother, a shocking artist, simply abandoned the child.

The pinnacle of Mikhail Bulgakov's work, the novel "The Master and Margarita", is considered the most terrible punishment for directors. It’s as if evil fate is pursuing those who are trying to make a movie based on the novel or stage a play. A characteristic story can be considered the film by Yuri Kara, completed in 1994. Even filmed in its entirety (although not without problems), it was never released - and never will be while the copyright battle continues. The only closed screening of the film took place in 2006 at the Moscow Film Festival, but the general public still does not have the opportunity to watch the film. Another example is the opera “The Master and Margarita” by Sergei Slonimsky, written in 1972 and banned once and for all after the first closed showing.

According to the artist, the black door represents the border between the real world and the dream world. The boy is in a dream world, the doll is his guide, and his hands are his alternative lives, remaining in the gloomy and dark real world, but yearning for the light. And the name of the canvas is not “The Pursuing Painting” at all, but The Hands Resist Him (“Hand Resistance” in the artistic translation). This is exactly what we will henceforth call Stoneham’s work.

So, in 1972, the painting was published in the art section of the Los Angeles Times, and a year later it was sold to one of the California art galleries. And that’s it, the author never saw his painting again. After some time, the painting was acquired by American actor John Marley (known for his role as Woltz in “The Godfather”). Marley died in 1984. By the way, journalists who investigated the history of the painting immediately made a mysterious tragedy out of this death - they say that the children from the painting strangled Marley in his sleep. In fact, the actor was 76 years old, and his death was not something out of the ordinary.

Marley's property was partially sold at auction. “Hand Resistance” was purchased by a certain married couple. Soon they were robbed, taking away, among other things, a painting. And after some time (about a year), the same couple again discovered the stolen canvas - in a landfill behind their own house. In general, the journalistic investigation was overgrown with a huge number of unprovable myths: the critic who wrote an article about the film in the LA Times soon died; people regularly lost consciousness right in front of the canvas in the exhibition hall, and some even had a heart attack.

The most interesting thing is that before the painting appeared on eBay, Stoneham had not painted for about 20 years. He first worked as an artist for George Lucas's film company, and then plunged headlong into computer design. Well-known games that he had a hand in are Myst and Riven, created during his work at Eidos Interactive, 3DO Corporation and other computer companies.

Today, "Hand Resistance" is in a private collection. Stoneham returned to painting - his dark surrealist paintings are in great demand, and he himself is considered one of the world's leading surrealists.

How to explain the strange history of the painting? The answer is simple. Most likely, the seller’s desire to sell his property on eBay at the maximum price. He simply embellished real events and advertised his product. Even if what is told is true, then it has already been explained by us above. A child’s imagination plus a completely unchildish picture gave birth to a new legend. And Bill Stoneham was very lucky: he suddenly became a famous, fashionable and very expensive artist.

Death of sitters

A large group of “art” legends are stories about how a painting took away part of the sitter’s soul, and he died suddenly.

Most often, in various “yellow” publications and on the Internet, the story of the portrait of Maria Lopukhina, painted by the great Russian artist Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky, pops up. Maria Ivanovna Lopukhina came from a very noble family, she was the sister of the legendary duelist and traveler Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy, nicknamed “The American” (sung, among other things, by Pushkin). The portrait was painted by Borovikovsky in 1797, when young Masha was only 18 years old. A beautiful young woman, full of freshness and grace, with a slight cunning in her eyes, looks at us from the canvas. Lopukhina died of consumption in 1803 - rumors spread among the people that Borovikovsky had jinxed the young noblewoman with his portrait. The newspapers made a big deal out of it. It was argued that young noblewomen, just by looking at the portrait, doomed themselves to a quick death.

The rumors were confirmed by the fact that many of Borovikovsky’s models did not live long after working with him. Thus, Princess Anna Petrovna Gagarina died at the age of 27, four years after painting her portrait, Borovikovsky painted the portrait of Catherine II two years before the death of the empress, and Paul I just a month before the latter’s assassination. However, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna “outlived” her portrait by 54 years, and she was not the only one. Therefore, it is difficult to accuse Borovikovsky of having a hard hand when depicting noble persons.

Another famous legend is associated with the expressionist Amedeo Modigliani and his only and main love, Jeanne Hebuterne. Jeanne herself was a well-known artist, but she was most famous for her work as a model for Modigliani. They met in 1917, and over the next three years the artist painted a portrait of his muse more than thirty times. A year after they met, she gave birth to Modigliani’s daughter, and in 1919 she became pregnant again - with a boy.

Journalistic legends say that Modigliani’s paintings “sucked” the life out of Jeanne and she committed suicide on April 26, 1920, being nine months pregnant. She jumped out of a fifth floor window. But no matter what the yellow newspapers say, the reason for the suicide of the young woman (she was 22 years old) lies elsewhere. On April 24, 1920, thirty-five-year-old Amedeo Modigliani died of tuberculosis - when the date of their wedding had already been set. It is unlikely that the paintings could have influenced Jeanne more than the tragic death of a loved one...

Ilya Efimovich Repin was notorious in his time. It is enough to give statistics on the death of his models. In August 1911, Repin finished work on the portrait of Pyotr Stolypin - on September 1, an attempt was made on his life, as a result of which the minister died. Repin painted the portrait of surgeon Nikolai Pirogov in November 1881 - on December 5, Pirogov died of cancer (however, this death was predicted long before work on the painting began). Repin also painted the only lifetime portrait of the composer Modest Mussorgsky - in a military hospital, where the musician was admitted after an attack of delirium tremens. Mussorgsky survived his portrait for 5 days. Among Repin's "victims" was also Kerensky (who soon fell into disgrace, although he died much later). But here it is worth remembering one point. Most often, Repin portrayed elderly people, and Mussorgsky and Pirogov - already in a dying state. Unless he actually jinxed Stolypin. Therefore, only a madman can accuse an artist of causing harm to models.

By investigating such cases, you can go much further into the past. For example, Rembrandt's favorite models were his first wife Saskia, his second (common-law) wife Hendrikje and his children. And what? Saskia died in 1642 at the age of 30, Hendrickje died in 1663 at the age of 37, and Rembrandt's three children did not even live to be a year old. Rembrandt also outlived his eldest son Titus. The connection between painting and the diseases that claimed the relatives of the great Fleming is unprovable.

Ladies - swoon!

The second direction of journalistic speculation is the influence of the painting not on the sitter, but on the viewer. Of course, one of the most obvious examples of such influence is the case of William Stoneham's painting, discussed in detail. But his work is not the only one to be attacked by the press.

Edvard Munch's "The Scream" is perhaps best known for its negative impact. More precisely, not a painting, but a whole series of paintings - Munch worked on various versions of “The Scream” for many years. The Norwegian expressionist created almost all of his paintings in several copies. For example, his famous “Madonna” exists in five author’s versions.

Throughout his long life, Munch suffered from poverty and mental illness of varying severity. His affairs with women ended tragically, he had no family, and his paintings often aroused criticism and disgust from the viewer. Recognition, wealth and fame came to him, an old man, in the 1930s, when Munch no longer needed any of this. But let's get back to Scream. The picture is truly scary. Using the means of expressionism - bright colors, wavy lines, broad strokes - Munch was able to convey the inhuman horror of the hero. It’s hard to stand and look at “The Scream” for a long time: you want to quickly move on to the next picture.

Taking advantage of the sad fame of Munch himself and the talented monstrosity of his painting, people are coming up with new stories about “The Scream.” It is said that museum employees who dropped the painting or handled it carelessly were subsequently hospitalized as a result of accidents and accidents. They also said that a certain viewer, who leaned over the parapet and touched the painting (one of the versions of “The Scream” is kept in the Munch Museum in Oslo), died a week later in a fire in his house.

The funny thing is that approximately the same stories are told about Da Vinci’s La Gioconda. The stories about the Mona Lisa were started by none other than the writer Stendhal. While visiting the Louvre, he fainted from the heat and the crowd right next to a da Vinci painting. Today, Louvre workers record every case of fainting that occurs in the museum - most of them occur at the La Gioconda. However, this is easily explained: there are always so many tourists crowding around the famous canvas that it’s no wonder you lose consciousness from the stuffiness and crush.

The completely peaceful and rather boring painting by Claude Monet “Water Lilies” is surrounded by legends that it causes fires. True, it is worth noting that Monet painted a great many paintings from this series. The artist himself called them “reflection landscapes.” Lilies alone appear more than a dozen times. The main painting of the series (actually, the canvas “Water Lilies”) caught fire five times: twice in the artist’s studio, and subsequently in various galleries. Coincidences? For sure.

And again today is the day

If you type “Svetlana Taurus” into a search engine, you will find several links to information about a little-known Ukrainian artist who painted a painting “possessed by an evil spirit.” The first mention of the painting “Woman of the Rain” happened in the newspaper “Komsomolskaya Pravda” in June 2007. The short article told of a painting that had been purchased three times and returned three times to the gallery for unknown reasons.

All three buyers, after they hung the canvas in their apartments, began to see and dream about the depicted lady in a black dress and hat. The last buyer, returning the purchase, especially emphasized the terrible white eyes of the heroine. Svetlana Taurus doesn’t see anything like that in her picture. Moreover, the employees of the “Rain Woman” gallery are not too bothered either.

As with Hand Resistance, Rain Woman is an easily recognizable and unsettling image. A person with a rich imagination and not a very strong psyche subconsciously remembers such an image and constantly returns to it, “twisting” himself. After some time, a nightmare forms in the mind, having almost nothing to do with the original image on the canvas. With the same success, a person can imagine any other unpleasant thing - a corpse, a bloody scene from a movie, a monster from the game Silent Hill.

Art, from the moment it appeared on the cave walls of primitive man, has excited and influenced humanity. As soon as the artist's brush touches the canvas, the real process of creation begins. The author not only does his job, he puts his soul and part of himself into his work. Streams of energy seem to flow from the fingertips, move along the brush and stop on the canvas.

This is why we literally feel that the paintings of real artists look and feel “as if they were alive.” Plots and images can cause tears, depression, disgust in a person, or, conversely, a feeling of joy and happiness.

However, the question arises: Can paintings influence our lives as a whole?

In this article you will get acquainted with the stories of paintings that can cause a slight chill. Even photographs of some of them are, if not terrifying, then certainly unpleasant. If anything, we have warned you!!!

1. "The hands resist him"

Let's start with perhaps the most notorious painting - “The Hands Resist Him” by Bill Stoneham. It became so “famous” that it was called “the most ghostly painting in the world.”

In 1972, while Stoneham was living with his wife in California, he was under contract to Charles Feingarten Gallery. According to the contract, the artist had to create two paintings per month.

The deadline for the work was coming to an end, and Stoneham decided to paint a picture based on his old photographs where he was 5 years old. He named this painting in honor of the poem that his wife wrote for Stoneham himself (the poem was about how Bill was adopted as a child, but he never knew anything about his biological parents).

The resulting image depicts a boy with a creepy, eyeless doll standing next to him. According to Stoneham, the boy is himself at the age of 5, and the doorway in the painting represents a barrier between the real world (where the hands are depicted) and the world of dreams. At the same time, the doll is a guide to the world of fantasy.

As for the hands, the artist said mysteriously: “Hands could mean anything... But, you will definitely have a question: Are these hands without a body? The body was dismembered, and the hands themselves? Or are they still there, with the body?”

The painting was exhibited at the Feingarten Gallery in Beverly Hills, California. This painting was mentioned in the Los Angeles Times in an article by art critic Henry Seldis. At this exhibition, the painting attracted the attention of actor John Marley, who played the role of Jack Waltz in The Godfather. He liked it so much that he decided to buy it.

Within one year after the creation of the painting, three people died at once: art critic Seldis, gallery owner Feingarten and actor Marley. After that, the painting seemed to disappear, until in 2000 the couple found it left behind by someone behind a brewery (which, by the way, had been turned into an art space) in California.

They took this painting for themselves, considering it a good acquisition. In February of the same year, they put it up for sale on eBay, explaining that this painting carries horror, and in general it is cursed and ghosts come out of it. Their announcement was more like a warning than an announcement.

Fully capitalized and misspelled, the ad contained a mini-story about why they decided to get rid of the painting. According to the couple, their 4-year-old daughter said that she saw the children from the picture come into the room at night and start fighting.

The woman herself (the girl’s mother) does not believe in UFOs and similar things, but her husband decided to install a camera. The camera filmed for three nights in a row.

In the end, the couple received pictures confirming their daughter's words. In a photo they posted on eBay, the doll is allegedly holding a gun, threatening a boy. The couple also asked in their announcement not to make any claims after purchasing the painting.

This ad has been viewed over 30,000 times. In the comments, people wrote that they felt sick as soon as they saw these photos. Some people tried to print them, but the printer gave an error or broke down.

Some claimed that when viewing the photo they felt warm currents of air that enveloped them and whispered various things in their ears in children's voices. And someone even set fire to sage to cleanse their living space of evil spirits after browsing an eBay page.

As a result, the painting was bought by Kim Smith, owner of Perception Gallery in Michigan, for $1,025. A year later, a paranormal website contacted Smith and asked whether anything paranormal had happened after purchasing this painting or not.

Smith, in her response, said that the painting itself did not bring her any failures or troubles, but letters from people with advice on how to clean the room, how to protect yourself with the help of a shaman, definitely drove her crazy.

The gallery workers turned to the artist himself with a question about the gun in the doll’s hands. The artist confidently and even with a bit of irony answered that there was no gun there. Normal digital noise and interference that distorts the original image.

The painting is currently in the gallery's storage and has only been exhibited 6 times. Each time the picture caused fear among gallery visitors. The artist himself subsequently created a sequel to the painting (2 paintings, one of which depicted the same characters 40 years later). But, alas, they did not hide any mystery, and certainly did not bring misfortune to anyone.

2. Portrait of Bernardo de Galvez

At the end of the hallway at the Galvez Hotel in Galveston, Texas, hangs a portrait of Bernardo de Galvez, the Spanish commander who helped American troops during the Civil War. Also, the city itself is named in his honor.

Despite the fact that Galvez died in 1786, rumors about his ghost appeared during his lifetime. Guests and hotel employees claimed that the eyes in the portrait followed them as they walked down the corridor.

One of the strangest aspects is that Galvez does not allow his portrait to be photographed without “permission.”

People claim that any photo taken without permission comes out blurry, or produces unexplained orbs, fogs, streaks, or even ghosts. A group of paranormal researchers decided to check if this is actually true.

A cold shiver ran through them when they realized that unless you asked permission from the painting, the pictures turned out blurry.

3. "Crying Boy"

In fact, this is not one picture, but a whole series. In 1950, Italian artist Bruno Amadio, also known as Giovanni Bragolin, painted more than 65 portraits of crying orphans, which he sold as souvenirs to tourists.

Very quickly his paintings became popular in England and they began to be copied en masse. And until the 1980s, nothing strange happened.

Beginning in 1985, firefighters began to claim that they were finding completely intact copies of "The Crying Boy" among the ashes and rubble of burned houses. Copies were always placed face down on the floor. In more than 50 houses, paintings inexplicably escaped the fire.

Numerous psychics have stated that the ghosts of orphans killed during World War II haunted these paintings. This whole story has reached the level of an urban legend.

It should be noted that the original story appeared in the British tabloid newspaper The Sun, so many did not believe everything that was happening.

The Sun, to verify the legend, organized a massive bonfire for the owners of the paintings. When they brought the reproductions to the general burning, they discovered that the copies burned surprisingly very slowly.

There is even one video on the BBC where one guy tried to burn a copy, pointing out that it burns slower than a normal copy of any other painting.

Maybe we should blame those who covered the copies of paintings with fire-resistant varnish?

4. "Martyr"

Undoubtedly, this is an eerie and scary picture. It was allegedly stored for 25 years in the attic of the grandmother of a man named Sean Robinson. According to the grandmother, the artist, when creating the painting, mixed his blood with paint, and immediately after its completion he committed suicide.

She also said that from the painting one could hear various voices, screams and tears, and as the grandmother believed, the painting was haunted by the spirit of the creator. All this forced the old woman to hide the painting in the attic.

In 2010, Robinson inherited the painting, and almost immediately his family allegedly encountered a series of strange events. Robinson stated that after he took over the Martyr, his son was pushed down the stairs by unseen forces; his wife often felt something stroking her hair, and the whole family heard the screams and crying that Robinson's grandmother described.

Robinson even decided to place a camera next to the painting to record paranormal activity, and then uploaded the recording to YouTube. The video he received showed the painting itself falling to the floor, and the doors in the house periodically slamming. And sometimes strange smoke emanated from the painting.

Many users, after watching the video, claimed that it was a hoax. Robinson has reportedly locked the cursed painting in his basement and refuses to sell it.

5. Painting with a headless man

Our next unusual painting is, in fact, a painting painted from a photograph. In the mid-1990s, an artist known only as Laura P. made a living by creating paintings from photographs. One day, her attention was drawn to a strange photo taken by photographer James Kidd.

In the photo, an old stagecoach is depicted in the foreground, and the image of a headless man appears to the side. Kidd insisted that this was not the case when he developed the photo. This became clear over time. Laura couldn't explain what attracted her to the photo, but she was overcome by an irresistible desire to paint a picture.

The artist reported that almost immediately after she started painting, she could not overcome feelings of fear and anxiety. For a very long time she did not dare to complete what she started, and when the test was over, the painting ended up in the local office.

Workers in the office claimed that as soon as the painting came to them, documents began to disappear in the office, and objects changed their locations. After 3 days the painting was returned to the author. When Laura moved with her husband to a new house, the painting, along with a mysterious force, moved with them.

In the new home, the couple repeatedly heard various abnormal sounds, such as banging, footsteps and other less identifiable noises, which always seemed to take place in the vicinity of the painting. In addition, other strange phenomena began to occur with increasing frequency.

Very soon things began to move around the house, doors opened, the roof began to leak, although everything was fine with it. One incident was incredibly creepy: the glass Laura was drinking from suddenly burst in her hand, and a large shard of glass disappeared without a trace.

Laura regretted painting this picture and expressed a desire to destroy it.

6. "Love Letters"

The list of cursed paintings will be supplemented by a portrait of a little girl, which can be seen at The Driskill Hotel, Austin, Texas, USA.

The girl in the painting is very similar to another girl named Samantha Houston, the 4-year-old daughter of a US senator who died while staying at the hotel.

She fell down the stairs while chasing a ball. Guests and employees have reported that the girl in the painting sometimes changes her facial expression. There is also numerous evidence that the picture “makes” you feel bad, and that it makes you feel dizzy and nauseous.

Perhaps the ghost of the senator’s daughter fell in love with this portrait and decided to “dwell” in it.

7. "Dead Mother"

Another painting “Dead Mother” by Edvard Munch (author of the painting “The Scream”). If anyone doesn’t know, Munch almost went crazy as a child. He was raised by his father, whom everyone in the area knew for his religious fanaticism, and his mother and his sisters died of tuberculosis when he was only 5 years old.

This picture seems to some extent reflect his melancholy, despair and madness. Munch spoke about his work in his characteristic manner: “Illness, madness and death were the dark angels who watched over my cradle.”

People who once owned this painting claimed that the girl’s eyes were constantly following them, and the sheets on her mother’s bed made noise or moved. Sometimes the image of the girl left the picture.

8. “Man proposes, but God disposes”

In the art gallery of Royal Holloway College, which is a university in London, hangs a painting called “Man Proposes, God Disposes,” painted by Sir Edwin Landseer. The painting depicts an Arctic expedition team with their leader Sir John Franklin. This team was not destined to survive.

They're not just stuck in the Arctic ice... They're being eaten by polar bears. This picture drives students crazy, distracts them from the exam (exams are often held in the gallery), which they then “successfully” fail.

Sometimes it is draped with the Union Jack flag. According to student legend, one student lost her mind and committed suicide in front of the audience. True or not, this is enough to get rid of the picture once and for all.

This review covers only the most famous paintings. What is it, truth or lie... It's up to you to decide. But one thing is clear: paintings are not just images. They have mystery and hidden power.

Mystical stories and mysteries are associated with many works of painting. Moreover, some experts believe that dark and secret forces are involved in the creation of a number of paintings. There are grounds for such a statement. Too often, amazing facts and inexplicable events happened to these fatal masterpieces - fires, deaths, madness of the authors... One of the most famous “cursed” paintings is “The Crying Boy” - a reproduction of a painting by the Spanish artist Giovanni Bragolin. The story of its creation is as follows: the artist wanted to paint a portrait of a crying child and took his little son as a sitter. But, since the baby could not cry on demand, the father deliberately brought him to tears by lighting matches in front of his face.

There is a belief among many people that an image from a painting can have a magical effect on its owner. There are many known paintings that have a bad reputation. How could this happen?

Mystical stories and mysteries are associated with many works of painting. Too often, amazing facts and inexplicable events happened to these fatal masterpieces - fires, deaths, the madness of the authors...

The Adoration of the Magi was painted in 1654 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. In the painting, the artist showed that the birth of a child does not bring joy if there is war around and people are killing their own kind. The semantic center of the picture was the sad Virgin Mary with her baby. The model was the artist's cousin. She was a barren woman, for which she received constant blows from her husband. It was she who, as simple medieval Dutch gossiped, “infected” the picture. “The Magi” was bought by private collectors four times. And each time the same story was repeated: no children were born in the family for 10-12 years. Finally, in 1637, the architect Jacob van Kampen bought the painting. By that time he already had three children, so the curse did not particularly frighten him. The work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder is currently on display at the London National Gallery.

One of the most famous “cursed” paintings is “The Crying Boy” - a reproduction of a painting by the Spanish artist Giovanni Bragolin. The story of its creation is as follows: the artist wanted to paint a portrait of a crying child and took his little son as a sitter. But, since the baby could not cry on demand, the father deliberately brought him to tears by lighting matches in front of his face. The artist knew that his son was terrified of fire, but art was dearer to him than the nerves of his own child, and he continued to mock him.

One day, driven to the point of hysteria, the baby could not stand it and shouted, shedding tears: “You yourself will burn!” What the artist told his friends with a smile in the evening, glad that he finally managed to capture the facial expression he needed.
This curse did not take long to come true - two weeks later the boy burned to death from pneumonia, and soon his father also burned alive in his own house... This is the backstory. The painting, or rather its reproduction, gained its ominous fame in 1985 in England.

This happened thanks to a series of strange coincidences - fires in residential buildings began to occur one after another in Northern England. There were human casualties. Some victims who spoke with correspondents mentioned that of all the property, only a cheap reproduction depicting a crying child miraculously survived. And such reports became more and more numerous, until, finally, one of the fire inspectors publicly announced that in all the burned houses, without exception, the “Crying Boy” was found intact.

Immediately, the newspapers were overwhelmed by a wave of letters reporting various accidents, deaths and fires that occurred after the owners bought this painting. Of course, “The Crying Boy” immediately began to be considered cursed, the story of its creation surfaced and became overgrown with rumors and fiction... As a result, one of the newspapers published an official statement that everyone who has this reproduction must immediately get rid of it, and the authorities From now on it is forbidden to purchase and keep it at home.

To this day, “The Crying Boy” is haunted by notoriety, especially in Northern England. By the way, the original has not yet been found. True, some doubters deliberately hung this portrait on their wall, and, it seems, no one was burned. But still there are very few people who want to test the legend in practice.

Another famous “fiery masterpiece” is “Water Lilies” by the impressionist Monet.

Claude Monet painted the painting “Water Lilies (Clouds)” in 1903. Having finished his work, he decided to celebrate with a friendly party, during which a fire started in the artist’s workshop. Fortunately, they were able to quickly extinguish it, and soon they forgot about it, but as it turned out, not for long.

The painting was acquired by the owner of a drinking establishment in Montmartre. A month later, a strong fire started in the cabaret; the canvas was miraculously saved from the fire. After this, the painting was put up for auction. It was bought by a famous Parisian philanthropist. Just a couple of months later, his house burned down, and the fire appeared in the office where the ill-fated painting was located. But this time he was saved. However, now the painting’s reputation as a fire hazard has firmly established itself.

In 1958, "Lilies" was purchased by the New York Museum of Modern Art. Three months passed... A fire started in the hall, severely damaging the painting. Currently, the painting is in the Mormoton Museum, in France, and does not exhibit its “fire hazardous” properties. Bye.

The Royal Museum of Edinburgh houses an old portrait painted on wood of an elderly man with his arm outstretched. Sometimes some museum visitors think that the old man is barely moving his fingers. You can take this for an optical illusion or the play of the sun's rays in the portrait.

However, museum officials claim that sunbeams have nothing to do with it, and the fingers in the portrait actually move from time to time. Moreover, this gesture foreshadows the inevitable... death from fire!
A creepy legend invented in order to attract more visitors to the museum halls? Not at all. Once, Lord Seymour, while examining the exhibition at the Edinburgh Museum, noticed that the old man in the portrait moved his fingers. Lord told the director of the museum about this, and he told him everything he knew about the atomic phenomenon. The lord grinned and, naturally, did not believe a single word. However, several months passed and Lord Seymour died tragically in a fire at his castle, Sittingham.

Another similar incident occurred in 1908. The captain of the ocean liner "Scott" R. Belfast was visiting his parents in Edinburgh. Before his long voyage, he decided to visit the museum and, stopping in front of a mystical painting, suddenly saw that the mysterious old man’s fingers were moving. Knowing about the museum legend, the captain began to beware of fire. However, you cannot escape fate. Belfast realized this six months later, when the Scott liner, located in the Indian Ocean 120 miles from Colombo, was engulfed in fire. The captain fought the fire along with the sailors. As a result, the ship was saved, but Belfast was lost...

Superstitious townspeople even demanded that the director of the museum remove the dangerous painting out of harm's way, but he, of course, did not agree - it is this nondescript portrait of no particular value that attracts most visitors.

The painting “Venus with a Mirror” was painted in 1650 by D. Velazquez. The canvas contains an image of a beautiful and graceful body of a young woman. The painting gained fame due to the fact that all its owners went bankrupt after purchasing the painting.

Its first owner was a Madrid merchant. Having bought the coveted beauty, he very quickly became bankrupt: pirates seized ships with his goods. In order to pay off creditors, he had to sell all his property.
The painting passed to a new owner, who also ran a trading business. However, he did not have time to fully enjoy his new acquisition: lightning struck the warehouse with his goods. The painting was put up at auction, where it was purchased by a wealthy moneylender. A week later, robbers broke into his house, the money lender was killed, and all his gold was stolen. For a long time, the heirs of the murdered man could not sell the painting, which had already become notorious. As a result, they had to donate it to the museum.

And in 1813, the painting came to England, where it was acquired by the London National Gallery. A hundred years later, a misfortune befell the canvas. A fanatical woman with a knife snuck into the museum and damaged the painting. The painting was restored, and at the moment it has become the pride of the London gallery.

The famous “La Gioconda” by Leonardo da Vinci not only delights, but also frightens people.
In addition to assumptions, fiction, legends about the work itself and about the smile of Mona Lisa, there is a theory that this most famous portrait in the world has an extremely negative effect on the beholder. For example, more than a hundred cases have been officially registered in which visitors who looked at the painting for a long time lost consciousness. The most famous case occurred with the French writer Stendhal, who fainted while admiring a masterpiece. It is known that Mona Lisa herself, who posed for the artist, died young, at the age of 28. And the great master Leonardo himself did not work on any of his creations as long and carefully as on La Gioconda. For six years, until his death, Leonardo rewrote and corrected the painting, but he never fully achieved what he wanted.

Louvre workers, by the way, noted that long breaks in the museum’s work lead to the tarnishing of the Mona Lisa. It gets dark, but as soon as visitors fill the halls of the museum again, the Mona Lisa seems to come to life, rich colors appear, the background brightens, the smile is more clearly visible. A vampire and nothing more!

Dozens of people who in one way or another came into contact with Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream,” whose value experts estimate at $70 million, were exposed to evil fate: they fell ill, quarreled with loved ones, fell into severe depression, or even suddenly died. All this gave the painting a bad reputation, so that museum visitors looked at it with caution, remembering the terrible stories that were told about the masterpiece.

One day, a museum employee accidentally dropped a painting. After some time, he began to have terrible headaches. It must be said that before this incident he had no idea what a headache was. The migraine attacks became more and more frequent and severe, and it ended with the poor man committing suicide. Another time, a museum worker dropped a painting while it was being hung from one wall to another. A week later, he was in a horrific car accident that left him with broken legs, arms, several ribs, a fractured pelvis, and a severe concussion. One of the museum visitors tried to touch the painting with his finger (which was recorded by cameras and museum employees). A few days later, a fire started at his house, in which the man burned to death.

The life of Edvard Munch himself, born in 1863, was a series of endless tragedies and upheavals. Illness, death of relatives, madness. His mother died of tuberculosis when the child was 5 years old. Nine years later, Edward’s beloved sister Sophia died from a serious illness. Then brother Andreas died, and doctors diagnosed his younger sister with schizophrenia.

In the early 90s, Munch suffered a severe nervous breakdown and underwent electroshock treatment for a long time. He never married because the thought of sex terrified him. He died at the age of 81, leaving a huge creative legacy to the city of Oslo: 1,200 paintings, 4,500 sketches and 18 thousand graphic works. But the pinnacle of his work remains, of course, “The Scream.”

Another “cursed” painting that is widely known is the work of Californian surrealist artist Hands Resist Him (Hands Resist Him) by Bill Stoneham. The artist painted it in 1972 from a photograph in which he and his younger sister stand in front of their home. In the picture, a boy with unclear facial features and a doll the size of a living girl froze in front of a glass door, to which the small hands of children are pressed from the inside.

It all started with the fact that the first art critic who saw and appreciated the work died suddenly. Then the picture was acquired by an American actor, who also did not live long.

After his death, the work disappeared for a short time, but then it was accidentally found at a flea market. The family that acquired the nightmarish masterpiece thought of hanging it in the nursery. As a result, the little daughter began to run into her parents’ bedroom every night and scream that the children in the picture were fighting and changing their location. My father installed a motion-sensing camera in the room, and it went off several times during the night.

Of course, the family hastened to get rid of such a gift of fate, and soon Hands Resist Him was put up for online auction. And then numerous letters poured in to the organizers with complaints that while viewing the film, people felt sick, and some had heart attacks. It was bought by the owner of a private art gallery, and now complaints have begun to come to him. Two American exorcists even approached him with offers of their services. And psychics who have seen the picture unanimously claim that evil emanates from it.

Kramskoy’s painting “The Stranger” also did not have the best reputation. The beautiful woman depicted in this portrait is a mystery in itself. The artist never revealed the secret of who the beauty was painted from. Many believed that the unknown woman was a wealthy aristocrat. Others suggested that her clothes and appearance rather marked her as the kept woman of a rich man. Kramskoy responded to all these speculations only with a mysterious smile.

In reality, no one ever met this mysterious stranger, except, perhaps, the painter himself. Be that as it may, the portrait brought misfortune to its owners. Tretyakov did not want to buy the painting. The portrait of the unknown woman began to move from one private collection to another. The first owner's wife left him, the second lost his house in a fire, and the third went completely bankrupt. Kramskoy himself also had misfortunes. A year after writing the masterpiece, he lost two sons one after another.

Soon the picture migrated abroad. But even there its owners were haunted by sorrows and failures. Only in 1925 did the painting return to its homeland. The painting nevertheless took its rightful place in the Tretyakov Gallery. From then on, the portrait apparently lost its mystical properties.

Old collectors, observing the life of paintings for a long time, noticed that the painting seemed to influence the space around and transfer the events depicted on it into real life.

The history of painting tells the story of the fate of the niece of the brilliant Italian composer N. Paccini, whose portrait was painted in 1832 by the wonderful artist Karl Pavlovich Bryullov (1799-1852). The painting “Horsewoman” depicts a young Giovannina Paccini gracefully prancing on a thin-legged horse. In Rome they said that young Giovannina was lucky, because after the death of her uncle she was taken in by the rich Russian countess Yulia Samoilova, but the happiness did not last long - soon after the painting was painted, the girl was trampled to death by a horse.

It has become the custom that for centuries people have associated misfortunes that have happened with certain pictures. Is this a simple coincidence or not? It remains a mystery why some sitters died immediately after completing their portraits. Apparently, great works also have their own destiny or karma, just like a living person, but, unfortunately, not all paintings have a bright karma. Something to think about...

One of the most famous “cursed” paintings is “The Crying Boy” - a reproduction of a painting by the Spanish artist Giovanni Bragolin. The story of its creation is as follows: the artist wanted to paint a portrait of a crying child and took his little son as a sitter. But, since the baby could not cry on demand, the father deliberately brought him to tears by lighting matches in front of his face.

The artist knew that his son was terrified of fire, but art was dearer to him than the nerves of his own child, and he continued to mock him. One day, driven to the point of hysteria, the baby could not stand it and shouted, shedding tears: “Burn yourself!” This curse did not take long to come true - two weeks later the boy died of pneumonia, and soon his father also burned alive in his own house... This is the backstory. The painting, or rather its reproduction, gained its ominous fame in 1985 in England.

This happened thanks to a series of strange coincidences - fires in residential buildings began to occur one after another in Northern England. There were human casualties. Some victims mentioned that of all the property, only a cheap reproduction depicting a crying child miraculously survived. And such reports became more and more numerous, until, finally, one of the fire inspectors publicly announced that in all the burned houses, without exception, the “Crying Boy” was found intact.

Immediately, the newspapers were overwhelmed by a wave of letters reporting various accidents, deaths and fires that occurred after the owners bought this painting. Of course, “The Crying Boy” immediately began to be considered cursed, the story of its creation surfaced and became overgrown with rumors and fiction... As a result, one of the newspapers published an official statement that everyone who has this reproduction must immediately get rid of it, and the authorities From now on it is forbidden to purchase and keep it at home.

To this day, “The Crying Boy” is haunted by notoriety, especially in Northern England. By the way, the original has not yet been found. True, some doubters (especially here in Russia) deliberately hung this portrait on their wall, and, it seems, no one was burned. But still there are very few people who want to test the legend in practice.

Another famous “fiery masterpiece” is “Water Lilies” by the impressionist Monet. The artist himself was the first to suffer from it - his workshop almost burned down for unknown reasons.

Then the new owners of “Water Lilies” burned down - a cabaret in Montmartre, the house of a French philanthropist, and even the New York Museum of Modern Art. Currently, the painting is in the Mormoton Museum, in France, and does not exhibit its “fire hazardous” properties. Bye.

Another, less well-known and outwardly unremarkable painting, the “arsonist,” hangs in the Royal Museum of Edinburgh. This is a portrait of an elderly man with his arm outstretched. According to legend, sometimes the fingers on the hand of an old man painted in oil begin to move. And the one who saw this unusual phenomenon will definitely die from fire in the very near future.

Two famous victims of the portrait are Lord Seymour and sea captain Belfast. They both claimed to have seen the old man move his fingers, and both subsequently died in the fire. Superstitious townspeople even demanded that the director of the museum remove the dangerous painting out of harm's way, but he, of course, did not agree - it is this nondescript portrait of no particular value that attracts most visitors.

The famous “La Gioconda” by Leonardo da Vinci not only delights, but also frightens people. In addition to assumptions, fiction, legends about the work itself and about the smile of Mona Lisa, there is a theory that this most famous portrait in the world has an extremely negative effect on the beholder. For example, more than a hundred cases have been officially registered in which visitors who looked at the painting for a long time lost consciousness.

The most famous case occurred with the French writer Stendhal, who fainted while admiring a masterpiece. It is known that Mona Lisa herself, who posed for the artist, died young, at the age of 28. And the great master Leonardo himself did not work on any of his creations as long and carefully as on La Gioconda. For six years, until his death, Leonardo rewrote and corrected the painting, but he never fully achieved what he wanted.

Velazquez’s painting “Venus with a Mirror” also deservedly enjoyed disrepute. Everyone who bought it either went bankrupt or died a violent death. Even museums did not really want to include its main composition, and the painting constantly changed its “registration”. It ended with the fact that one day a crazy visitor attacked the canvas and cut it with a knife.

Another “cursed” painting that is widely known is the work of Californian surrealist artist “Hands Resist Him” by Bill Stoneham. The artist painted it in 1972 from a photograph in which he and his younger sister stand in front of their home.

In the picture, a boy with unclear facial features and a doll the size of a living girl froze in front of a glass door, to which the small hands of children are pressed from the inside. There are many creepy stories associated with this picture. It all started with the fact that the first art critic who saw and appreciated the work died suddenly.

Then the picture was acquired by an American actor, who also did not live long. After his death, the work disappeared for a short time, but then it was accidentally found in a trash heap. The family who picked up the nightmare masterpiece thought of hanging it in the nursery. As a result, the little daughter began to run into her parents’ bedroom every night and scream that the children in the picture were fighting and changing their location. My father installed a motion-sensing camera in the room, and it went off several times during the night.

Of course, the family hastened to get rid of such a gift of fate, and soon Hands Resist Him was put up for online auction. And then numerous letters poured in to the organizers with complaints that while viewing the film, people felt sick, and some even had heart attacks. It was bought by the owner of a private art gallery, and now complaints have begun to come to him. Two American exorcists even approached him with offers of their services. And psychics who have seen the picture unanimously claim that evil emanates from it.

Photo – prototype of the painting “Hands Resist Him”:

There are several masterpieces of Russian painting that also have sad stories. For example, the painting “Troika” by Perov, known to everyone since school. This touching and sad picture depicts three peasant children from poor families who are pulling a heavy load, harnessed to it in the manner of draft horses.

In the center is a blond little boy. Perov was looking for a child for the picture until he met a woman with a 12-year-old son named Vasya, who were walking through Moscow on a pilgrimage.

Vasya remained the only consolation of his mother, who buried her husband and other children. At first she did not want her son to pose for the painter, but then she agreed. However, soon after the painting was completed, the boy died... It is known that after the death of her son, a poor woman came to Perov, begging him to sell her a portrait of her beloved child, but the painting was already hanging in the Tretyakov Gallery. True, Perov responded to his mother’s grief and painted a portrait of Vasya separately especially for her.

One of the brightest and most extraordinary geniuses of Russian painting, Mikhail Vrubel, has works that are also associated with the personal tragedies of the artist himself. Thus, the portrait of his beloved son Savva was painted by him shortly before the child’s death. Moreover, the boy fell ill unexpectedly and died suddenly. And “The Defeated Demon” had a detrimental effect on the psyche and health of Vrubel himself.

The artist could not tear himself away from the picture, he continued to add to the face of the defeated Spirit, and also change the color. “The Defeated Demon” was already hanging at the exhibition, and Vrubel kept coming into the hall, not paying attention to the visitors, sat down in front of the painting and continued to work, as if possessed.

Those close to him became concerned about his condition, and he was examined by the famous Russian psychiatrist Bekhterev. The diagnosis was terrible - tabes spinal cord, near madness and death. Vrubel was admitted to the hospital, but the treatment did not help, and he soon died.

An interesting story is connected with the painting “Maslenitsa”, which for a long time adorned the hall of the Ukraine Hotel. It hung and hung, no one really looked at it, until it suddenly became clear that the author of this work was a mentally ill person named Kuplin, who in his own way copied the painting by the artist Antonov. Actually, there is nothing particularly terrible or outstanding in the picture of a mentally ill person, but for six months it excited the vastness of the Runet.

Antonov's painting

Kuplin's painting

One student wrote a blog post about her in 2006. Its essence boiled down to the fact that, according to a professor at one of the Moscow universities, there is one hundred percent, but not obvious sign in the picture, by which it is immediately clear that the artist is crazy. And even supposedly based on this sign, you can immediately make a correct diagnosis.

But, as the student wrote, the cunning professor did not discover the sign, but only gave vague hints. And so, they say, people, help whoever can, because I can’t find it myself, I’m all exhausted and tired. It’s not hard to imagine what started here.

The post spread throughout the network, many users rushed to look for the answer and scold the professor. The picture gained wild popularity, as did the student’s blog and the professor’s name. No one was able to solve the riddle, and in the end, when everyone was tired of this story, they decided:

1. There is no sign, and the professor deliberately “misdirected” the students so that they would not skip lectures.
2. The professor is a psycho himself (even facts were cited that he was actually treated abroad).
3. Kuplin associated himself with the snowman who looms in the background of the picture, and this is the main solution to the mystery.
4. There was no professor, and the whole story was a brilliant flash mob.

By the way, many original guesses for this sign were also given, but none of them was recognized as correct. The story gradually faded away, although even now you can sometimes come across echoes of it on the RuNet. As for the picture, for some it really makes an eerie impression and causes unpleasant sensations.

During Pushkin’s time, the portrait of Maria Lopukhina was one of the main “horror stories”. The girl lived a short and unhappy life, and after painting the portrait she died of consumption. Her father Ivan Lopukhin was a famous mystic and master of the Masonic lodge.

That is why rumors spread that he had managed to lure the spirit of his deceased daughter into this portrait. And that if young girls look at the picture, they will soon die. According to the salon gossips, the portrait of Maria destroyed at least ten noblewomen of marriageable age...

The rumors were put to rest by the philanthropist Tretyakov, who in 1880 bought the portrait for his gallery. There was no significant mortality among female visitors. The conversations died down. But the residue remained.

Dozens of people who in one way or another came into contact with Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream,” whose value experts estimate at $70 million, were exposed to evil fate: they fell ill, quarreled with loved ones, fell into severe depression, or even suddenly died. All this gave the painting a bad reputation, so that museum visitors looked at it with caution, remembering the terrible stories that were told about the masterpiece.

One day, a museum employee accidentally dropped a painting. After some time, he began to have terrible headaches. It must be said that before this incident he had no idea what a headache was. The migraine attacks became more and more frequent and severe, and it ended with the poor man committing suicide.

Another time, a museum worker dropped a painting while it was being hung from one wall to another. A week later, he was in a horrific car accident that left him with broken legs, arms, several ribs, a fractured pelvis, and a severe concussion.

One of the museum visitors tried to touch the painting with his finger. A few days later, a fire started at his house, in which the man burned to death.

The life of Edvard Munch himself, born in 1863, was a series of endless tragedies and upheavals. Illness, death of relatives, madness. His mother died of tuberculosis when the child was 5 years old. Nine years later, Edward’s beloved sister Sophia died from a serious illness. Then brother Andreas died, and doctors diagnosed his younger sister with schizophrenia.

In the early 90s, Munch suffered a severe nervous breakdown and underwent electroshock treatment for a long time. He never married because the thought of sex terrified him. He died at the age of 81, leaving a huge creative legacy to the city of Oslo: 1200 paintings, 4500 sketches and 18 thousand graphic works. But the pinnacle of his work remains, of course, “The Scream.”

Dutch artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted “The Adoration of the Magi” over two years. He “copied” the Virgin Mary from his cousin. She was a barren woman, for which she received constant blows from her husband. It was she who, as simple medieval Dutch gossiped, “infected” the picture. “The Magi” was bought by private collectors four times. And each time the same story was repeated: no children were born in the family for 10-12 years...

Finally, in 1637, the architect Jacob van Kampen bought the painting. By that time he already had three children, so the curse did not particularly frighten him.

Probably the most famous bad picture of the Internet space with the following story: A certain schoolgirl (Japanese is often mentioned) drew this picture before cutting her veins (throwing herself out of a window, taking pills, hanging herself, drowning herself in a bathtub).

If you look at her for 5 minutes in a row, the girl will change (her eyes will turn red, her hair will turn black, fangs will appear). In fact, it is clear that the picture was clearly not drawn by hand, as many people like to claim. Although no one gives clear answers to how this picture appeared.

The following painting hangs modestly without a frame in one of the shops in Vinnitsa. “Rain Woman” is the most expensive of all works: it costs $500. According to the sellers, the painting has already been bought three times and then returned. Clients explain that they dream about her. And someone even says that they know this lady, but they don’t remember where. And everyone who has ever looked into her white eyes will forever remember the feeling of a rainy day, silence, anxiety and fear.

Its author, Vinnytsia artist Svetlana Telets, told where the unusual painting came from. “In 1996, I graduated from Odessa Art University. Grekova,” recalls Svetlana. “And six months before the birth of “Woman,” it always seemed to me that someone was constantly watching me.

I drove such thoughts away from myself, and then one day, by the way, not at all rainy, I sat in front of a blank canvas and thought about what to draw. And suddenly I clearly saw the contours of a woman, her face, colors, shades. In an instant I noticed all the details of the image. I wrote the main thing quickly - I finished it in about five hours.
It seemed as if someone was guiding my hand. And then I finished painting for another month.”

Arriving in Vinnitsa, Svetlana exhibited the painting in a local art salon. Art connoisseurs came up to her every now and then and shared the same thoughts that she herself had during her work.

“It was interesting to observe,” says the artist, “how subtly a thing can materialize a thought and inspire it in other people.”

A few years ago the first customer appeared. A lonely businesswoman walked around the halls for a long time, looking closely. Having bought “Woman”, I hung it in my bedroom.
Two weeks later, a night call rang in Svetlana’s apartment: “Please pick her up. I can not sleep. It seems that there is someone in the apartment besides me. I even took it off the wall and hid it behind the closet, but I still can’t.”

Then a second buyer appeared. Then a young man bought the painting. And I also couldn’t stand it for long. He brought it to the artist himself. And he didn’t even take the money back. “I dream about her,” he complained. - Every night he appears and walks around me like a shadow. I'm starting to go crazy. I'm afraid of this picture!

The third buyer, having learned about the notoriety of the “Woman,” simply waved it off. He even said that he thought the sinister lady’s face was cute. And she will probably get along with him. Didn't get along.
“At first I didn’t notice how white her eyes were,” he recalled. “And then they started appearing everywhere.” Headaches began, causeless worries. Do I need it?!

So “Rain Woman” returned to the artist again. Rumor spread throughout the city that this painting was cursed. It can drive you crazy in one night. The artist herself is no longer happy that she painted such horror.

However, Sveta does not lose optimism yet:
- Each painting is born for a specific person. I believe that there will be someone for whom “Woman” was written. Someone is looking for her - just like she is looking for him.