- They say a picture is worth a thousand words,
but what about a life?
There have been several paintings that have been proven
to have paranormal phenomena surrounding them.
These events are so eerie and disturbing,
it's a wonder that anyone ever owned them at all.
If you have any paintings in your house right now,
you may want to think twice about where they came from.
Here are 10 haunted paintings with creepy backstories.
Number 10 is Untitled.
Just one in a series of paintings about death
by artist Zdzislaw Beksinski,
an expert in the art of dystopian surrealism,
this untitled piece seems like something
right out of a nightmare both visually
and how being around it make people feel.
It's believed the painter's obsession with death
seemed to draw it directly to him.
He lost his wife in 1998 to cancer
and his own son to suicide only a year later.
Then, in 2005, he himself was found dead
in his own apartment after he refused
to lend a 19-year-old boy that he knew money,
and the teenager proceeded to stab him to death.
Today the ghostly artwork is said
to give off an eerie feeling,
and many believe that looking at it too long
will bring the viewer an unhealthy dose of death as well.
That's right, the very painting
you're looking at on your screen right now.
Number nine is Soul Bowl.
After finding an interesting painting of a bowl
in an antique shop in Pauanui, New Zealand,
a person identified only by their username Heylin
bought it and brought it home.
Soon after purchasing it,
he found on the side of the canvas
there was in inscription which read "Soul is a bowl."
It wasn't long before he felt that perhaps
the writing was meant as a warning.
After it was hung in their home,
the painting fell off the wall,
even though there was no wind entering the room
and nothing touched it.
A short time later, their family was outside the house
when they spotted a dark figure
standing in the room that the painting was in.
Upon investigation, they discovered that there was
nobody in their home at all.
Things eventually became so terrifying
that Heylin was forced to auction it off
and get out of the house.
Number eight is The Stagecraft.
In 1994, commercial photographer James Kidd
took a photograph of an old stagecoach stop
in Tombstone, Arizona.
When he developed it, he was shocked to discover
that standing beside the wagon in the frame
was what appeared to be a headless man.
Recreating Kidd's picture, The Stagecraft
was painted by a woman named Laura P.,
who claimed to feel very strange while making it.
She gave it to a friend at an office,
but soon after she got complaints
that the painting seemed to move on its own
and papers kept disappearing from people's desks.
Laura took the painting back
and hung it in her own home,
but the ghost came with it.
Glasses broke, ornaments sailed off walls,
and leaks appeared with no apparent cause,
and all in places near the painting of the headless man.
Number seven is Love Letters Replica.
In April of 1887, four-year-old Samantha Houston,
the daughter of a United States Senator,
was playing with a ball near the grand staircase
in the Driscoll Hotel in Austin, Texas,
when she lost her footing,
fell down the stairs, and tragically died.
It's said that her ghost still haunts
a portrait that hangs there called Love Letters Replica.
Though the painting is of a little girl,
the subject isn't actually Samantha.
It's a replica of another portrait by artist Richard King.
Still, it's believed it's Samantha's spirit that haunts it.
Guests and staff at the hotel have reported
becoming nauseous or feeling like
they're being lifted into the air
when standing in front of it.
Some even claim they've seen the girl's expression
slowly change as if she's attempting
to communicate with them from the afterlife.
Number six is The Rain Woman.
Art is meant to inspire certain feelings
in those who take it in.
But when something in that art makes you feel terrible,
then maybe there's something to it
beyond the artist's intentions.
Painted by Ukrainian artist Svetlana Telets,
The Rain Woman has a history
of making people so uncomfortable,
they return it soon after purchasing it,
most claiming that it made them unable to sleep.
According to Telets the portrait,
which depicts a pale woman with a long neck
standing in the rain while wearing all black,
actually painted itself.
The artist finished the entire thing in just five hours,
and the whole time her hand
was being guided by something unseen.
Still today those who spend time around it
become severely uncomfortable,
and many complain about feeling sad
or even being watched by something that they cannot see.
Number five is the portrait of Bernardo de Galvez.
Located in Galveston, Texas,
the Galvez Hotel is named after
the famous Spanish military leader Bernardo de Galvez
and is home to a portrait of the same man that is considered
one of the most haunted paintings on earth.
Paranormal events involving the portrait occur so frequently
that many guests have accused the hotel staff
of pulling off some sort elaborate prank.
Galvez's eyes seem to move on their own in the painting,
sometimes following the guests who pass it by.
Those who remain close to it for an extended period
suddenly become cold and tense,
as if fear has taken ahold of them.
And if you want to take a picture of this portrait,
you'd better remember to ask Galvez first.
Otherwise, he will interfere,
and your photo will come out blurry.
Although that is the least of your worries.
Number four is The Dead Mother.
Artist Edvard Munch,
best known for his famous painting The Scream,
created another less-famous
but arguably much creepier painting,
one which seems to affect all who stare at it
for any length of time.
Completed between 1899 and 1900,
The Dead Mother depicts a young child covering her ears
while her mother lays in a bed behind her,
clearly dead and surrounded by mourners.
Legend has it that many people
who chanced a look at this cursed painting
began screaming uncontrollably,
terrified of something unseen coming from the painting.
Those who don't lose their minds
are said to feel a cold shiver run through them
or even hear the picture's bedsheets rustling softly,
as if the mother is getting up,
to ensure that they are afraid.
Number three are The Hands Resist Him.
Painted by Bill Stoneham in 1972,
The Hands Resist Him is a painting that has another name
that many of those who believe in its legend
call The Haunted eBay Painting.
The artwork depicts a young boy and a life-size doll,
both standing in a doorway in front of a dark glass window,
which has a number of hands reaching forward,
as if trying to grab them.
In February of 2000,
a couple from California put the painting up on eBay
with the claim that it was haunted by something truly evil.
At night, it's said that the boy,
who is allegedly scared of the doll next to him,
exits the canvas into whatever room it's being displayed in.
In addition,
the owner of the first gallery that it was in,
plus the first art critic to review it,
both died the same year that they laid eyes on it.
Definitely not a painting you want in your home,
or even one you should be placing your eyes upon.
Number two is The Crying Boy.
In the 1950s, artist Giovanni Bragolin
created a series of paintings
that included one of the strangest,
most eerie portraits to ever grace a wall,
The Crying Boy.
Literally an image of a young boy crying,
this painting appears to draw severe misfortune
to whomever hangs it in their home.
Devastating house fires
followed not only the original painting,
but many of the copies that have been made of it as well.
And in all of them,
the unsettling portrait somehow survives,
even when the entire room around it is turned to ashes.
In 1985, a story in the Sun,
a tabloid paper in the United Kingdom,
revealed the curse of the crying children paintings,
and their popularity plummeted.
Still, the curse is said to remain with those
that are still hanging on the walls.
And number one is The Anguished Man.
Little is known about the painting
known as The Anguished Man
prior to it coming into the possession of a woman
from northern England around 1985.
When she passed away,
the artwork was left to her grandson, Sean Robertson,
who pieced together what he could about it
mostly from his grandmother's stories of it being evil.
Robertson found that the unidentified artist
behind The Anguished Man used his own blood in its creation
and committed suicide shortly after its completion.
But shortly after it passed to Sean,
his family started experiencing strange occurrences.
Cries and moans could be heard coming from the painting,
and a dark figure was spotted on multiple occasions,
staring at them before it vanished.
Videos were captured of the painting moving on its own,
making many believe that it is truly haunted.
(eerie roaring)
(eerie music)