The Art of Drawing Horror

Words by Amy Louise

TW: brief mentions of torture and sexual violence

Horror is a sensory experience. When we think of what causes fear, it is generally the sum of many things, an amalgamation of the senses, working together to cause your heart to quicken and a shiver to run across your spine. It’s chilly temperatures, dark nights, creepy corridors and tight spaces, combining with wailing winds, a menacing caw from a crow, a loud bang in the night, or a twanging violin as a woman is stabbed in a shower, particularly when such a thing is utilised as a jump scare. Since fear is a product of more than one sense working together, is it possible to be scared of just a painting?

Saturn Devouring His Son by Francisco Goya, is frequently cited as one of the scariest paintings ever made, and for good reason. Far more eloquently explained in this video essay here, Goya’s Saturn shocks viewers to this day for its raw portrayal of the Greek titan Cronus, who, prophesied to be eventually overthrown by one of his children, proceeded to eat them one by one. Frequently compared to Peter Paul Rubens’ painting of the same name, Goya’s carries a certain visceral impact on the viewer in comparison to Rubens’, despite the fact that both are violent in their imagery. 

Saturn Devouring His Son by Francisco Goya (1819 and 1823).

Is it the hunched over pose and desperation in Cronus’ eyes? Which pop from his skull in an eerily inhuman depiction of a being gone mad? His crotch obscured, many have speculated that the painting once portrayed Cronus’ penis as erect, lending a more gruesome implication that Cronus, despite seemingly going mad, also receives a certain element of pleasure in the act. 

How about the fact that Cronus is devouring an adult child? Rather than a baby, as portrayed in Rubens’ version. While some would say the act of devouring a baby is worse (if we’re comparing!), there’s something particularly sinister about the knowledge of this act occurring to a being fully aware of what is happening. The size and girth of the child adds to this. Rather than being swallowed whole, they are chewed and bitten, bit by bit. 

To move on to another piece of art, or rather, many pieces of art, Japanese printmaker Tsukioka Yoshitoshi’s Muzan-e or Bloody Prints also evoke plenty of horror, despite the fact they are just images. Considered one of the last great masters of Ukiyo-e, Japanese woodblock printing, the Bloody Prints form but one small piece of Yoshitoshi’s body of work. The first known example of erotic grotesque in Japanese culture, Yoshitoshi aimed to depict gruesome and violent acts in an attempt to illustrate the lawlessness of Japanese society as he knew it. 

Sakuma Daigaku drinking blood from a severed head by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1868).

The most shocking of the Bloody Prints are the Eimei nijūhasshūku, or Twenty-eight Famous Murders with Verse. Depicting a variety of gruesome and shocking acts, the thing that struck me most when I first encountered these prints was their viscerality. Guts spill, faces are ripped from heads, throats are slit, women are strung up and tortured. Some of the most violent acts that can be enacted by human beings occur in Yoshtoshi’s prints, laid out, raw in their portrayal. 

Yoshitoshi’s work was used to illustrate horrors of war and violence to the Japanese public in the 1800s. Nowadays, photography is used to capture the world’s horrors. Be it Nazi concentration camps, the use of napalm in the Vietnam war or the detonation of the first atomic bomb in Hiroshima, humanity’s worst moments have been captured by celluloid. Even our modern-day failures, including the ongoing refugee crisis, have been forever immortalised, as we confront images of overflowing refugee camps and drowned children on beaches. 

Photos such as these, which have been captured throughout history, are horrific. While many of us are likely desensitised to much of the real-life violence, there are some images that are too difficult to bear witness to despite that. Why is it so, however, that despite the prominence and ready-availability of real-life horrific images, that art like Goya’s and Yoshtoshi’s can still affect us so?

Judith Beheading Holofernes, by Italian baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, is frequently cited as yet another example of the many ways artists have captured gruesome acts on page. Yet to me, it doesn't communicate the same abject horror as the likes of Saturn and the Bloody Prints. Depicting the biblical character Judith, gorily severing the head of Holofernes, an Assriyan general who was about to destroy her home, the painting certainly captures the brutal task in all its gory. I would even consider it a more effective interpretation of the story than Caravaggio’s painting of the same name, namely due to brute force depicted by Gentileschi, as Judith pushes Holofernes down on the bed, hands grasped in his hair as blood spurts across the canvas. 

Judith Beheading Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi (1612-1613).

However, despite the violence, Judith Beheading Holofernes is not a scary painting. Rather, Gentileschi’s own experience with rape lends the painting a deeper feminist meaning of revenge and regaining control. It is brutality with a purpose. While no one can truly say if the act of painting it was therapeutic for Gentileschi, many would infer that the resulting product is one of strength, rather than horror. In fact, despite the violence, the intricately rendered forms and deep tones exude a bizarre beauty if anything else.

With this in mind, cycling back to Saturn and the Bloody Prints, why are they so scary in comparison to Judith? How can they affect someone in the same way a photograph of a real-life horror can? Many would assume that realism such as Judith would induce a greater sense of fear. However, I would argue that it is the deep stylisation of Saturn and the Bloody Prints that make them so terrifying. 

Goya’s Saturn is not a piece painstakingly painted over the course of weeks, in fact, it instead gives the impression that it was hurriedly scribbled in a fit of madness, which technically, it could have been, considering it was originally painted on the one of the walls in Goya’s house, and possibly never intended to be shown to the public. Part of his fourteen Black Paintings, Saturn, along with other scary examples such as A Pilgrimage to San Isidro and Witches Sabbath, articulate Goya’s failing mental health and increasingly bleak outlook on humanity towards the end of his life. Appearing almost as if it were a cave painting, Cronus stands hunched, eyes bulging, limbs elongated, caught in the act. Rubens’ Saturn, while gruesome, is beautiful. In comparison, Goya’s Saturn looks inhuman. A carnal, deranged creature from the depths of hell.

Yoshitoshi’s figures are of a similar vein. Take Murder of Ohagi by Saisaburô, which features the titular Ohagi, tied up and tortured. The stylisation of Ukiyo-e in general means that Ohagi and her murderer are cartoonish and contorted, Ohagi’s body is twisted, wound in an unnatural shape. The cartoonish manner lies in stark contrast to her obviously broken neck, and realistic blood dripping down her body, depicting a deeply disturbing scene. 

"Murder of Ohagi by Saisaburô", Twenty-eight famous murders with verse (1867)

The stylisation of both Saturn and the Bloody Prints transport the viewer to the realm of the uncanny. Despite not being realism, there is something for us to recognise in the deranged eyes of Cronus and the gruesome murders in the Bloody Prints. While exaggerated, the brutality shown is still horrifyingly realistic. The stylisation, contributing to the horror, provides a net in which to examine these feelings of fear and disgust in safety. 

If I look at a photograph of something horrific that actually happened, I flinch and look away, unable to glance for more than a second. However because the likes of Saturn and the Bloody Prints exist in a realm of the in-between, I can sit and stare, capable of taking the time to confront my disgust and horror because of the uncanny nature in which it’s portrayed. As such, these feelings are likely intensified. It’s the same logic that compels us towards horror cinema. Why someone may settle down to watch the likes of Halloween (1978), or get very into crime fiction, but can’t make it through the evening news. It taps directly into the innate fascination many of us would have with the grotesque, without the uncomfortable realities of it all, leaving us to sit and fester in our fear. 

Today, despite the increasing availability of horrific images, be they real, or fabricated, many artists and illustrators are still capable of tapping into this abject sense of terror. Take the prolific career of Japanese horror mangaka Junji Ito (the inspiration for this month’s poster). Best-known for titles Tomie and Uzumaki, Ito’s work perfectly captures the grotesque and uncanny. Drawing in a style that skews slightly more realistic (only just) than the typical manga style, an absence of tone and shading on his characters lends an otherworldly feel. The lack of detail on his faces stand in stark contrast to the intensely rendered flesh and viscera in his body horror scenes. There’s a sense of depth and reality to the mounds of blood and guts, resulting in an image that is both alien and familiar, like Saturn or the Bloody Prints.

An example of Junji Ito’s work from his 1998/99 series Uzumaki.

When sitting down to write this article, I wanted to attempt to articulate the complexities of drawn horror, to tap into the who, what and whys of scary paintings and how they can still be frightening to this day, despite the ready availability of real horrific stories and photography. The successful depiction of the uncanny is what allows these works and many more to prevail. Coupled with the fact that art itself can be a personification of the human psyche, often at its most broken, depressed or anxious, we are left confronting the notion that we are staring into a brief snapshot of the human mind, with all its intricacies. All in all, it’s impossible to pin down the exact formulae to horror, as it is a different experience for everyone. However, expertly capturing a sense of the abject and uncanny seems to be a good place to start.