Twelve stories about the darkest side of art history, sorted by subject: grief, hell, ghosts, witches, plague, madness, violence and fear. Every list already published on this site lives here, one click away from the rest.
Grief and Death
Millais painted Ophelia drowning in flowers in 1852. Gericault painted the survivors of a real shipwreck in 1819. Twelve of the saddest paintings ever made, from van der Weyden's 15th century Descent from the Cross to Van Gogh's final year, are gathered in The Saddest Paintings in Art History.
Hell and the Devil
Bosch, Giotto, Signorelli and a 25 year old Bouguereau all painted hell as an actual place, mapped level by level in Hell in Painting: 12 Famous Visions. The devil who runs it, from medieval goat gods to Vrubel's fallen angel, gets his own gallery in Famous Devil Paintings.
Ghosts and Nightmares
Fuseli painted an incubus crouched on a sleeping woman's chest in 1781, one of the most copied images in art history. It anchors Famous Ghost Paintings and reappears at the center of Nightmares in Painting: 12 Works That Haunt.
Witches and the Occult
Durer engraved a witch riding backward on a goat. Goya painted a witches' sabbath in 1798. Waterhouse painted Circe and a magic circle drawn in fire. Twelve paintings of witchcraft are collected in Witches in Art.
Plague and Mortality
Bruegel's Triumph of Death and Holbein's Dance of Death set the tone for how European painters pictured mass death, covered in Plague in Art: 12 Paintings. The same warning shrinks to a tabletop of skulls and hourglasses in Famous Vanitas Paintings, and turns into a public procession of skeletons in Skeletons and the Danse Macabre.
Madness
Goya painted an asylum lit by a single barred window. Van Gogh painted his final year from inside one. Twelve works about how painters saw mental illness are gathered in Madness in Painting: 12 Works.
Violence and Execution
Caravaggio painted Salome receiving the severed head of Saint John the Baptist. Goya painted Spanish prisoners facing French rifles in 1808. Twelve depictions of judicial death are gathered in Famous Execution Paintings.
Fear Itself
Bosch, Goya, Fuseli, Bruegel and Munch's Scream close out the darkest list of all, in Creepy Paintings: 12 of Art History's Most Terrifying.
Twelve lists in total, running from a manuscript illustrated around 1150 to a Symbolist canvas the Met bought in 2011.