Tessera

Public domain horror

@thevoidishungry.bsky.social

I find images of ghosts, monsters, and demons so you don't have to. Most of what I share is likely in the public domain, but usage policies vary by organization and country. Please check the citations and verify independently before using any imagery.

51 Posts293 Follower 670 Folgt

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Toorop, Jan. Dode non door man en vrouw beweend (Dead Nun Mourned by a Man and Woman). 1893, Ink and watercolour on paper, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands. #ink #death #watercolor #painting #drawing

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Toorop, Jan. De Bruid, de Priester en de Dood (The Bride, the Priest and Death). 1914, chalk and paint on paper, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands. #death #chalk #painting #drawing

Chalk and paint on paper of a bride coming through an archway. It is dark through the archway but the bride is illuminated in white. The archway is white while a skeleton drawn in black (representing death according to the title) stands to the left. On the right a priest drawn in black and green holds up a cup.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Rops, Félicien. De dood op het bal (Death at the Ball). c. 1865-1875, oil on canvas, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands. #death #dancing #oil #painting #dark #art

Oil painting of death dancing at a ball wearing a ornate white and blue outfit with red symbols or decorations. A hazy figure can barely be seen in the upper left.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

West, Benjamin. Death on the Pale Horse. 1796, oil on canvas, Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund, Detroit, Michigan. #canvas #death #england #horse #oil #painting #romanticism

The title of this painting is taken from the final book of the Bible, the Revelation of Saint John the Divine, which has often been interpreted as a symbolic description of warfare: “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And Power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with the sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth” (Rev. 6:8).

In this horrifying chronicle of the destruction of humankind, the rugged irregular forms, the dramatic contrasts of light and dark, and the dynamism of the turbulent movement combine with the distorted faces and pitiful gestures of the dead and dying to convey a sense of terror. The violent furor exhibits a destructive dynamism that makes this one of the most awesome depictions of the methods by which a world may be annihilated.
In 1796, the year this work was painted, England was at war with revolutionary France, and West’s picture may have been intended to comment on what was happening, or was expected to happen, in the contemporary world.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Ward, James. Drawing of a Man's Skeleton. Undated, Brown ink over graphite on medium, slightly textured, beige laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven, Connecticut. #skeleton #ink #anatomy #drawing #medicine #science

Drawing of a Man's Skeleton. Brown ink over graphite on medium, slightly textured, beige laid paper. Loosely drawn with more detail around the upper skeleton. Writing fills the upper right corner.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The damned writhe in boiling cauldrons; representing hell. Woodcut, Wellcome Collection, London, England. #fire #hell #demonology #monsters #woodcut #illustration

The damned writhe in boiling cauldrons; representing hell. Woodcut. Simple, think lines. 7 cauldrons filled with people being poked by winged and horned demons.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Bosch, Hieronymus. An angel leading a soul into hell. Oil painting by a follower of Hieronymus Bosch. Oil painting, Wellcome Collection, London, England. #oil #painting #hell #damned #torture

The arrival of a naked man in hell, escorted by a winged angel clad in white. The damned already there are receiving horrendous tortures at the hands of monsters. The rotunda in the right middle-ground is similar to Virgil's tomb at Piedigrotta, near Naples: Virgil is relevant to the subject of this picture also through his narrative of Aeneas' descent to the underworld in the Aeneid and through his role as Dante's guide to the Inferno in the Divine comedy. A similar furnace-like tumulus appears in a painting of Christ's descent into limbo by a follower of Bosch

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Doyle, Charles Altamont. A crowned fairy king seated on a hedgehog drawn by a girl holding a giant daisy, accompanied by dancing fairies. 1800-1899, watercolour, Wellcome Collection, London, England. #watercolor #painting #fairies #hedgehog #fantasy #folklore

A crowned fairy king seated on a hedgehog drawn by a girl holding a giant daisy, accompanied by dancing fairies.

"The seat of fairies is not always enviable." Lettering is faint and indistinct

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Maclise, Daniel, engraving by Bacon, Frederick. A faun surrounded by fairies. 1840 , intaglio prints, Wellcome Collection, London, England. #intaglio #faun #fairy #folklore #print #fairies

The artwork forms a circle with a faun blowing into its panpipes over a bush of some kind with creatures inside. The fauns hair goes up and frames the moon with an owl over it. Sounding the faun in a circle/oval are fairies.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Doré, Gustave. Death on the Pale Horse. 1865, found in a 20th century Swedish bible. Wikipedia. #death #horse #demons #monsters

Death rides into the world. He is the fourth knight of the apocalypse. Hell follows him.

The scene is in black and white. Death holds a scythe riding a pale horse. Surrounded by clouds. Following death are many winged creatures.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Stothard, Thomas, engraving by Bartolozzi, Francesco. The entrance to hell guarded by Sin and Death. 1792, stipple engraving, on etching, Wellcome Collection, London, England. #sin #death #hell #gate #engraving

A giant gate of stone leading into darkness with two beings sitting to either side.

The character the title names "Sin" is crying on the left with the tail of a serpent and what appears to be a dragon underneath them.

Then the character of "Death" is sitting up with their head on their fist wearing a crown and holding a spear. Smoke or steam is on either side of the gate going into darkness.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

William, Joseph Mallord. Death on a Pale Horse. c.1825-30, Oil paint on canvas , Nigel Llewellyn and Christine Riding (eds.), The Art of the Sublime, Tate Research Publication, January 2013, www.tate.org.uk/art/research... #death #horse #oil #painting #apocalypse #phantom

Although possibly incomplete, the subject can be identified as Death, the last of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse who announce the Day of Judgement (Book of Revelation). The choice may have been in response to the death of Turner’s father in 1829, suggested by the unusual treatment which is both tender and menacing. Death appears, not as a triumphant, upright figure astride his horse, but as a phantom emerging from a turbulent mist: his skeletal form, arms outstretched, and draped submissively over the horse’s pale back. Such disturbing visions were considered to embody the very concept of the sublime.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

A physician wearing a 17th century plague preventive. Watercolor painting, Wellcome Collection, London, England. #watercolor #plague #mask #doctor

A physician wearing a seventeenth century plague preventive costume. Black hat, brown mask over head and upper torso with a beak like extension and glass goggles, a red robe, brown gloves, black shoes.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Ward, James. A Human Skeleton. Undated, Graphite and brown ink and brown and gray wash, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven, Connecticut. #skeleton #graphite #ink #anatomy #drawing

Drawing of a skeleton face down on the ground. Graphite and brown ink and brown and gray wash; verso: watercolor on medium, smooth, cream wove paper mounted on medium, slightly textured, beige laid paper.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Sadeler, Johann/ Barendsz, Dirck. Hel als een van de vier uitersten (Hell as one of the four extremes ). 1560 - 1600, engraving, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. #hell #demons #fire #engraving

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · last yr.

Goya, Francisco. El aquelarre (The Sabbath of witches). 1797-98, oil on canvas, Lázaro Galdiano Museum, Madrid, Spain. #sabbat #sabbath #goya #oil #painting #satan #witchcraft

Witches' Sabbath shows Satan, surrounded by a coven of young and aged witches in a moonlit barren landscape. The goat possesses large horns and is crowned by a wreath of oak leaves. On the right, an old crone can be seen holding an extremely starved looking, but apparently still living, infant in her hands, while a younger witch to her right does the same with a healthier looking child, implying they will follow the same fate. The Devil seems to be acting as a sort of priest at an initiation ceremony for the children, although popular superstition at the time believed the Devil often fed on children and human fetuses. The dead body of an infant can be seen discarded to the left, whereas the legs of another can be seen held down with force to the ground by a presumably younger witch in the center foreground. More witches, young and old, can be seen in the background, as well as three dead infants hanging from the neck on a stake to the left.

Typical of the imagery of witchcraft, many of the symbols used are inverted. The goat extends his left rather than right hoof toward the child, while the quarter moon faces out of the canvas at the top left corner. In the middle high-ground, a number of bats can be seen flying overhead, their flocking motion echoing the curve of the crescent moon.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · last yr.

Le Breton, Louis. Images from The Dictionnaire Infernal (Infernal Dictionary) by Jacques Collin de Plancy. 1863, Wikipedia. #demonology #hell #bookillustrations #publicdomain

Depiction of the demon Paimon, or Paymon.

Ronove as depicted in the Dictionnaire Infernal

Marchosias appears as a fire-spitting chimeric wolf with the wings of a griffon and the tail of a serpent.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · last yr.

Wolgemut, Michael. Dance of Death, leaf from "The Nuremberg Chronicle". 1493, Woodcut and letterpress text, The Met, New York, NY, Bequest of Herbert Mitchell, 2008 #death #skeleton #dancing #woodcut

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · last yr.

Images from Surgical anatomy by Joseph Maclise. Project Gutenberg. #anatomy #medicalhistory #publicdomain #book

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · last yr.

Grien, Hans Baldung. Die Lebensalter und der Tod (The Ages and Death). Between circa 1540 and circa 1543, oil on panel, Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. #allegorical #painting #oil #life #death

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · last yr.

Warren, Johnson & Co. Devils and floating girl, circus stock poster. 1870, woodcut. Library of Congress, Washington DC. #devils #circus #publicdomain #woman #woodcut

Circus poster shows a woman sleeping in midair with devils below.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · last yr.

Doré, Gustave. Images from The vision of Hell, purgatory, and paradise by Dante Alighieri. Project Gutenberg. #dore #bookillustration #publicdomain #hell

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · last yr.

Bouts, Dieric. De Val van de verdoemden (The Fall of the Damned). c. 1468, oil on panel, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, Lille, France. #oil #painting #triptych #hell

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · last yr.

Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur (End of Time in the Middle Ages: The Vineyard of Our Saviour). c. 1450–1470, parchment, Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Douce 134 #hell #manuscript #illustrated #french #antichrist

A treatise on Antichrist, the Last Judgement, Heaven and Hell, comprising the final part ('le desrain liure') of a longer text.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · last yr.

Orazi, Manuel. Astrological & lunar chart / Sorciére; Astrological & lunar chart / Sorciere. 1895, chromolithography, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY. #lithograph #witchcraft #magic #occultism #publicdomain #skull #bat #owl

Astrological & lunar chart / Sorciére; Astrological & lunar chart / Sorciere. Calendrier Magique.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · last yr.

Bracquemond, Félix. Untitled (The Dream of the Mogul?). 1886, etching on vellum, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. #dream #monsters #snakes #figures #creatures

Dreamlike scene with a snake/monster and cowering people.

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · last yr.

Bracquemond, Félix. Le haut d'un battant de porte (Birds Nailed to a Barn Door). 1852, etching on laid paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. #birds #etching #publicdomain

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · last yr.

Painted by Moreland, G.; Engraved by Smith, J.R. A storm in a wild and rocky landscape: lightning flashes while a man drives a a coach and four hourses through the darkness. 1798, mezzotint, Wellcome Collection, London, England. #storm #lightning #darkness #horses #gloomy

A land storm. Painted by G. Moreland ; Engraved by J.R. Smith, mezzotinto engraver to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · last yr.

Rops, Félicien. A magician in his gothic study conjuring demons: a naked woman appearing from a mirror. 1800-1899, soft-ground etchings, Wellcome Collection, London, England. #etching #gothic #magic #demon #conjuration #woman

Public domain horror @thevoidishungry.bsky.social · last yr.

Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Anno 1057. Noli me tangere (A very rare compendium of the entire Art of Magic...) c.1775, book, Wellcome Collection, London, England. #demonology #magic #occult #publicdomain

In German and Latin. On white, brown and grey-green paper. The title within an ornamental border in wash, with skulls, skeletons and cross-bones. Illustrated with 31 extraordinary water-colour drawings of demons, and three pages of magical and cabbalistic signs and sigils, etc. At the end the figures are in red, and part of the text is written in white on the grey-green paper.