The Cultural Tutor Profile picture
Feb 18, 2024 20 tweets 8 min read Read on X
What does Satan look like?

Strange, disturbing, and unintentionally funny: this is a brief history of the Devil in art... Image
The Garden of Earthly Delights, painted by Hieronymus Bosch at the beginning of the 16th century, is probably the most famous portrayal of Hell in art.

What's most striking about it is that Bosch does not just portray the Devil as evil — here he is utterly insane. Image
But Bosch is not unique.

He was part of a broad Lade Medieval tradition whereby Hell and the things in it — including the Devil — were depicted, above all else, as *strange*.

The Harrowing of Hell, by one of Bosch's followers, continues to indulge that same fiery madness. Image
Or consider Pieter Brueghel the Elder's Fall of the Rebel Angels, painted in the 1560s; it depicts Lucifer and his followers being cast out of Heaven.

Zoom in and look at the details — some of them are almost inexplicably bizarre.

Surreal, darkly funny, and dreamlike terror. Image
Bartolomé Bermejo, a 15th century Spanish painter who travelled to the Netherlands and there learned the art of oil painting, created one of the most memorable versions of the Devil.

A metallic beetle-monster whose every limb is a different creature, whose very joints are jaws. Image
In Italy, meanwhile, Fra Angelico — most famous for his pious and pure paintings of saints — conjured this foul beast.

The Renaissance was coming, but the Late Medieval imagination still held sway with its unbounded embrace of sheer and fantastical strangness: Image
Though, that being said, the Middle Ages also produced some of the most unintentionally funny devils... Image
But the Devil has not always looked so strange.

As the influence of the Renaissance spread, the imaginative scope of artists also seemed to shrink.

Guido Reni's 1636 version of St Michael triumphing over Satan simply depicts him as an evil-looking man with wings. Image
Though, done well, this modern trope of the Devil as a winged man can be rather frightening.

Alexandre Cabanel's famous Fallen Angel, from 1847, has an almost disturbingly dark intensity, all because of the expression on his face.

Sometimes you don't need flames or monsters. Image
Any discussion of Hell must include Dante and his famous Inferno, where Satan is described as a huge three-headed monster submerged in a sea of ice.

But, sometimes, when a thing is too well described it becomes less scary — is not mystery the most frightening thing of all? Image
Gustave Doré was a 19th century French artist who, among other poems and books, made illustrations for John Milton's Paradise Lost, a 17th century epic poem where Satan is (sort of) the protagonist.

Satan as a character may be more engaging, but it is perhaps less frightening.
Image
Image
But these dramatic and characterised portrayals became more common.

From the genuinely disturbing devils of the Middle Ages we move to something like Pandemonium, by the 19th century English painter John Martin

This scene, epic in scale, is almost cinematic. Image
John Martin also made Satan Presiding Over His Infernal Council, which again leans into that epic scale and grand narrative.

Satan as a dramatic character is certainly more compelling, but that sense of the visceral horror of evil has perhaps been lost. Image
Some of the most frightening paintings of the Devil are the least dramatic.

Rather than reigning in a realm of flames or appearing as a fantastical beast, the Devil is more chilling when portrayed as part of the real world.

Albrecht Dürer's devil is skin-crawlingly creepy. Image
And then there is something like the Witches' Sabbath by Francesco Goya.

Goya's talent for painting faces strained with anguish and torn apart by lunacy only enhances the overwhelming creepiness of this painting. Image
Along similar lines is Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare, from 1781.

Although it doesn't portray the Devil, strictly speaking, as a vision of evil it is almost oppressively dark. Image
Sometimes you don't need to be graphic.

In Giotto's painting of Judas betraying Jesus, from the early 1300s, we simply see a dark figure embracing him.

This is somehow more unsettling than any strange monster or colossal beast... a mere shadow. Image
And perhaps the most striking paintings of the Devil don't even include him.

Like Christ in the Wilderness, painted by Ivan Kramskoy in 1872, where by his very absence the Devil feels more real, more invisibly and universally present, than ever. Image
Of course, the Devil is not only a Christian concept — other religions have similar ideas of evil creatures, spirits, and demons, and there is a whole world of strange and terrifying art out there. Spectre Frightening a Young Woman by Utagawa Yoshiiku (1890)
There is no single way to portray evil — so what is it, specifically, that makes paintings of the Devil frightening to you?

Is it when we see something horrifying and strange, something otherworldly, or a scene of total mundanity?
Image
Image

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with The Cultural Tutor

The Cultural Tutor Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @culturaltutor

Aug 31
We spend more than 90% of our time inside, so why do we design so many of our interiors like this?

Grey carpets, white walls, harsh lighting.

It's generic, boring, and genuinely bad for our physical and psychological health... Image
Not all interiors look like this, but too many do, and more all the time.

Grey carpets, white walls, harsh lighting, neutral colours for details, everything plastic, shiny, and rectangular.

This has become the standard for new buildings (and refurbishments) around the world. Image
A common response is that some people like it, or at least don't mind it.

Maybe, but that's the problem.

The sum of all tastes is no taste at all, and if our aim is simply to make things that people "don't mind" then we end up with blandness. Image
Read 22 tweets
Aug 21
The world's most famous neoclassical buildings are kind of boring and generic when you actually look at them.

It's even hard to tell them apart: which one below is Versailles, or Buckingham Palace?

So here's why neoclassical architecture (although it's nice) is overrated: Image
Buckingham Palace, despite being one of the world's most famous and visited buildings, is essentially quite boring and uninspiring from the outside.

There's a certain stateliness to it, but (like most big neoclassical buildings) it's really just a box wrapped in pilasters. Image
The same is true of Versailles.

Again, it's evidently pretty (largely thanks to the colour of its stone) but there's something weirdly plain about it, almost standardised.

Plus the emphasis on its horizontal lines makes it feel very low-lying, undramatic, and flat. Image
Read 26 tweets
Aug 17
These aren't castles, palaces, or cathedrals.

They're all water towers, literally just bits of infrastructure relating to water management.

Is it worth the additional cost and resources to make things look like this... or is it a waste? Image
These old water towers are an architectural subgenre of their own.

There are hundreds, mostly Neo-Gothic, and all add something wonderful to the skylines of their cities.

Like the one below in Bydgoszcz, Poland, from 1900.

But, most importantly, they're just infrastructure. Image
We don't think of infrastructure as something that can improve how a town looks and feels.

Infrastructure is necessary to make life convenient; but also, we believe, definitionally boring.

These water towers prove that doesn't have to, and shouldn't be, the case. Image
Read 24 tweets
Aug 8
If one thing sums up the 21st century it's got to be all these default profile pictures.

You've seen them literally thousands of times, but they're completely generic and interchangeable.

Future historians will use them to symbolise our current era, and here's why... Image
To understand what any society truly believed, and how they felt about humankind, you need to look at what they created rather than what they said.

Just as actions instead of words reveal who a person really is, art always tells you what a society was actually like.
And this is particularly true of how they depicted human beings — how we portray ourselves.

That the Pharaohs were of supreme power, and were worshipped as gods far above ordinary people, is made obvious by the sheer size and abundance of the statues made in their name: Image
Read 23 tweets
Aug 6
This is St. Anne's Church in Vilnius, Lithuania.

It's over 500 years old and the perfect example of a strange architectural style known as "Brick Gothic".

But, more importantly, it's a lesson in how imagination can transform the way our world looks... Image
Vilnius has one of the world's best-preserved Medieval old towns.

It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, filled with winding streets and architectural gems from across the ages.

A testament to the wealth, grandeur, and sophistication of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Image
Among its many treasures is the Church of St Anne, built from 1495 to 1500 under the Duke of Lithuania and (later) King of Poland, Alexander I Jagiellon.

It's not particularly big — a single nave without aisles — but St Anne's makes up for size with its fantastical brickwork. Image
Read 18 tweets
Jul 31
Tell your friends! Your enemies! Your lovers!

The Spanish edition of my new book, El Tutor Cultural, is now available for pre-order.

It'll be released on 22 October — and you can get it at the link in my bio.

To celebrate, here are the 10 best things I've written about Spain: from why Barcelona looks the way it does to one of the world's most underrated modern architects, from the truth about Pablo Picasso to the origins of the Spanish football badge...Image
What makes Barcelona such a beautiful city? It wasn't an accident — this is the story of how the modern, beloved Barcelona was consciously created:

Image
And, speaking of Barcelona, here's why the renovation of the Camp Nou is — although necessary — a shame:

Image
Read 11 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(