Haunted House by Morris Kantor (Interpretation and Analysis)

-
Haunted House
Source: Art Institute of Chicago
I first encountered this painting on social media. When I initially saw it, I thought to myself “now this is what I call a haunted house!” The piece immediately struck me as a creative and chilling way to depict a haunting.

As Halloween approaches, I wanted to share this unique vision of a haunted house. After all, there’s nothing spookier than a spirit in your living room!

As the title suggests, Haunted House depicts a living room decorated in the early American, Colonial style. The atmosphere is cheerful and bright; however, the warm and inviting room is juxtaposed with several eerie shadows that dominate the foreground of the painting.

One of these shadowy forms takes the shape of a person, while the other shapes suggest an open door. Other houses are embedded in these ghostly shapes, blurring the lines between indoors and outdoors and day and night. To the viewer, it feels as though there is an unwelcome presence in the room. It’s almost as though a spirit has entered the space, bringing the night with it.

These shadows turn the ordinary room into something uncanny. This phenomenon happens when something strange appears in the guise of something familiar. This experience is confusing for the human psyche, making encountering something uncanny a disconcerting experience. Thus, the ordinary furnishings and floral wallpaper seem sinister when paired with the spectral shapes, creating a tense and unsettling atmosphere. As the Art Institute of Chicago explains, the shadowy shapes “transform a nostalgic interior into a space of mystery and uncertainty.”

Today, artist Morris Kantor is known for experimenting with a wide variety of styles and subjects, including several paintings of domestic interiors. Each of these paintings features a room in a house with some sort of surreal twist; Haunted House is the most famous of these works. According to my research, Kantor was inspired to create these domestic scenes after visiting colonial houses during summer visits to New England.

Happy haunting!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Le Chat Aux Poissons Rouges by Henri Matisse (Interpretation and Analysis)

-
Image
Le Chat Aux Poissons Rouges Source: Pinterest French artist Henri Matisse is rather famous for his paintings of goldfish. In fact, one of his most famous paintings, entitled Goldfish , depicts several of the aforementioned fish swimming in a bowl. Matisse is one of the most famous artists of the twentieth century. His work is closely associated with the Fauvist movement and is generally characterized by great energy and rich, intense colors. Based on my research , Matisse began painting goldfish after he traveled to North Africa. In Morocco, Matisse observed locals watching goldfish swim in their bowls as they sunk into a meditative state. The fish subsequently became a symbol for this sense of tranquility, coming to represent an idyllic version of the world only accessible through joyous day-dreams. These calming fish are prominent in this painting, which is entitled Le Chat Aux Poissons Rouges (which translates to The Cat With Red Fishes ). However, the serene energy of the f...
Read more

Mural La Plena by Rafael Tufiño (Interpretation and Analysis)

-
Image
Mural la Plena Source: Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico Today I want to chat about a monumental piece of art that I recently had the pleasure of seeing at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico. As the name suggests, Mural La Plena is a massive mural, fifteen by thirty feet in size, that was created by Puerto Rican artist Rafael Tufiño to commemorate la plena, a wildly popular genre of music that was born in the city of Ponce around 1900. The mural, which might appear abstract or incomprehensible to a viewer unfamiliar with the subject matter, illustrates the lyrics of popular plena songs. For example, the blue-green figure that dominates the upper half of the mural represents the hurricane from the plena “Temporal,” which mourns the destruction caused by a storm. Plena, as a genre, tells stories. According to my research , the lyrics come from current events, re-telling the stories that affected the lives of the people of Ponce. It began as a way for people of low socio-economic sta...
Read more

Five Puerto Rican Artists You Should Know

-
Image
The island of Puerto Rico has a long and vibrant artistic tradition. Western, Indigenous, and African cultures have all left their mark on Puerto Rican art, creating a colorful and unique visual legacy. While Puerto Rican artists have demonstrated their excellence throughout the years— from the creators of the captivating Taino petroglyphs to the sophisticated and subtle works of the Modernist painters—Puerto Rican art has received little attention from art historians and the wider art world. Here are five underappreciated Puerto Rican artists that you should know: 1. José Campeche José Campeche is often known as the first Puerto Rican painter in the Western history of fine arts. He was primarily known for his religious paintings and his portraits of elite Puerto Ricans, and today his work is recognized as some of the finest examples of Rococo art produced in the Americas. Campeche’s personal story is also inspiring. The son of a slave who had purchased his own freedom, Campech...
Read more