Art is the Solution

Happy April Fools’ Day! To celebrate the silliest holiday, I’ve decided to share some of the weirdest and most bizarre paintings I’ve encountered in the history of art.   Truth Coming Out of Her Well Source: Wikimedia Commons 1. Truth Coming Out of Her Well by Jean-Léon Gérôme All of the paintings I’m going to talk about today are weird; however, I have to say that this painting is particularly strange. Truth Coming Out of Her Well is an allegorical paintings that depicts truth as a naked woman climbing out of a well. The piece is based on a quote from the philosopher Democritus: "Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well." In Gérôme’s vision of the saying, Truth carries a whip “to chastise mankind.” The image of a naked woman climbing out of a well is pretty absurd on its own, but her ridiculous expression is what really makes this painting so goofy. I mean, look at that face, it’s so memeable! Saint Lucy Source: Wikimedia Commons 2. Saint Lucy by Domenico Beccafumi ...

Cat's Nightmare Source: Illustration Chronicles Today is National Cat Day! That means we’re going to spend some time celebrating felines through art, and there’s no better artist for that job than Louis Wain. Wain was a true devotee of cats. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find a piece of Wain art that didn’t include a cat. Purportedly, Wain began drawing cats to cheer up his ill wife, but it’s clear that cats soon became an obsession for him. Early in his career, Wain typically drew anthropomorphized versions of cats performing human activities. Many of these drawings are really charming and funny; however, his cats became increasingly abstract and surreal after Wain began to suffer from mental health problems. He was eventually confined to a psychiatric hospital, where he spent the last years of his life drawing cats in the garden. Today, some experts believe that Wain suffered from schizophrenia; although, it’s impossible to know for sure. Since Halloween is almost upon us...