Why are vague paintings of unpleasant scenes incredibly disconforting?
Posted: 2018-02-03 02:23pm
So, as of right now I was just scrolling down my Quora feed, browsing the questions, as I do frequently these days. So, the feed on my page usually consists of questions like "What is an incredibly interesting/sad/frightening/etc thing that has happened to you?", and the answers to these questions are generally very fun to read. Anyway, today I saw a post titled something like "What is the most disturbing picture or painting that you ssw"? These types of questions are usually very common, and someone usually posts pictures of gore or car accidents or crime scenes that they found on the internet.
However, this time, they posted an artwork, a muddied painting consisting of green and brown. In the description they mentioned that their ex, who was a painter, had created it and it was apparently very unpleasant for them.
At first, I didn't see much, perhaps something that looked like a vagina or something, but after looking at it for longer, I saw that it looked similar to a severed animal head of some sort, maybe a coyote or a dog which was either dangling or floating. And for some strange reason, it was actually incredibly disturbing for me to look at, which is very strange, since I am rarely much upset when just looking at things like that as tall photos on the internet.
And I really don't know why, I immediately clicked it away and felt a strong sense of dread, similar to when I'm on a airplane or drank too much coffee (I don't have a automatic coffee mixer, so it's hard to get the amount of ground coffee powder just right, sometimes it's way too strong).
So I really don't know why I found that painting so interesting. I think the poster's words of "I don't know what you saw on there, and I'm not saying what I saw, although I'm just going to assume you saw it too" made it a bit creepier as well. Otherwise, I'm going to assume some sort of "subconscious vision/thought" is the answer. I wonder if there is a specific category for these types of paintings? It'd be pretty cool to actually draw one for myself.
However, this time, they posted an artwork, a muddied painting consisting of green and brown. In the description they mentioned that their ex, who was a painter, had created it and it was apparently very unpleasant for them.
At first, I didn't see much, perhaps something that looked like a vagina or something, but after looking at it for longer, I saw that it looked similar to a severed animal head of some sort, maybe a coyote or a dog which was either dangling or floating. And for some strange reason, it was actually incredibly disturbing for me to look at, which is very strange, since I am rarely much upset when just looking at things like that as tall photos on the internet.
And I really don't know why, I immediately clicked it away and felt a strong sense of dread, similar to when I'm on a airplane or drank too much coffee (I don't have a automatic coffee mixer, so it's hard to get the amount of ground coffee powder just right, sometimes it's way too strong).
So I really don't know why I found that painting so interesting. I think the poster's words of "I don't know what you saw on there, and I'm not saying what I saw, although I'm just going to assume you saw it too" made it a bit creepier as well. Otherwise, I'm going to assume some sort of "subconscious vision/thought" is the answer. I wonder if there is a specific category for these types of paintings? It'd be pretty cool to actually draw one for myself.