I was walking around the Art Institute of Chicago today and realized something. While what I was seeing was very nice and interesting, it was all sort of... pleasant. There was nothing disturbing or evil or dark or angry.
Obviously I see modern art that fits that bill, but is there any art that's older - say 19 century or before that depicts that kind of really negative or disturbing emotion?
Absolutely there is. Take for example, the artists of the German Renaissance, operating in the late 15th and early 16th century, such as Matthias Grünewald, Albrecht Altdorfer and Albrecht Dürer. Grünewald's depiction of The Crucifixion from the Isenheim Altarpiece is infamous for its graphic depiction of suffering. Durer is celebrated for engravings such as Knight, Death and the Devil that have exerted an influence over illustrators interested in the macabre through to Gustave Doré in the 19th century and exponents such as Ian Miller today. Probably the painting that is most associated with the concept of 'evil' in Western art history is by a slightly older Dutch contemporary of these artists, the famous Hell Panel from Heironymus Bosch's surreal Triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights. Generally, all these artists contributed significantly to the aesthetic styles championed by later artists who were interested in the 'romantic' mode of expression, which tended to oppose the clean lines, airy spaces and perfect, naked bodies favoured by classically-influenced aesthetics with darkness, closeness, natural forms and disfigured, cloaked or uncertain bodies.
