Why do people think this painting is haunted?
The latest video in Yahoo News Australia's Tell Me Y series explores a painting bought at an op shop where people found a hidden skull.
Video transcript
- Why do people think this painting is haunted? A thrift shopper has received a string of unexpected responses when she shared a picture of a newly acquired artwork to a valuation site on Facebook. And that set off a string of colorful responses.
- Do you see a skull?
- One person immediately wrote.
- Yeah, now I can't unsee it.
- I didn't see a skull but I do see a bird.
- I see a kitten.
- I see a ghost around a little bird.
- Looks like a painting that would be in the ring.
- It's not unusual for artists to hide skulls in artwork. The ambassadors by Holbein is one famous example. In the case of the artwork, shared to Facebook though, one clever person realized it was actually a print of a well-known painting at the Art Institute Chicago. It's called The Home of the Heron and it's by George Inness. But unlike the print where the colors are slightly warped, no one seems to have noticed the skull in the original before. So now you know.
