When Beauty Preserves Pain
A picture is worth a thousand words. You've probably heard that expression before. You've likely also heard that "art imitates life." And as most of us know, life, unfortunately, isn't always pretty. The artists we've admired throughout history know this all too well, too, which is why they've often been able to illustrate scenes of anguish and tragedy heartbreakingly well. From executions to illness, loss, shipwrecks, and war, the 20 artworks on this list depict poignant stories. Please be warned that some of them may be triggering.
1. Guernica by Pablo Picasso
Picasso created Guernica in response to the April 1937 bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. German and Italian aircraft supporting Francisco Franco’s forces attacked the town, killing civilians and leaving much of it in ruins. Picasso filled the enormous black-and-white painting with injured figures, grieving parents, and terrified animals rather than presenting the destruction as a traditional battle scene.
2. The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault
This enormous painting was based on the 1816 wreck of the French naval frigate Méduse, whose captain had received his position through political connections despite limited experience. Around 150 people were placed on a poorly constructed raft, but only 15 survived after nearly two weeks of starvation, dehydration, violence, and exposure. Géricault interviewed survivors and studied human remains while preparing a work that also condemned the incompetence behind the disaster.
3. The Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya
Goya’s painting depicts French troops executing Spanish civilians after an uprising against Napoleon’s occupation of Madrid. The central victim raises his arms while bodies already lie at his feet and others wait for their turn. Although Goya painted the scene in 1814, six years after the killings, its subject came directly from the mass executions carried out on the night of May 3, 1808.
4. The Execution of Lady Jane Grey by Paul Delaroche
Lady Jane Grey was placed on the English throne in July 1553 as part of an attempt to prevent the Catholic Mary Tudor from becoming queen. Her reign lasted only nine days, and she was eventually convicted of treason and beheaded in 1554 when she was about 16 or 17 years old. Delaroche shows the blindfolded teenager reaching for the execution block as an attendant guides her hand toward it.
5. Ophelia by John Everett Millais
Millais portrays the final moments of Ophelia, the young woman from Shakespeare’s Hamlet who drowns after experiencing grief, rejection, and psychological distress. Elizabeth Siddal modeled for the painting by lying in a bathtub filled with water, which was kept warm with lamps placed underneath. The lamps reportedly went out during one session, and Siddal became seriously ill after remaining in the cold water while Millais continued working.
6. The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David
Jean-Paul Marat, a radical journalist and political figure during the French Revolution, was assassinated in his bathtub on July 13, 1793. Charlotte Corday gained access to his home by claiming she had information about his political enemies, then stabbed him while he worked. David, who knew Marat and shared his revolutionary politics, transformed the murder scene into an image of sacrifice and public mourning.
Jacques-Louis David on Wikimedia
7. The Execution of Emperor Maximilian by Édouard Manet
Maximilian of Austria became emperor of Mexico in 1864 with military support from Napoleon III of France. After French forces withdrew, the republican army captured him, and he was executed alongside generals Miguel Miramón and Tomás Mejía in June 1867. Manet produced several versions of the event, but French officials suppressed a related lithograph because the uniforms implicated France in the failed intervention.
8. The Massacre at Chios by Eugène Delacroix
Delacroix based this painting on atrocities committed against Greek civilians on the island of Chios during the Greek War of Independence. Ottoman forces attacked the island in 1822, killing thousands of residents and selling many others into slavery. Rather than concentrating on a single heroic figure, the artist filled the canvas with wounded, grieving, and captive civilians awaiting uncertain fates.
9. Beata Beatrix by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Rossetti modeled the central figure on his wife, artist and poet Elizabeth Siddal, who died in 1862 following an overdose of laudanum. He presented her as Beatrice, the deceased woman idealized in the writings of Italian poet Dante Alighieri. The white poppy carried by a bird refers to the opium-derived substance connected to Siddal’s death, making the painting both a literary scene and a personal memorial.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti on Wikimedia
10. Chatterton by Henry Wallis
Thomas Chatterton was a gifted English writer who created poems that he falsely attributed to a fictional medieval author. Struggling financially and facing professional rejection, he died from poisoning in 1770 at only 17 years old, with suicide long considered the likely explanation. Wallis painted him lying beside torn papers and an empty bottle, turning the young writer’s death into a criticism of society’s treatment of impoverished artists.
11. The Broken Column by Frida Kahlo
Kahlo painted The Broken Column after undergoing spinal surgery in 1944 to address the lasting effects of a devastating bus accident she’d survived as a teenager. She depicts her torso split open, with a damaged classical column standing in for her spine and nails covering her skin. The medical brace around her body reflects the restrictive supports she repeatedly wore while living with severe chronic pain.
12. The Last Day of Pompeii by Karl Bryullov
Bryullov’s monumental painting imagines the final hours of Pompeii as Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. Residents flee beneath a darkened sky while buildings collapse, families become separated, and others realize they may not escape. Although the artist completed the work in 1833, he studied the excavated city and incorporated details inspired by objects and human remains found there, connecting the dramatic scene to a real ancient catastrophe.
13. Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan by Ilya Repin
Repin depicts Ivan the Terrible clutching his mortally wounded son after striking him during an argument. The exact historical circumstances surrounding the prince’s death in 1581 remain disputed, but the painting presents the event as a moment of immediate horror and regret. Ivan’s terrified expression contrasts with his son’s weakening body, placing the focus on the devastating consequences of uncontrolled violence rather than royal power.
Pierre André Leclercq on Wikimedia
14. The Death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West
Benjamin West’s 1770 painting portrays the final moments of British general James Wolfe during the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759. Wolfe was mortally wounded shortly before receiving word that his forces had defeated the French outside Quebec City. Although West arranged the scene for dramatic effect rather than strict historical accuracy, the painting preserves the terrible cost behind a victory that changed control of much of North America.
15. The Scream by Edvard Munch
Munch grew up surrounded by illness and bereavement, losing his mother to tuberculosis when he was five and his sister Sophie to the same disease several years later. Mental illness also affected members of his family, while Munch himself experienced anxiety, depression, and periods of emotional instability. The Scream emerged from this broader preoccupation with fear, isolation, illness, and death, drawn from a moment of horrifying dread and panic.
16. At Eternity’s Gate by Vincent van Gogh
Van Gogh returned to the image of an elderly man sitting with his head in his hands several times, eventually producing a painted version in 1890. He completed it while receiving treatment at the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Rémy, where his mental health fluctuated and at times prevented him from painting. Van Gogh died later that year after suffering a gunshot wound, giving the work’s despairing figure an especially painful place in his final months.
17. Garden of the Asylum by Vincent van Gogh
The garden in this painting belonged to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole hospital, where Van Gogh admitted himself in May 1889 because of his deteriorating mental health. During severe episodes, he was confined indoors and temporarily restricted to drawing after ingesting paint. Even so, he remained remarkably productive, completing approximately 150 paintings during his year at the institution.
18. The Wounded Angel by Hugo Simberg
Simberg painted two solemn boys carrying an injured, blindfolded angel on a stretcher through a sparse landscape. He developed the work after spending an extended period recovering from illness, though he resisted giving viewers one fixed explanation of its meaning. The angel’s damaged wing and the serious expressions of the children have led the painting to become closely associated with suffering, vulnerability, and recovery.
19. The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse
Waterhouse drew his subject from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem about a woman condemned to live alone in a tower under a mysterious curse. When she finally looks directly toward the outside world and leaves to find Sir Lancelot, the curse takes effect. The painting shows her beginning the boat journey toward Camelot that will end with her death before she reaches the city.
John William Waterhouse on Wikimedia
20. The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David
David’s 1787 painting depicts the final moments of the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, who was sentenced to death by an Athenian court in 399 B.C. Rather than abandon his teachings, he accepted his punishment and prepared to drink a cup of poisonous hemlock. The surrounding disciples react with grief and disbelief, while Socrates remains composed as he reaches toward the cup that will end his life.
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