Pickman's modelH. P. LovecraftOmniClassics · Literature
Pickman's model
H. P. LovecraftAn admirer of a disturbing painter explains why he can no longer tolerate cellars.
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About the book
Speaking to an acquaintance, the narrator tries to explain his break with Richard Upton Pickman, a Boston artist whose grotesque paintings have alienated more conventional admirers. He insists that the problem was never simply the subjects: Pickman possessed an extraordinary ability to make impossible figures seem anatomically and emotionally convincing. A visit to the artist's secluded studio in the old North End pushed that admiration into fear. As the recollection proceeds through pictures, architectural details, and interruptions, the question shifts from whether such art is acceptable to how it could have been made. Lovecraft grounds the tale's unease in the relationship between imagination and observation, allowing one private encounter to alter the narrator's experience of the city.
- Art and reality
- Forbidden observation
- Fear beneath the city
Why read it
Watch an account of artistic technique turn gradually into a tightly controlled horror story.
English story from Weird Tales, October 1927