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Crying Boy Portrait

Sorry , put the address in wrong

Just take off the URL at both ends , and copy it into your address bar.

Thanks
 
And no, I will not be downloading it.... :shock: :lol:
 
Great website, geraldwilkie; the 'see the boy cry' manipulation was eerie in the extreme! There appear to be some interesting views out there about these paintings as the posts on that site show. Ranging from one girls' musings that she has an empathy with the subject in the print:

"sometimes i feel like this child, who I have named Yorick, is my soul child and in the future (Im 19) will give birth to someone like him...strange I know, but the paintings are very powerful."

And this persons suggestion that a boy and girl print should not be seperated as it brings bad luck:

"I have a copy of a boy crying painting, hes wearing a red jumper and dark blue or black jacket (opened) and the background is purple. His eyes follows me wherever i go in the room.
I dont know where it came from or who bought it to me, but i always had it in my room since i was a little child myself. Back then i was a bit afraid of the painting, especially after my father's friend told me that the house would burn down if the painting hang on the wall. I heard one shall not split the boy and girl crying paintings, so im looking for the girl painting."

To a more extreme level, where this gent from Brazil goes the whole hog and makes a full-on claim for demonic intervention:

"PLEASE if you have one of those paintings throw it away right now. Giovanni Bragolin regreted his actions and in late 80's he appeared in the biggest TV channel here in Brazil, Rede Globo, and told to everyone who have copies or originals to destroy them, because he made a evil pact to sell his paintings.
People say those paintings bring extremelly miss fortune and disgrace to the owners. Thiis i cant 100% believe but the fact is: These are paintings of dead children with a lot of satanistic reference. A kind of paiting that i surely don't want in my house."

Scary, huh?!!
 
some of that museum of bad art isn't too bad at all (imo). Much rather put Jack Vettriano in there.
 
Wayne Hemmingway (who was neither red nor dead from embarrasment) was showing his collection of this type of art to Alan Titchmarsh last night, he trotted out the fire story and added that his Nan had neutralised the power of the boy by adding a crying girl.

No one else in the audience would admit to owning any of the "hemmingway" collection though.

Annic :lol:
 
I just put Giovanni Bragolin into google and found an educational website in french, about massacre and genocides, which had TCB as an illustration.
How appropriate !

http://noe-education.org/D12B1.php :shock: :eek!!!!:

It can also be viewed in English
 
about that swan- wings of love painting, my Nan had that hanging in her lounge when I was younger and the house actually had a mysterious fire, where they coudlnt pin the fire to anything- so assumed electrics- dont know if its a haunted painting or just tat, but creepy nonetheless
 
Urban Legend (Bug Question Mark)

Why in the world do people refer to the "Crying Boy" story as an Urban Legend?

Individuals DO hang the "Crying Boy" in their homes and they ALSO blame the portrait for subsequent fires. The portraits and the fires BOTH EXIST in fact, not merely in legend.

Now that association between portraits and fires may be entirely erroneous (as in fact I believe to be almost certainly the case), but that "Crying Boy" portrait-owning victims of fires DO believe in that linkage is still "Urban FACT" and NOT Urban Legend.
 
People who forward emails about men and perfume samples in supermarket carparks believe them to be urban Fact too, that's the point of the Urban Legend.
 
lemonpie3 said:
"People who forward emails about men and perfume samples in supermarket carparks believe them to be urban Fact too, that's the point of the Urban Legend."
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I'm sorry, but you seem to be entirely missing the point I was attempting to make.

Those chloroform-laced "perfume samples" are FICTIONAL. It is precisely that FICTIONALITY which makes those yarns Urban Legends.

But the "Crying Boy" DOES exist! House and apartment fires ALSO exist, irrespective of whether or not those dwellings contain copies of the "Crying Boy." Thus some fires DO occur in domiciles which contain the "Crying Boy." ONCE AGAIN, that is FACT and NOT Legend.

The error lies in the association of fires WITH the "Crying Boy." But a mistaken grasp of cause-and-effect does NOT make being burned out of one's home an Urban Legend. If fires were only Urban Legends we could entirely dispense with Fire Departments.
 
CLEARLY the LEGEND part is the part associating the Boy with the cause of the Fire. A housefire is not a LEGEND. The Boy pic is not a LEGEND either. The Boy causing housefires is the LEGEND.
 
I still dunno. Creationist beliefs and theories pertaining to the formation of the earth and the development of life upon it, are almost certainly in error, but does that make those theories/beliefs Urban Legends? Or does the fact that I (may) hold faulty cause-and-effect views of this subject or that automatically make my views Urban Legends?
 
OldTimeRadio said:
I still dunno. Creationist beliefs and theories pertaining to the formation of the earth and the development of life upon it, are almost certainly in error, but does that make those theories/beliefs Urban Legends? Or does the fact that I (may) hold faulty cause-and-effect views of this subject or that automatically make my views Urban Legends?
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Nope. Wouldn't define creationism or flat earth as Urban legend. Probably not the last word but See this defintion and article -

http://www.snopes.com/info/ul-def.asp

Urban legends are best described as cautionary or moralistic tales passed along by those who believe the incidents befell either folks they know personally or acquaintances of friends or family members.
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A common mistake is the equation of 'urban legend' with 'false' (i.e., "Oh, that's an urban legend!"). Though the vast majority of such tales are pure invention, a tiny handful do turn out to be based on real incidents. What moves true tales of this type out of the world of news and into the genre of contemporary lore is the blurring of details and multiplicity of claims that the reported incidents happened locally, alterations which take place as the stories are passed through countless hands. Though there might indeed have been an original actual event, it clearly did not happen to as many people or in as many places as the various recountings of it would have one believe.
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I think that what it is is that nowadays we have come to use 'urban legend' as a generic term which encompasses a lot of cautionary tales of varying degrees of 'legend' . Sure it is a 'fact' that a certain amount of homes which had the Crying Boy Portrait also experienced fire damage . This is more than likely a coincidence rather than any malign force at work , but the 'urban legend' part is the story that has grown up around it. Just think how many thousands of homes had / have that portrait and have never had a fire , but still there are people that believe in a supernatural force behind the picture because of what has happened to a small minority and the myth surrounding it - and that is what classifies this as an 'urban legend'.
 
gerardwilkie said:
"Sure it is a 'fact' that a certain amount of homes which had the Crying Boy Portrait also experienced fire damage. This is more than likely a coincidence rather than any malign force at work....Just think how many thousands of homes had / have that portrait and have never had a fire."
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But that is PRECISELY the point that I made, or at least THOUHT that I'd made.

The individual who stands amid the ashes of his or her burned out home and opines "It's all the fault of that damned 'Crying Boy' IS ALMOST CERTAINLY IN COMPLETE AND TOTAL ERROR, for the reasons Mr. Wilkie so cogently outlined above. But that he or she DOES make this ERRONEOUS CONNECTION between portrait and fire REMAINS a FACT and NOT an Urban Legend. That, again, is the only point I was originally trying to make.

But this discussion is turning into tri-sections of already-split hairs, and maybe we should give it a decent burial. I'm genuinely sorry that I brought it all up!

PS But let me try for a better definition of terms, at least as I use them:

If a rumor circulates through Incredible, Ohio, that 57 local motorists have been found beheaded in their automobiles, always green cars and always at 3:00 AM, and the police don't have record of a single murder of this type, in any car at any time, THAT is an Urban Llegend.

But the fact that I believe that the actors, newscasters and so on who appear on my television screen are all little people who live inside the set is NOT an Urban Legend. It merely means that I am INCREDIBLY STUPID.
 
Did you read Rrose Selavy's post? I think this is the most common definition of an urban legend. The Fact or Fictitiousness of the legend is largely immaterial.

The point about ANY urban LEGEND is that people BELIEVE them. Yes it is a FACT that someone BELIEVES it, but the thing they are believing is the LEGEND. It is a FACT that they are believing a LEGEND. The LEGEND is neither FACT nor NON-FACT.
 
I thought the 'urban legend' was defined pretty much by the way you hear it? You hear it from a friend (who obviously you believe, because they're your friend and they wouldn't lie to you). It's not about them of course, it's about their friend. Well really their friend's friend. But it doesn't enter their head to doubt that friend's story. we've all heard people come out with the most cliched foaf stories and because they're so earnest about the story you don't want to burst their bubble.
So isn't that urban legend - a tale (with creepy / gross elements) repeated in complete earnestness, that the teller heard from an apparently unquestionable source?
 
Hello, first time poster here! Has anyone else noticed that the crying boy is on the cover of the Beautifull Souths album Blue is the Colour and would it have the same supposed curse?
 
Yampy78 said:
Hello, first time poster here! Has anyone else noticed that the crying boy is on the cover of the Beautifull Souths album Blue is the Colour and would it have the same supposed curse?
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Nope, it's a different boy, that one with a guitar, on the Beautiful South album cover.
 
[quote
The Museum of Bad Art works on that principle too. Check out the online collection. Peter the Kitty is my personal *favourite* on there.[/quote]

I just "visited" the museum and it has some priceless stuff :lol: - "Peter the Kitty"really needs restoring for posterity and I was deeply shocked and saddened by the theft of "Eileen". I wonder whose wall she graces now?
 
alb~ said:
blakta2 said:
alb said:

It's a class and tastes related issue

The image was common only in underclass and lower middle class homes.
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What the heck? Woah! Now if that wasn't a narrow minded statement I don't know what is! :roll:
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You might not like it. But it's more or less true. Like Elvis mirrors - you'll generally only find certain images in certain homes.
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Hey! I have an Elvis mirror. Wait... Elvis mirror... Council house... Poorly- reproduced Mucha prints... My God, I'm scum!! No, hang on... I have a job, I don't wear any Elizabeth Duke jewellery, I cut my lawn and I don't have a seashell ashtray full of tab ends on the edge of the bathtub. Sweeping statement, anyone? :lol:
 
I remember an auntie of mine had this picture when i was a kid.It scared the crap out of me for years and me and my brother wouldn't look at it.She had a chip pan fire that destroyed most of her kitchen and the picture.
 
Terryt77 said:
I remember an auntie of mine had this picture when i was a kid.It scared the crap out of me for years and me and my brother wouldn't look at it.She had a chip pan fire that destroyed most of her kitchen and the picture.
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I know a household of students who didn't have a copy of this picture.
They had a chip pan fire that destroyed most of their kitchen.
 
I've heard of a house full of Crying Boy pictures that had students hung up on the wall and they didn't experience any mysterious household fires.
Spooky, huh?
 
More things in heaven and earth, and all that.

Bearing in mind the popularity of the paintings in that period, and the fact that everyone had chip-pans in those days (pre the much safer oven chips and deep fat fryers) and house fires in general were far more common then anyway, it's not surprising that someone made the correlation.

I'm willing to bet that in the aftermath of many house fires now, there will be found a biscuit tin with a Jack Vettriano scene on it.
 
* Looks at his Vettriano print on the wall with suspicion *
Now, don't you dare start that, Stu.
 
I had two paintings of doe eyed kids on the walls of my childhood bedroom. My mother and father smoked and being from Glasgow I'm not unaccustomed to the taste of deep fried food. Never had a house fire, mysterious or otherwise. Had a deep fried pizza though!

Nobody seems to have mentioned the classic "Horses galloping over crashing waves on a shore", quite a big seller from the Woolworth and, I recall, an inspiration for Jonathan Glazer's Guinness ads. It was definitely and inspiration for him infact we even discussed which other paintings could be realised into a moving image. The green lady hanging of the branch was a suggestion.

Maybe it was the choice of the proles to have mass produced art on their walls...they certainly ain't gonna afford a "Sunflowers"...and yet many of my working class friends from my youth had a picture of Dali's "Crucification" of their walls...so work out that!

mooks out
 
Stormkhan said:
* Looks at his Vettriano print on the wall with suspicion *
Now, don't you dare start that, Stu.
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Puts away lighter

What? OH!

No, I like Jack Vettriano as well. We've got a biscuit tin with the Dancing Butler on it, too. It's not a sweeping value judgement - it's just a subtly pervasive image in this cultural period, as was the Crying Boy thirty-odd years ago.

Besides, I long since gave up caring what people think of what pictures I have on the wall.
 
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