The Curse Of The Crying Boy

[Saru]

This mystery is of particular interest to me, because when I was much younger, my parents actually had one of these pictures in our house, hanging half way up the stairs on the wall.

I couldn't find an image of the painting on the internet to post, but here's the story:

From around 1985 onwards, a series of mysterious house fires were brought to the attention of the general public, following the discovery that in each case, the buildings and all their contents were completely destroyed apart from a painting - the "Crying Boy", which remained unscathed. In the years that followed, some 40-50 cases were recorded in which a housefire had destroyed everything except for the picture. It became known as the "Curse of the Crying Boy", and even made headline news at one point.

The picture itself was a portrait painted by a Spanish artist of an orphan. It is said that his studio burnt to the ground, and the boy was later killed in a car crash. The picture is one of the first to be mass produced in the UK, there are several thousand of them in circulation, but the curse still appears to apply to all the copies. It is said that the curse will only effect someone if the owner of the painting becomes aware of it. Some psychics have claimed that the painting is Haunted by the spirit of the boy it depicts.

We must have had that painting in our house for 15+ years, and although it never set fire to anything, I never used to like it. It's not a particularly pleasant picture in any case, and it always used to give me the creeps.

Fortunately it's long gone, but I can't help wondering who's got it now.

One thing's for certain, there's no way I'd ever put that picture up in my house again.

[emmy]

I know which painting you're are referring to, my grandparents used to have one but I don't know if they have it still.

I always thought of that painting as creepy, and it wasn't particularly nice to look at.

Thanx for the background info to it.

[Althalus]

all of the paintings where rounded up in 1985 in northern england and destroyed after all the copies made terrible things happen to those who looked at them and even owned one.

Click here for source

[Althalus]

There is not much information to be found about the Crying Boy pictures and their painter Bragolin alias Bruno Amadio.

but there is a website that is in Dutch here

[Althalus]

there are a number of different ones

this is one of them:

[emmy]

Oooohhhh THESE PICS GIVE ME THE CREEPS.

[Saru]

I can't imagine why anyone would want to put that one up on their wall.

Are the pictures on that site of "cursed" paintings as well ?

[Althalus]

on the webpage click on the top left picture/link then again on the top left pic/link of the pop up, and it will take you to the image gallery that shows about 12 different pictures by the artist, all of them of kids crying.

[Mystify]

What I don't understand is why this artist is soooooooo in fatuated with crying children. The paintings are very well done, almost life like.... but why? Why are these children all crying? Why is it they look like they are terrified of the artist himself........ this is what puzzles me

[Homer]

This is creepy, disturbing, and it's freeking me out.

[Halo_Jones]

There was a documentry on Channel Four last year all about this painting, it too said that the original artist was Spanish.

The SUN newspaper did a huge story about the painting and asked all its readers to send in their copies of the painting to them and they would destroy them. And guess what... a fire mysteriously started at the warehouse where the paintings were being stored??

[Magikman]

The SUN newspaper did a huge story about the painting and asked all its readers to send in their copies of the painting to them and they would destroy them. And guess what... a fire mysteriously started at the warehouse where the paintings were being stored??

No, not exactly, not according to the account described at this web site, anyway;

CLICK HERE

Still, if true, it seems more than coincidental. I tried to find a report about this at the SUN web site itself, but didn't have any luck. I do remember reading about this phenomena in the FORTEAN TIMES magazine a couple years ago, though, it was pretty interesting stuff. I also checked their web site, but unfortunately they don't reference the article.

Magikman

[Althalus]

If there is a curse on the paintings then what about the statue?

it is also called the crying boy and is located by the Lille Lungegaardsvann, Bergen

[Kira]

*shudder* Still think they are horrible and give me the creeps

[Kismit]

I remember hearing about this way back in the late 70's , so the story is fairly old . I remember nieghbours of ours had one of the paintings in the Hall , allthough the house was still standing 20 odd years later when I saw it last .

*shiver* I must say I don't like the look of these paintings though

and it must be really bad fueng shui

[Althalus]

These paintings seem to have become ingrained in the public conciousness either that or they are truely evil, because everyone seems to know someone that did, or had one themselves. And no-one really seems to like them.

[Kira]

Oh I'm not saying that they are Evil or any thing like that.

It's just that they unsettle me and I have no to quote Spock"logical explanation"

as to why it does that.

[Halo_Jones]

Ohhh MM I'm sure they re-ran the story just a few years back after a spate of fires in the North of England, once again the fires had left the paintings intact.

The painting became popular again (nutters) after The Sun had published its original article in 1985 about the mysterious fires. The Sun asked it's readers to send them their copies of the jinxed painting again, thats when the fire in the warehouse was reported.

I also looked for it on their website yesterday but found nothing, I'll keep on looking though as its really bugging me now.

[Tommy]

I think you have to read most things in The Sun in a light-hearted manner.

The paintings of the Crying Boy are very striking though. There is definitely a darkly sinister, almost macabre feel to them. Actually it reminds me of that painting from the Ghostbusters movie.

[Althalus]

if any of those paintings turn round and start saying 'I am Vigo, Scurge of Carpathia' at me, i'm outa there.

[emmy]

Hope you find this....intriguing...

This is taken from "The Nature of Things" by Lyall Watson, Sceptre Edition (1991).. First published in UK by Hodder and Stoughton (1990)..pp 128-130

Something very bizarre surfaced in London in 1985. The "Sun" newspaper-which has a fondness for the absurd-ran a story about Peter Hall, a Yorkshire fireman who was disturbed by the fact that his brigade had been called to a number of domestic blazes in which the entire contents of a series of houses had been destroyed; everything, that is, except a single painting which hung undamaged on a wall. It was not necessarily the same painting, but of a kind always depicting a tearful child-one of a series which portray a boy. Somewhere between two and five years of age, with tears welling up in his unnaturally large and limpid eyes. The kids are not in any obvious pain, but are wistfully, sadly, attractively unhappy in ways calculated to make you either melt or vomit, depending on your taste. They are available in any colour or complexion and have become very successful commercial icons throughout Europe; but there is not a fireman in Yorkshire who will allow one into his home.

With good reason it seems. The newspaper was besieged with calls in response to the story. Dora Mann of Mitcham said: "Only six months after I had bought the picture, my house was completely gutted by fire. All my paintings were destroyed, except the one of the crying boy." Sandra Craske of Kilburn reported that she, her sister-in-law and a friend had all suffered from fires since buying the picture. And Linda Fleming of Leeds and Jane McCutcheon of Nottingham had similar tales to tell. This was on 4 Spetember 1985. Five days later Brian Parks of Boughton destroyed his undamaged copy of "The Crying Boy" after fire put his wife and two children in Hospital. And on 9 October, Grace Murray was admitted to Stoke Mandeville hospital with severe burns after a fire in her Oxford home which left her painting "almost undamaged". On 21 October the Pavillo Palace in Great Yarmouth was consumed by fire, all, of course, except for its copy of the tear-jerking child. Three days later Kevin Godber of Herringthorpe watched his home go up in flames. The painted boy survived, but pictures on either side of it on the same wall were destroyed.And the day after that, the Amos home on Merseyside was destroyed by an explosion which left two "crying boys" intact, one in the living room, one in the dining room. Mr Amos took pleasure in destroying these himself. At the end of that eventful month The "Sun" announced that it was inviting readers to send in their copies of the pyromaniacal painting for mass burning. Thousands did and the supervising fire officer observed that they all burned beautifully: "We listened for muffled cries, but all we heard was the crackle of burning paint."

But that was not the end of the story. Soon after the Suns big bonfire the newspaper found itself embroiled in strike, production turmoil and violent mass picketing at its new plant. William Armitage of Weston-super-Mare was burned to death in his home, where a copy of "The Crying Boy" was found intact, lying on the floor beside his body. One fireman at the scene said: "We have all heard of this jinx, but when you actually come across the picture in a gutted room, it is most odd."

It certainly is. To me the most interesting feature of the story is that it involves paintings which happen to be portraits. Human likenesses. You never hear of jinxed landscapes or haunted copies of Van Gogh's "Sunflowers". The stories, the folkloric elements, are always firmly atached to representations of people. Oscar Wilde mirrored such concerns in "The Picture of Dorian Gray", which did it's owners aging for him, safe in the seclusion of the attic. There are reports of painted images which have actually changed, including a Greek orthodox icon of the Madonna which suddenly grew a third arm. It accomplished this in full view of the congregation in Madaba, Jordan in 1978. The whole thing is absurd until you know that in Orthodox iconography, such portrayal has symbolism which is clearly understood. It means "something out of the ordinary, something universal".

I do not believe such thing are coincidental. They are incidents with an axe to grind. They tend, if one looks carefully enough, to be deeply rooted in culture and belief. I am certain it is no accident that all the children in the "Crying Boy" have preternaturally large eyes. These send the sort of signals ethologists classify as 'supernormal stimuli', playing on the fact that our first responses as infants are directed to the eyes of adults around us. Eyes remain vital social signals for us all, and we share the comon experience of having been at some time in a room with a portrait whose eyes "seem to follow you wherever you go".......

This is but one recorded and documented case regarding inanimate objects being "possessed" or 'haunted'. Is it at all possible that ALL of these people involved were halucinating? Or that one painting EXACTLY THE SAME could be found at all of the reported homes untouched by fire that gutted everything else in the house??

That such things even MIGHT exist, much less be experienced by such a large demographic of people, begs us to reconsider our basic facts on the term INANIMATE OBJECT.

[Bizarro]

strange story. i have an "inanimate object" story of my own. most people ive told never believed it but i know several of us affected by it still do.

when i was around 10-12 years old, my friends and i used to play in the woods near our neighborhood. there were probably 30 square miles of total wilderness just past the dead end of our street. there was an old farm house that stood on a dirt trail quite a distance into the woods- it was definitely abandoned. i bet that house stood from the mid 1800's. it had horse stables near it and an old style well with a bucket lowered by a rope. the house burnt down after a couple of neighborhood hoodlums set it on fire.

a few weeks after the house burnt down my friends and i were out walking in the forest when we found an old rusty lantern. on the top of it you could make out some words about a railroad company and the date 1863. we thought it was cool and decided to take it home and show our parents. they all were amazed that we found something so old and one of my friend's mom told him to keep it at their house as it might be worth something as an antique.

this is when things get weird. my friend woke up the next morning and the lantern was missing from his garage. he also had gotten very ill and had a huge fight with his mom- landing him grounded for 2 weeks. we didn't think anything other than it was just a coincidence until we found the lantern back in the woods in the same place we originally found it.

we brought it back down from the forest again. this time my other friend kept it at his house with the same results. i don't remember what happened to him but wherever the lantern went, so did bad luck. the lantern would also 'move' itself back to the spot in the woods.

i kept it at my house next. to be sure that no one was pulling my leg i hid the lantern in my shed(which was attached to our house and had a locking door). no one knew about where i stashed the lantern. well, it went back into the woods again. i didn't have any bad luck from it but it definitely spooked me that it would move like that.

my friends and i decided that the lantern was haunted and it had to go. we bashed it to bits with a hammer and generally had a good time breaking it....

well, to make a long story short, it was back at the spot in the woods again- reassembled. no one ever touched it again. i swear this actually happened. whether it was the work of one of my friends or a ghost, i have no clue. it was quite freaky though.

[JACK NEON]

Does anyone see a strange shape above the boys head (on it in fact) looks like a white anchor follow it and I see something like a ghostly shadow either me looking at it wrong or more likely a scratch or even something mysterious

[HowdyDoo]

strange story.  i have an "inanimate object" story of my own.  most people ive told never believed it but i know several of us affected by it still do. 

when i was around 10-12 years old, my friends and i used to play in the woods near our neighborhood.  there were probably 30 square miles of total wilderness just past the dead end of our street.  there was an old farm house that stood on a dirt trail quite a distance into the woods- it was definitely abandoned.  i bet that house stood from the mid 1800's.  it had horse stables near it and an old style well with a bucket lowered by a rope.  the house burnt down after a couple of neighborhood hoodlums set it on fire. 

a few weeks after the house burnt down my friends and i were out walking in the forest when we found an old rusty lantern.  on the top of it you could make out some words about a railroad company and the date 1863.  we thought it was cool and decided to take it home and show our parents.  they all were amazed that we found something so old and one of my friend's mom told him to keep it at their house as it might be worth something as an antique. 

this is when things get weird.  my friend woke up the next morning and the lantern was missing from his garage.  he also had gotten very ill and had a huge fight with his mom- landing him grounded for 2 weeks.  we didn't think anything other than it was just a coincidence until we found the lantern back in the woods in the same place we originally found it. 

we brought it back down from the forest again.  this time my other friend kept it at his house with the same results.  i don't remember what happened to him but wherever the lantern went, so did bad luck.  the lantern would also 'move' itself back to the spot in the woods. 

i kept it at my house next.  to be sure that no one was pulling my leg i hid the lantern in my shed(which was attached to our house and had a locking door).  no one knew about where i stashed the lantern.  well, it went back into the woods again.  i didn't have any bad luck from it but it definitely spooked me that it would move like that. 

my friends and i decided that the lantern was haunted and it had to go.  we bashed it to bits with a hammer and generally had a good time breaking it....

well, to make a long story short, it was back at the spot in the woods again- reassembled.  no one ever touched it again.  i swear this actually happened.  whether it was the work of one of my friends or a ghost, i have no clue.  it was quite freaky though.

22353[/snapback]

Definitely a cool story (real or not).

[Elfstone810]

Very cool story, Bizarro!

I have an inanimate object story too. I don't remember if I've ever told it on this site. :-/ It isn't as dramatic as yours though!

When I was about twelve my niece, who is just a few years younger, came over with a school friend to spend the night. I had a ouija board I'd gotten at a garage sale (actually, I think I have told this before. Hmm. Sorry to anyone who's already read it!). Anyway, we were playing with it, nothing happened, we got bored and went on to bed.

When I went to sleep that night Chauncey, my three foot tall, stuffed green rabbit, was sitting at the foot of the bed facing out the window. That night we all three dreamed that the rabbit was possessed. In the morning he was at the head of my bed, facing me.

Years later there was a time when the house stood empty. He was still upstairs and every time someone went up to get something he had been moved, even though there was a layer of dust on the floor and no marks or footprints.

A few years ago my evil halfbrother (looooong story) asked if he could give Chauncey to one of his girlfriends. He didn't know the whole ouija board story and I didn't tell him. <eg> I'd been wanting to get rid of the thing but I was too chicken to destroy it and I didn't want to inflict it on anyone I liked. He gave it away and I haven't heard of it since, so I don't know if it's still possessed or not.