This Painting Is an Absolute Nightmare

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Transcript

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Imagine being alone in a vast forest in the middle of the night. There's no sound.

Everything is shadow. And then a deer appears.

But it's not just any deer. Between its antlers, you can see a

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glowing cross. This mysterious creature looks straight at you.

It doesn't run away. What would you do in that moment?

Run? Maybe pray?

What I just described is the story of St. Hubert's vision.

a medieval legend that inspired dozens of

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artists throughout history. Yet, one of them painted this scene in the darkest way ever imagined.

France vonuk was the only one capable of capturing that feeling you get when you dream of something you can't quite understand, but that stays with you for the rest of

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your life. The painting was created in 1890, and honestly, if Stock hadn't mentioned it in the title, you'd never guess this eerie scene was tied to a religious story.

They say that before becoming a saint, Hubert was simply a man who loved to hunt, but not for

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sport. He had devoted his entire life to it.

[music] He was a nobleman from the 7th century, and he could afford to disappear into the forest for days [music] just for the thrill of chasing deer. One Good Friday, he decided to go hunting, ignoring the mass and all the

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Christian traditions of such an important day. And in the middle of the forest, he saw [music] a deer.

But this deer had a shining cross between its antlers. Literally a cross that glowed from afar.

According to the stories of the time, the deer looked at him and

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said, "Hubert, if you don't turn to the Lord and live a holy life, you will go to hell." Imagine for a moment [music] being deep in the woods alone and suddenly receiving a message that powerful. Today we might call it a hallucination or a mystical experience.

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But [music] for the Christian tradition of that era it was an epiphany. That vision transformed Hubert.

After this he gave up hunting, renounced his titles and became a priest. In [music] time he was canonized and today he is known as

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the patron saint of hunters. By then the deer with the cross had become one of the most powerful symbols in medieval Christian art.

[music] It represented the divine call, redemption, and the intrusion of the sacred into the mundane. But in symbolist art like that

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of France Fonuk, this image is not painted for its religious value alone, but for what it evokes. The instant when reality breaks open and something not of this world enters.

This scene might look like something out of a nightmare or a strange vision, but it carries a deep

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meaning. It feels as if the painter managed to capture that precise moment when a soul is torn in two.

The instant before faith and the instant after. If we compare this painting to other well-known versions of the same legend, like Reuben's, for example, the

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difference is striking. In Reuben's work, everything feels more narrative.

We see a landscape, daylight, animals in the background, and St. Cuba kneeling before the deer [music] which has a small cross between its antlers.

It's almost imperceptible, more symbolic than

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anything else. France vonuk on the other hand removes everything decorative.

The background is so dark that depending on the light you view it under, it's almost hard to tell there's a forest at all. All secondary details are gone and the cross is massive, glowing as if it were

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the only visual anchor in the entire scene. What makes this painting so powerful is that the artist places us in the position of the hunter.

We don't see St. Hubert from behind or from the side.

Here it's you facing the apparition. The

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question I asked at the beginning of this video isn't really coming from me. That's the meaning of this painting.

[music] To make us confront an apparition like this and ask ourselves how we would react if it were real. Let's remember that France Fonto was not an ordinary

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painter. He wasn't someone interested in portraying reality as it appeared.

His art was symbolic, psychological. He was fascinated by visions, fears, and desires.

[music] In fact, when he painted the vision of St. Hubert in 1890, he was deeply

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immersed in an artistic movement that saw exactly that, [music] German symbolism. In this video, we won't go too deep into his life or into symbolism itself since there are other videos on this channel dedicated to those topics.

But to understand this painting, we need

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to know that at the time many European artists, not only in Germany, but also in France and Belgium, were tired of art that simply showed life as it was. They wanted to go beyond.

[music] They wanted to represent the invisible. So they began creating images filled with

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symbols, dark atmospheres, and mythological or religious figures, all loaded with meaning. Painters like Goya, for instance, had explored the grotesque and the irrational from a social perspective.

But Stuck did it through the symbolic, and that's exactly what we

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see in this painting. Stuck didn't paint the story of the saint as a religious scene, but as a personal experience, an intimate moment between man and the divine.

And to achieve it, he used every [music] tool symbolism had to offer. Darkness, silence, and above all, the

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feeling that what you're seeing doesn't quite belong to this world. The original painting, the vision of St.

Huber, is housed in the Villatock in Munich. And by the way, this [music] is not just any museum.

If you ever get the chance to visit, I highly recommend it. This is

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not a paid mention. I say it because the villa was actually the home of France von Stark himself.

He designed it, decorated it, and turned it into his own total work of art. Today, many of his most important pieces are preserved there.

Unfortunately, this particular

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painting is not currently on display. It is kept in the museum's collection.

So, if you visit, you might not find it hanging on the wall. But, as always, if [music] you would like to have it in your home and add it to your collection, you can find it in our catalog.

With our reproductions, you can decorate your

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home with true works of art and turn it into your own personal museum. Worldwide shipping is free, [music] and by purchasing, you are helping support the channel so we can continue creating videos like this one.

Thank you so much for watching until the end, and I would love to hear in the comments what you

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thought of this painting. See you in the next video.