  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, strong drug use, extremely traumatic themes, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
Richard Upton Pickman is a recurring character in the work of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, appearing in stories such as Pickman's Model and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.
Origin[]
Pickman's origins are ambiguous. His artwork depicts the ghouls as having the habit of abducting human children and replacing them with "changelings": ghoul children that look deceptively human-like, left to be raised by humans. One of the children depicted bears an uncanny resemblance to Pickman himself, hinting that he might have been one of those changelings. If true, this could explain his close association with ghouls (HPL: "Pickman's Model"), and the fact that he apparently transformed into a ghoul himself at some point after his disappearance (HPL: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath). As an artist, Pickman had undeniable skill. "Boston never had a greater painter than Richard Upton Pickman," his one-time friend and devotee Thurber declared. His "morbid art was preëminently one of daemoniac portraiture," with "frightful pictures which turned colonial New England into a kind of annex of hell"--though he went on to do a series of "modern studies" that "brought the horror right into our own daily life." He was "a thorough, painstaking, and almost scientific realist," Thurber maintained, whose art "coldly and sardonically reflected some stable, mechanistic, and well-established horror-world which he saw fully, brilliantly, squarely, and unfalteringly." (HPL: "Pickman's Model") Pickman came from "old Salem stock," and had a great-great-great-great-grandmother hanged during the Witch Trials in 1692. He had a studio on Newbury Street in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, and another one in the North End that he rented under the name Peters. There he painted in the cellar, where he said he could "catch the night-spirit of antique horror and paint things that I couldn’t even think of in Newbury Street." (HPL: "Pickman's Model") "It’s my business to catch the overtones of the soul, and you won’t find those in a parvenu set of artificial streets," he claimed. It was his contention that "one must paint terror as well as beauty from life." (HPL: "Pickman's Model") Pickman's art grew increasingly shocking, to the point where several people in his social circle refused to associate with him. Dr. Reid, an acquaintance who studied comparative pathology, insisted that the artist "repelled him more and more every day...that the fellow’s features and expression were slowly developing in a way he didn’t like"; he told Pickman he was "a sort of monster bound down the toboggan of reverse evolution." It got to the point where the Boston Art Club, where he was a member, refused to exhibit his painting "Ghoul Feeding,” and the Museum of Fine Arts wouldn't take it as a gift. (HPL: "Pickman's Model") Pickman was a friend of Randolph Carter, and once introduced him to a ghoul. (HPL: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath) Pickman disappeared early in 1926, reportedly taking with him the unique sixteenth-century Greek text of the Necronomicon that his family was rumoured to own. (HPL: "History of the Necronomicon") Thurber later claimed that the grotesque beasts living amongst and preying upon humans depicted in his work were painted from photographs taken by Pickman himself, and not merely the result of a fertile imagination. (HPL: "Pickman's Model") Pickman was later met in the Dreamlands by Randolph Carter, fully transformed into a ghoul. Pickman and his ghoul pack proved themselves valuable and dependable allies to Carter during his quest. (HPL: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)
The Pickman's Model[]
Pickman is a painter whose paintings are based on terrifying themes plagued by monsters performing terrible acts, although this isn't the most impressive aspect; it's the realism the works convey. At first, the only thing that disturbs our main character (Thurber) is the fact that he doesn't understand where his companion gets such "magnificent" inspiration. At the end of the story, it is implied that the source of this inspiration is Pickman's close models.
One of the last paintings we can see before Pickman's disappearance is a disturbing image of horrible beings, apparently accompanied by Pickman himself, who, in this way, might not be an ordinary human being...
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath[]
Pickman returns as a supporting character. It is during Randolph Carter's journey that Pickman's fate is revealed: the painter eventually metamorphosed into a monster, a ghoul, and joined a pack of these creatures. The protagonist encounters them in the Underlands of the Dreamlands and, despite their cannibalistic nature, Pickman and his people decide to help him, as Carter had been a good friend of this sinister figure. Thus, Pickman accompanies Randolph Carter to the end of the journey, but they end up separating when Nyarlathotep ambushes them on Kadath. After this, nothing more is heard of Pickman and his pack.
Trivia[]
- The title of the painting "Holmes, Lowell, and Longfellow Lie Buried in Mount Auburn" likely refers to physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and poets James Russell Lowell and Henry Wadsworth *Longfellow, all interred at Mount Auburn's cemetery.
- "Pickman" and "Upton" are, in actuality, old Salem names. (EXP: Lovecraft Remembered)
