Ambrose Bierce Art

Ambrose Bierce's often sardonic and melancholy strange fiction has inspired artwork that's nearly as disturbing as the texts it sprang from. Bierce's horrors are frequently manifestations of a tormented psyche - imagined or real - and hold no punches in their effect on his hapless characters. It is a feverish and almost unclassifiable brand of exotic cruelty among his ghosts, wartime victims, and other entities that makes his work truly scary. The same must be said for Biercian artwork.

The cover image on Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce clearly expresses an uncertain nightmare. The twisted, almost dream distorted face leering at the reader also brings to mind M.R. James' infamous ghosts formed from clothing and sheets.

"The Damned Thing" by IrishWastrel (Deviantart.com)

"One Summer Night" by Grelin Machin

The visual frights engendered by Bierce's fiction capture every story at some level, but, of course, there are particulars. "The Damned Thing," arguably his most renowned weird horror tale, has challenged many artists to depict the invisible creature responsible for this story's eerie troubles. Showing an invisible demon isn't an easy task by any means, and following Bierce's description with full faith almost leaves too much to the imagination. So, we get images like the one above, where the accursed monster is shown as a menacing blur, which heightens the strangeness, in some respects. Stories contain "One Summer Night" more tangible demons, but are no less horrific in their dark satire, expressed through themes about burial "alive" and grave robbery. The largest (and best) collection of artistic attempts to put Bierce's words to pictures is in Graphic Classics: Ambrose Bierce.

Finally, Ambrose Bierce himself has generated many unusual portraits as a shadowy, borderline malevolent figure in his own right. Beneath the obscuring mustache and the furrowed brow, his constant state of reflection on the unpleasant side of this world is clear. If there's one conclusion one reaches from reading many Bierce tales, it's that the author was incapable of ignoring his dark obsessions. Whatever their origin, they used his eyes, his mind, to ogle the world and translate its odd tragedies in a way as bleakly surreal as the smeared face on Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce. Luckily, this isn't lost on artists, who have re-imagined his brooding nature in ways as diverse as they are authentic.

-Grim Blogger