Henry Darger - Reclusive janitor revealed posthumously to be the author of a 15,145-page fantasy manuscript depicting young children being tortured and massacred

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Darger

38 points · 9 comments · view on lemmy.world

9 Comments

probablynaked@lemmy.world · 56 pts · 2y

Title is a bit simplistic, this guy’s work contained multitudes

Also he was never a violent man and the subjects of his writing were not exactly supposed to represent real children

rhythmisaprancer@kbin.social · 28 pts · 2y (1 reply)

This title is so misrepresentative that it borders on being a lie.

Tangent5280@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2y

It's clickbait of the worst kind.

Some of his work is unbelievably impressive, like a 30 foot wide, double sided painting. He has had no training as an artist or in writing (as far as I can see). This guy is one of the most celebrated outsider artists, and there is also a lawsuit in progress from some of his wayyyy distant relatives trying to rob all his trademarks and copyrights he left to his friends.

frickineh@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 2y (1 reply)

I mean, this seems more sad than creepy. A lot of it sounds like him processing his childhood trauma, not any desire to torture kids himself.

WarlockLawyer@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 2y

And processing through his Catholic faith and culture. Martyrs and gruesome displays of the torturing of saints.

highenergyphysics@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 2y

Oh okay some schizo in a cave writes a manuscript about child torture and massacres and 4 billion people worship him but you do it in the 20th century and suddenly now there’s a problem

Twinklebreeze@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2y

One idiosyncratic feature of Darger's artwork is that his girl subjects are shown to have penises

They buried the lede on that one.

CephalonFaye@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 2y

The album "Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head" was inspired by this book.

undeffeined@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 2y

Really interesting story well summarized in video form by Fredrik Knudsen