A painting shows evidence of insanity?

[KurskKnyaz]

So these are the possible phobias:

Xanthophobia- fear of the color yellow
chionophobia - fear of snow
chronophobia - fear of time
Aquaphobia - fear of water or drowning
Acousticophobia - fear of noise

I think this guy has heautoscopy and sees doubles as the picture shows. This is a condition that can result from epilepsy, which this guy has according to the clue. Since sound can induce seizures, the horses in his fantasy are not touching the snow and are not making a rhythmic galloping sound.

 

[oOZo]

* rare and severe mental disorder

Sets up an object to describe.

* constantly seeing his own fantasies all around him

you begin by projecting all your crap onto this painting

* had an undisclosed phobia, if you figure out what it was, you?ve got the answer

distances the viewer from thinking this is all about him/her...its more of a hoby to rave like a lunatic about this paining.

* one tell-tale sign in the painting that "shows" the insanity [note: he doesn't say "proves"... but "shows"]

driving you forward ... look really its there!

* don?t look for small details, look at the whole

its not really the painting moron

* ask what could have preceded this scene

look into your sorted past and give into the darkness of your psychosis

* think of what the place would look like with all the objects removed

yet again only thing left is you

* in 15 years only one student figured it out

a deaf dumb and blind kid but he sure played a mean pinball

* one guess posed to him: could it be that you?re the burning strawman? Reply: ?not a strawman ? but close? [this in reference to the this painting's depiction of the Maslenitsa]

this takes care of opposites disease where the only thing you can think of seeing frozen water is superheated straw

* keywords are water and air

red herring

* closest guess so far is ?fear of open spaces?

so if you get rid of everything all thats left is space....this is still wrong because you're still there.

* what would you hear if you were inside the painting?

your own breathing


I created an Anandtech account to answer my tech support question but this sure is an interesting thread.

OZ

 

[JEDIYoda]

(Click it for a larger version. The discontinuity in the middle is only a scanning defect.)

The person who posted a scan of this painting says the following:

This was painted by a person with a rare and severe mental disorder. He was constantly seeing his own fantasies all around him. He also had a certain phobia (undisclosed).
His (the poster?s) psychiatry professor showed this painting in a lecture, and said there was one tell-tale sign in it that showed the painter?s insanity.
The professor didn?t say what that sign was, leaving the students to do the guesswork. The only clues he gave was, ?don?t look for small details, look at the whole; if you figure out what the phobia was, you?ve got the answer; ask yourself what could have preceded this scene; think of what the place would look like with all the objects removed?.
The professor said that during the 15 years of his teaching, only one student had figured it out.
Now that it?s online, everyone?s guessing. Here are some theories people have come up with:


A preponderance of yellow.
Everything appears twice or thrice.
The house on the left: its windows have grates, and they?re all dark.
The snowman beside that house. How could the children build a snowman three times their size?
The right-hand side of the painting is the same as the left-hand one, but shifted ninety degrees. It could indicate a brain disorder.
Not a single door is to be seen on any of the houses.
(joke) The middle troika has run someone over ? that red kerchief is really a trail of blood.
(joke) The driver of the troika on the right is the Belarusian dictator Lukashenka.
Well? over to you if you care to join in. Remember it should be something about the whole painting. Personally, I suspect it might be a hoax to get lots of traffic (but a clever one at that); also, I don?t quite believe in the almightly mind-shrinking power of psychiatry. They may have just picked something at random. Still, if there is an answer, I?d like to know it.

UPDATE!
The professor himself may appear online tomorrow (December 1). He said the closest guess was ?fear of open spaces?, and gave another clue: ?what would you hear if you were inside the painting??

The original Russian posts have been literally avalanched with comments, and VeryRussian.net has had over 1600 visits today, and counting: that?s 30 times the average daily traffic.

ANOTHER UPDATE!

http://www.veryrussian.net/2006/could-this-be-the-new-da-vinci-code.html
Someone?s found something that gives a whole new angle to the riddle? but that something is not in the painting.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE!
It?s almost solved ? but we?re still waiting for the professor?

FINAL UPDATE HERE
The professor, or whoever impersonates him, has turned up, but he said he?d read all the 4000+ comments first. I won?t update this post anymore: there were so many updates, and still more coming up, that I?ve made a separate category for them.
This is the page you should watch for news on The Painting.


Categories: Blog buzz· Popular posts· The Painting

 

[BillGates]

busted....I reckon it's a scam

 

[creedog]

thus thread is lame!

 

[Vegitto]

Damn, I wanna know.

 

[KurskKnyaz]

...so whats the answer?

 

[dragonfang]

fear of electricity
there aren't any power lines like the ones in the original

 

[Mrvile]

It's unfortunate that it's really a hoax, but there were a lot of great ideas and interesting speculation in the process. I remember reading about someone's theory that the artist Kuplin had the fear of the advancement of time, which is why his painting depicts the same scene in three different frames of time (seems like few seconds apart). It doesn't really have to do with some of the more far-out clues the "professor" gave, like air-and-water or whatever it was, but it does match with the major difference between the original and Kuplin's replica and it takes into consideration the painting as a whole instead of looking for small details.

Good stuff!

 

[Mr Pepper]

Fear of not getting answers to stupid a$$, idiotic riddles created by pompous, self-proclaimed geniuses who have nothing better to do than waste my freeeeking time!

It's a fricking ugly winter painting..... I can't believe people get paid to come up with this garbage.

 

[futuristicmonkey]

Fear of doors, duh!

 

[Trevelyan]

Fear of failure? Because he obviously sucks at painting....

 

[AdamK47]

There's nothing wrong. The person who painted it is perfectly sane.

 

[RapidSnail]

If this isn't a hoax, why is everyone analyzing the small details when the first thing said was to look at the whole?

 

[classy]

I think this person is afraid of the dark. This person drew lights in the houses, but left out the light poles. He made sure everything is covered in snow, as if to conceal or hide oneself. He also made sure that no one comes inside, no doors, person probably was assaulted or suffered a trauma like event perpetrated by someone finding him. The 3 dark houses are all lit, but the other ones aren't.

 

[whistleclient]

Maybe it's Pibloktoq

edit to correct spelling and give wiki definition:

Piblokto, Pibloktoq or arctic hysteria is a condition exclusively appearing in Inuit societies living within the arctic circle. Appearing most prevalently in winter, it is considered to be a form of a Culture-specific disorder.

Symptoms can include: intense "hysteria" (screaming, uncontrolled wild behavior), depression, coprophagia, insensitivity to extreme cold and more.

 

[whistleclient]

oh. guess it was a hoax:

"7:56 pm December 4th, 2006
It doesn?t, but I needed a title. This is rather embarrassing.

It seems we?ve been hoaxed after all.

The Professor has deleted his two-day-old LiveJournal. All that?s left is an explanatory note by the original poster. Allegedly, somebody leaked the Professor?s personal data, including his phone number, and people started calling him and asking for the answer; some made threats. So, allegedly, he became angry and left, taking his secret into the grave offline.

At least that?s what the note says. The poster turned off the comments for that entry. He says that he, too, has been denied the answer. His nickname shaltai_baltai, by the way, is the Russian translation of ?Humpty Dumpty?; and whether we believe him or not, this was certainly a great fall.

Did someone surmise in the comments that the painting was perfectly normal, but the Professor is, in fact, mad?"