The Art of Horror - edited by Stephen Jones
Applause Theater and Cinema Books. 2015.
While many would argue that horror works best when letting the reader imagine the horrors themselves, the genre has inspired artwork going back to the dawn of time. Divided into sections by theme - Vampires, Werewolves, Ghosts, Witches, Lovecraft, Giant Monsters, etc., accompanied by an informative text by a panel of experts, this books displays a range of fantastic imagery from pulp illustrations to modern digital paintings, all of them glorious and beautifully presented.
There is no way that a single book can thoroughly cover the subject matter, but this is a great start and it allowed me to finally put the names of the artists to a number of images that have haunted me for years. I would have preferred less devotion to movie posters, as central an element to the theme of fine art and horror as they might be, but perhaps a follow up volume will appear that will fill in some of the gaps and expand the range of material and artists covered. This is really an excellent book and is a must have for any fan of the genre.
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