The Rain Woman: the world’s most haunted painting
It’s funny how an alleged haunting will elevate a painting. Artworks already imbued with emotion and skilled brush strokes are made interesting in a way that transcends the visual with only the promise of paranormal activity. That is exactly what drove a relatively uninspiring painting by Svetlana Telets to internet art fame. Dubious accounts be damned, the thrilling idea of a haunting painting stuck.
Details of Telets’ art career are non-existent. Look her up, and all you’ll find is one story, often described as either “shocking” or “spooky”. It should cast an immediate shadow of doubt on the legitimacy of the tale, but for some, the eerie feel of the painting is proof enough. The Rain Woman features – you guessed it – a woman in the rain. There is something odd about the length of her face, but without the supposed haunted element, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was almost art deco. The woman is porcelain, shielded from the rain by an outlandishly big hat.
Wherever you look online, you’ll find the story has two key consistencies. The first is that the story never changes, and the scarce details you’re presented with pop up repeatedly with only slight deviations. The second is that there are no sources provided, ever. Vague mentions of newspaper reports are made, but I’m yet to find a credible outlet that’s reported on this miraculously haunted painting.
As the story goes, Telets felt something strange happening in the six months before painting it. It was 1996 when she first started noticing flashes of light in the corner of her eye. She’d turn and look, and nothing would be there. But she felt something watching, always. Allegedly.
One day, this artist (with no other paintings to be found online) felt something guide her hand. Far from being moved by the muse, she felt sure it was the thing that was watching her, imploring the tendons in her hand to flex and stiffen until she was left with a completed Rain Woman. Some websites claim it took her five hours, others six. Either way, a ghost was inhibiting Telets like an oil painting puppeteer.
She then went on to put it up for sale at a local art shop, where it was bought and promptly returned, time and time again.
As one website described – in such a detailed fashion, it suggests they either had more intimate details of the Rain Woman case than are currently online – her modus operandi is as follows: “Once the subject has been brought into target’s home, targets will be subject to activity and experiences including, but not limited to: Sleeplessness; nightmares; general misfortune; conflict with others living within the home, the feeling of constantly being watched.”
While it remains doubtful this painting was haunted – or even real – it’s a harmless exercise in embellishment that even the greatest of artworks weren’t immune to. The fact the Mona Lisa’s eyes are said to follow you around a room only makes you more likely to visit it and see for yourself, so, in a strange way, the growing trend of these ghost stories is encouraging people to be curious about the real thing. A win for painters and paranormal fans everywhere.
