10 September 2006

Diane Arbus

We’re doing a Stanley Kubrick Netflix marathon over the next week or two. In poking around Wikipedia, I discovered that the creepy apparition of the two girls in The Shining is inspired by a photograph by Diane Arbus, an artist about whom I’d never heard (which isn’t surprising considering my extremely limited knowledge of art history). Compare the image of the girls in The Shining to Arbus’s Identical twins. After doing some quick searching, I’ve found her work to be positively chilling. A few of her more famous shots:

Arbus Twins Arbus Boy Arbus Giant Arbus Wheelchair Arbus Mia

(click to embiggen)