The 'Crying Boy'

The history behind the painting of the ‘Crying Boy’

To start with, the ‘crying boy’ painting is basically a portrait of a small boy crying with his lips puckered up. This painting was by artist Bruno Amadio. The ‘crying boy’ painting was very famous and popular in the 1980s era, where several copies of this ‘crying boy’ painting was issued and put for sale. A lot of people actually came forward to buy this portrait for some reasons that we are quite unclear of, because first of all, painting were supposed to make people happy when they look at it, not give them the creeps. Everything was going well and smooth till one day a strange incident happened which then caused everyone to believe that the ‘crying boy’ painting was cursed and brought bad luck upon people who owned this painting. Ron and May was a couple who happened to own this painting where they have hung it on the walls of their home. Unfortunately, a fire broke out in the couple’s kitchen and the inferno soon spread throughout the entire house. All things in their house caught fire and started burning. What was unsettling here was the ‘crying boy’ painting, where when the whole house was in flames, the ‘crying boy’ painting was completely untouched by the fire, while every other thing in the house was turning into ashes. After that creepy incident, many people have claimed that their house too have caught fire with the ‘crying boy’ painting being unscathed by the fire. Since then, the painting has been seen as a bad omen by many. The story behind the sinister painting is as follows, where Bruno Amadio has adopted a boy named Don Bonillo, who was orphaned when both his parents were burnt to death before his very own eyes. A priest has actually advised the painter not to adopt this boy with a very sad background as this boy was believed to be cursed, for some unknown reasons. But the painter went ahead by bringing Don Bonillo to his house. After a period of time, Bruno Amadio’s house caught fire and without a second thought, he blamed the boy for the mishap that has happened and chased that boy away from his home. After that, no one has ever heard of that boy again. Incidents of fires breaking out in homes that have the ‘crying boy’ painting became extremely frequent and common, that this issue eventually made its way to become the headlines of the  British newspaper named ‘The Sun’. Till date, no one has ever had the guts to hang the cursed painting of the ‘crying boy’ in their homes. (Source: http://www.theparanormalguide.com/blog/the-curse-of-the-crying-boys)

My personal take on this entire case is that all these claims of fire break outs solely due to the existence of the painting in their homes is false because scientifically, you need a reason for something to catch fire. Fires might have broken out due the carelessness of the people. The reason why the ‘crying boy’ picture was unaffected by the fire maybe because the frames of the paintings issued by the company that sells these paintings might have a lacquer coating that could be fireproof or the canvas could be fire resistant. Just because people blamed the painting for fire accidents in their homes, arsonists might have used this opportunity to set fires to homes and put the blame on the painting. Unless one of us is crazy enough to buy this painting and hang it on our walls… let’s wait and watch!

Post by: Sujani Ganesan