The painting that haunts me seven experts share their favorite scary artwork

AS HALLOWEEN approached, we asked seven of our academic experts to tell us about the most unsettling artwork they've ever encountered. From gruesome portraits to creepy critters, these are the paintings that have stayed with them long after their first glimpse than the idea of being buried alive.

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In Antoine Wiertz's painting, a cholera victim, presumed dead, revives in the crypt. Lifting the coffin lid, he glimpses a human skull through the gloom. A spider scrambles towards the open lid, while a rat slinks into an adjacent coffin. His face contorts with horror at his realization: he has awakened into a nightmare worse than death.

In 18th and 19th century Europe, the fear of premature burial was rife, and, while rarer than people imagined, the anxiety was not entirely unfounded. During epidemics, bodies were buried hastily and there were few accurate techniques for confirming death.

To guard against the grim possibility of being buried alive, some people specified that their arteries be cut or their heads severed before they were buried. Instant death was preferable to the horror of live burial that Wiertz so frighteningly portrayed.- Chloe Ward, senior lecturer in the history of British art, Queen Mary University of London

JUDITH MURDERING HOLOFERNES BY ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI (1620)

The sheer visceral impact of this painting is heightened by its composition. Our eyes are drawn to the partially severed head of the stillstruggling Holofernes.