Bruno Amadio, best known as Giovanni Bragolin was an Italian painter who became really popular in the 70 century because of the mystery of his paintings. After decades, the mystery behind his alleged cursed paintings has not yet been solved.
The story begins after WWII when Giovanni started to paint portraits of orphan children. He is famously known as the creator of the group of paintings known as Crying Boys. The paintings feature a variety of tearful children looking morosely straight ahead.
He started to produce the Crying Boy pictures for tourists. At least 65 such paintings were made under the name Bragolin. Reproductions of the paintings were sold worldwide with great success, although he was not always paid royalties for the reproductions. Most people remember having one of these reproductions hanged on the walls of their living rooms.
Although most of his models look as if they were of poor descent, they were picked out at random among schools and playgrounds from around Venice and through ads in newspapers. Amadio asked the youngsters to take a neutral or sometimes a sad pose. He always treated his models kindly. Tears were added when the portrait was finished.
Urban legends referring to a curse mostly appear in South-American countries. In England, the tabloid The Sun launched a witch-hunt after several reports by firemen. These stories began around 1985 when several mysterious fires occurred. When the debris was sifted through, the only item that remained un-charred was a crying boy painting.
Soon, the legend started to take shape. Story has it, Bruno was so frustrated he wasn’t getting the fame he always wanted that he decided to make a deal with the devil. Soon, his paintings started selling like hot cakes but they would bring horrors upon their new buyers.
So, where did the myth of the spell of the painting materialize? One newspaper in North England has published an article about the consequences that buyers Crying Boys could get. There are many stories where people were hurt if they hung the painting on a wall, but the print stayed intact.
Fire men in England and many parts of the world started asking people not to buy more of these paintings and even organized meetings to destroyed those already acquired. On the other hand, the reproduction manufacturer declared that it was happening due to the high quality of the paper. Also, they suggested bringing the reproductions to the publishing house, where they would burn them. The number of readers increased after this declaration. Still, even today, nobody could say for sure if it were a marketing trick or willing to warn people.
