Witch trials art refers to the artistic representations of the historical events known as witch trials. Witch trials were widespread during the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly in Europe and North America. These trials involved the prosecution and execution of individuals accused of practicing witchcraft. Artists have depicted witch trials in various mediums, including paintings, sculptures, and literature. One of the most famous artworks related to witch trials is the painting "The Last Judgment" by Hieronymus Bosch. This triptych masterpiece includes various elements related to witchcraft, such as witches, demons, and other supernatural creatures.

The Salem Witch Trials Revisited at New-York Historical Society

Three hundred years after the Salem Witch Trials, we are still reckoning and learning from this period of American intolerance and injustice. The trials of 1692-1693 led to the deaths of twenty-five innocent people, most of whom were women. The New-York Historical Society recently opened, ‘The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning and Reclaiming,’ an exhibition that pieces together and illuminates the real lives of the accused and the legacies they have left. The show, organized by the Peabody Essex Museum, features ephemera, art, and historical manuscripts.

The history of witches and Christianity are intertwined. The earliest recording of the term ‘witch’ is found in the Bible. One such instance is in 1 Samuel from around 931 - 721 BC. This book tells the story of when King Saul sought out the Witch of Endor to summon a dead prophet to help him defeat the Philistine army. While the witch did rouse the prophet, Samuel, he prophesied the death of Saul and his sons – the next day, his sons died in battle, and Saul committed suicide. This first account revealed the dangers and powers that would be associated with witches for thousands of years.

New-York Historical Society, Gift of the children of Thomas S. Noble and Mary C. Noble, in their memory, 1939.251

Thomas Satterwhite Noble (1835-1907) Witch Hill (The Salem Martyr), 1869 Oil on canvas

In 900 AD, witchcraft was announced to be forbidden by the Church. In medieval canon law, it was stated that witchcraft and magic were delusions and if you believed in witches, you were a victim of seduction by the devil. These early Church pronouncements laid the foundation for witch hysteria that metastasized in the 1400s. Within a century, witch hunts were common. Accused people often confessed to witchcraft under extreme duress or even torture. Those sentenced to death were usually burned or hanged at the stake. The most vulnerable were unmarried women and widows.

The exhibition at the NYHS opens with historical artifacts and accounts that contextualize the Salem Witch Trials in this period of hysteria. One such document is the historical manuscript of Malleus Maleficarum , a guide that teaches one how to identify, hunt, and interrogate witches. This 1486 book, whose title translates to Hammer of Witches, was written by the German clergyman Heinrich Kramer.

Heinrich Institoris (1430-1505) Malleus Maleficarum, London: 1669

Kramer himself has an interesting history of accusing witches. In 1484, Kramer unsuccessfully attempted to prosecute alleged witches in Tyrol. He was later expelled from the city of Innsbruck for his crazy beliefs. His purpose for writing Malleus Maleficarum was to explain his own views on witchcraft, but it also seems like he wrote it as an act of self-justification and revenge. In 1519, Jacob Sprenger’s name was added as an author of Malleus Maleficarum , possibly to counter the illegal behavior of Kramer, who was later charged for the obsession of one of his accused witches. The book is now condemned by the Church, as it recommends unethical and illegal procedures and goes against Catholic doctrines.

From novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne to playwright Arthur Miller, to the television show “Bewitched,” the memory and meanings of the Salem witch trials have been kept alive throughout the 20th century. And the exhibition successfully juxtaposes the medieval histories of witches with what witches mean today. Featuring artists and works by descendants of the accused, the exhibition gives the Salem witch trials a new perspective, one that wasn’t given to the accused back in the 1690s.

Peabody Essex Museum, Museum purchase, made possible by an anonymous donor, 2001, 138181 Photo by Kathy Tarantola

Artist in Salem, Massachusetts Tape loom owned by Rebecca Putnam, 1690-1710 Oak

One reclamation project includes a dress and photographs by Alexander McQueen, from his fall/winter 2007 collection, In Memory of Elizabeth How, 1692. McQueen is an ancestor of How, one of the first women to be condemned and hanged as a witch. In his design, a sleek black evening gown created with a combination of velvet, satin, and glass beading, McQueen incorporates an ominous and bat-like silhouette. The dress is clearly a reclamation of what it means to be a witch, ominous, powerful, and magical, in the best way.

“The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning and Reclaiming” is on view at the New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West at Richard Gilder Way (77th Street), New York, New York, October 7, 2022–January 22, 2023.

The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning and Reclaiming is organized by the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts. This exhibition was co-curated by Dan Lipcan, the Ann C. Pingree Director of the Phillips Library; Paula Richter, Curator; and Lydia Gordon; Associate Curator. At New-York Historical, it was coordinated by Anna Danziger Halperin, associate director of the Center for Women’s History.

Witch Hunt

Sixteen critically acclaimed artists employ feminist, queer, and decolonial strategies to explore gender, power, and the global impacts of patriarchy.

Witch Hunt presents the work of 16 midcareer women artists from 13 countries, who use feminist, queer, and decolonial strategies to investigate current and historical political events, social conditions, and overlooked or suppressed artistic legacies. The artists have demonstrated decades-long commitments to feminist creative practice as a subversive, expansive, and oftentimes collaborative methodology. Together their works provide an opportunity to examine ideas, expand awareness, and encourage dialogue about urgent contemporary issues, such as the body and its vulnerabilities; women’s rights and representation; the erasure of women’s contributions to critical movements and histories; the impact of technologies of surveillance; environmental justice; the queering of political discourse; the imperative for feminist practice to be inclusive and intersectional; and the power of collective action.

The 15 projects in Witch Hunt employ a variety of mediums—painting, sculpture, video, photography, sound, and performance—and consistently argue for the value of a critical feminist perspective within the subject matter, production, and presentation of contemporary art. Witch Hunt asks how artistic practices informed by feminist ideologies can meaningfully amplify debates within contemporary culture and politics. The projects in the exhibition constitute an art of resistance, disrupting cultural discourse and proposing new ways of thinking and enacting change at a moment of unprecedented suffering and upheaval across the globe.

Witch Hunt offers an incisive survey of complex and impactful practices by some of the most influential artists working today and includes newly commissioned works as well as major projects that have yet to be shown on the West Coast or in the United States. Witch Hunt marks the Los Angeles museum debut of Leonor Antunes, Shu Lea Cheang, Minerva Cuevas, Bouchra Khalili, Laura Lima, Otobong Nkanga, and Okwui Okpokwasili.

Artists
Leonor Antunes (Portuguese, b. 1972)
Yael Bartana (Israeli, b. 1970)
Pauline Boudry (Swiss, b. 1972)
& Renate Lorenz (German, b. 1972)
Candice Breitz (South African, b. 1972)
Shu Lea Cheang (American, b. 1954)
Minerva Cuevas (Mexican, b. 1975)
Vaginal Davis (American, b. 1969)
Every Ocean Hughes (formerly Emily Roysdon) (American, b. 1977)
Bouchra Khalili (Moroccan, b. 1975)
Laura Lima (Brazilian, b. 1971)
Teresa Margolles (Mexican, b. 1963)
Otobong Nkanga (Nigerian, b. 1974)
Okwui Okpokwasili (Nigerian American, b. 1972)
Lara Schnitger (Dutch, b. 1969)
Beverly Semmes (American, b. 1958)

The exhibition is a collaboration between the Hammer Museum and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA), and works are on view at both sites.

Witch Hunt is organized by Connie Butler, Hammer Chief Curator and Anne Ellegood, ICA LA Good Works Executive Director, with Nika Chilewich, Hammer Curatorial Assistant. The exhibition is organized by the Hammer Museum and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA).

What can we learn from the Salem Witch Trials?

This triptych masterpiece includes various elements related to witchcraft, such as witches, demons, and other supernatural creatures. The painting reflects the fear and paranoia that surrounded witch trials during that time. Literature has also played a significant role in depicting witch trials.

A historical exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum traces the political and religious forces that led to the executions of innocent people

Tompkins Harrison Matteson, Trial of George Jacobs, Sr for Witchcraft (1855) Photo: Mark Sexton and Jeffrey R. Dykes. Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum

Disinformation and paranoia, made worse by religious politics and fear-mongering: an exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum traces the history of the 1692 Salem Witch Trials, which led to executions of innocent people, predominantly women, and established a morbid fascination around the development of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. And while some of the manuscripts, paintings, and household items included in the show date back to the 15th century, the historic lessons for visitors are all too applicable today.

The exhibition breaks with traditional folklore and places the murders of the so-called “witches” within the context of social and economic crisis, humanising the people involved and drawing parallels to our current conspiracy-driven political climate. Starting with the European origins of witch-hunting, the show explores how Puritans brought theocratic anxiety to the colonies and shaped their criminal justice system around religious supremacy.

The Salem trials took place in the aftermath of a smallpox outbreak, and its consequences helped bring down a Puritan regime hellbent on “purifying” New England. Dan Lipcan, a co-curator of the show and the museum’s head librarian, believes these insecurities are evergreen.

Tompkins Harrison Matteson, Examination of a Witch (1853) Photo: Mark Sexton and Jeffrey R. Dykes. Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum

“Prejudice, injustice, and intolerance are on everybody’s minds now,” Lipcan said. “The trials were driven by fear, harsh weather, disease, supply shortages, and war—which altogether created the conditions for invented crimes and persecution for no good reason.”

Despite Salem’s reputation in the popular imagination, executions for witchcraft charges were commonplace in early modern Europe. More than 50,000 Europeans were burned at the stake between 1560 and 1630 during the Counter-Reformation, when Catholic and Protestant churches competed for market dominance. The exhibition sets Salem’s trials against this historical backdrop, displaying a 1494 copy of the German witch-hunting manual Malleus Maleficarum alongside British diagnostic texts.

Petition of Mary Esty, about 15 September 1692. Phillips Library, on deposit from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Archives

In Salem, many accused witches were teenagers, refugees fleeing French occupation, or household workers (most famously Tituba, a slave of the disgraced minister Samuel Parris). Judges would convict them using “spectral evidence”, often based on memories from only one witness. Tompkins H. Matteson’s 1855 painting of the George Jacobs trial appears with examination records and the two canes Jacobs used to walk, which accusers said he used in his spectural form to beat them. Another Matteson painting, Examination of a Witch, shows a group of men and women disrobing Mary Fisher in pursuit of identifying the Devil’s mark on her body. Examination records of Elizabeth Proctor and Bridget Bishop are displayed alongside Mary Esty’s petition of innocence and a gold sundial owned by John Proctor; all were convicted of witchcraft, but only Elizabeth avoided execution, because she was pregnant.

The exhibition also includes texts questioning the ethics of the trials, from Cotton Mather’s hardline defense to dissenting opinions by Thomas Maule and Robert Calef, which had to be published outside of Massachusetts, as Governor William Phips banned any texts contradicting Mather’s. Considering the final pardon clearing the names of five people convicted of witchcraft was only issued in 2001

, this exhibition is a timely portrayal of how governments can sanction disinformation, and why these events have compelled so many generations since.

• The Salem Witch Trials 1692, Peabody-Essex Museum, 26 September-4 April 2021

One of the most well-known literary works on this topic is "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller. This play explores the Salem witch trials in the 17th century and highlights the mass hysteria and injustice that occurred during that time. The play has been performed worldwide and has become a symbol for the dangers of mob mentality and the abuse of power. Another form of artistic representation of witch trials can be found in sculptures and monuments. For example, the Memorial to the Victims of Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts, commemorates the innocent people who lost their lives during the infamous Salem witch trials. The monument serves as a reminder of the lasting impact of these trials and the importance of remembering the past to prevent similar injustices in the future. Overall, witch trials art serves as a visual and literary documentation of a dark period in history. Through these artworks, we can gain insights into the fear, superstition, and social dynamics that led to the persecution of individuals accused of witchcraft. These artistic representations also remind us of the importance of justice, fairness, and empathy in our society today..

Reviews for "Visualizing Injustice: Witch Trials Art as Social Commentary"

1. John - 2/5 - I did not enjoy the Witch trials art exhibit at all. I found it to be disturbing and offensive. The imagery and themes portrayed were too dark and cruel for my liking. It left me feeling uneasy and uncomfortable, and I had to leave before I could see the whole exhibit. I understand that art is meant to provoke emotions, but this one was just too much for me.

2. Sarah - 1/5 - The Witch trials art exhibit was a complete disappointment for me. I found it to be highly insensitive and disrespectful towards the victims of the actual witch trials. The artist seemed to exploit their suffering for shock value and cheap thrills. The whole exhibit felt tasteless and inconsiderate. I would not recommend it to anyone who values empathy and sensitivity in art.

3. Michael - 2/5 - I have always been intrigued by the historical aspect of witch trials, but this art exhibit missed the mark for me. The artworks lacked depth and failed to provide any significant commentary or insight. It felt like a shallow and superficial attempt to romanticize the dark period in history. I was left wanting more substance and intellectual engagement.

4. Emily - 3/5 - The Witch trials art exhibit had its moments, but overall, I found it to be too graphic and disturbing. The artist's intention might have been to confront the viewers with the horrors of the past, but for me, it was just too much to bear. I appreciate the effort that went into it, but it is not an exhibit I would willingly revisit or recommend to others.

The Trials of Innocence: Examining Witch-Hunt Art