'Picture in the House, The'

"Picture in the House, The" (The National Amateur, July 1919): This H.P. Lovecraft short story is the first of several to mention the fictitious city of Arkham, Massachusetts. See full publication history and electronic text.

Pan

Pan: This classical Greek god of the woodlands is generally depicted as a wild man with goat legs who was carrying a set of pipes. According to Lovecraft, he was "dreaded" and attended by many "queer companions" and is mentioned in a number of the author's works, including the short story "The Tree."

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Arkham, ARTISTS

Arkham

Arkham: Arkham is a fictitious city in Massachusetts created H.P. Lovecraft and featured in many of his stories (as well as subsequent ones by his fans). It was first mentioned in the short story "The Picture in the House": "Now I found myself upon an apparently abandoned road which I had chosen as the shortest cut to Arkham ..." Not coincidentally, Arkham has many similarities to Lovecraft's home town of Providence, Rhode Island.

+ ARTISTS +

Lovecraft frequently refers to artists and their works in his stories. As with other elements in his stories, some of these figures are real and some are not, and they are neatly interwoven with each other. This section is devoted to identifying some of them.

Ardois-Bonnot: "... a fantastic painter" who "hangs a blasphemous 'Dream Landscape' in the Paris spring salon of 1926" in the Lovecraft short story "The Call of Cthulhu." This would not seem to be a real person, although a number of latter-day fan artists have endeavored to replicate the painting mentioned in the story.

Nicholas Roerich (Oct. 9, 1874 – Dec. 13, 1947): An actual Russian painter, mystic, philosopher, scientist, writer, traveler, and public figure. A prolific artist, he created thousands of paintings -- many of them are exhibited in well-known museums of the world -- and about 30 literary works. Roerich was an author and initiator of an international pact for the protection of artistic and academic institutions and historical sites and a founder of an international movement for the defence of culture. He received several nominations for the Nobel Prize. Shown below is Roerich's 1943 painting "Song of Shambhala."