Erotic Witches

The most interesting aspect of witches is that they like to have sex with the Devil, according to most experts, and the best paintings of these orgiastic witches are by the Renaissance Germans. There was none better than Hans Baldung Grien, whose Three witches and Witch and Dragon, are below. I say amazing because they are from 1514-1515.

These paintings were done not long after the notorious anti-witch propaganda known as the Malleus Maleficarum ("Hammer of Witches") first appeared, in 1487, which would come into its own during the witch burnings of the mid-1500's. It was also right before Martin Luther's act of defiance in Wittenberg in 1517, launching the Protestant Reformation. Why Baldung was so interested in erotic witches never has been adequately dealt with by art historians, most of whom seem appalled at such frankness.

Baldung is credited with being the first to introduce explicit eroticism into European religious art with his portrayal of the Fall of Adam and Eve in 1511, which is remarkable for the way Adam holds Eve's breast. (Titian's Venus of Urbino wouldn't be until 1538, which improves on Giorgione's influential Sleeping Venus from c. 1510 which is not erotic.)

Russian painters have not tackled witches very often, although Russian folklore produced one of the most fearsome of them all, Baba Yaga. The most famous painting of her is by Ivan Bilibin but I like this lesser known one by Viktor Vasnetsov from 1917, in which she is riding her distinctive mortar and pestle and carrying the young heroine Vasilisa.

In European folklore, witches are generally evil. However, in Slavic folklore Baba Yaga is an ambiguous Mother Nature figure, ruling over the forest and the elements via (for example) the White Horseman, the Red Horseman and the Black Horseman, who bring Bright Dawn, the Red Sun and Dark Midnight. For Margarita, another famous Russian witch: here

For a Chinese witch, see here.