History Main / FictionalPainting

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': One of the three cases in "Tri-Borough" centers around a fictional early-American painting called ''Immortality'' by fictional artist Jacques de Suis. At first it is thought to be a forgery, but turns out to be real in-universe.

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': In "The Black Book", the sale of a previously unknown painting by an 18th-century painter sends Barnaby into an investigation of murders as well as art forgery. The episode features an entire fictional catalog of paintings by this artist.

* The ''Franka'' album "De Blauwe Venus"[[note]]"The Blue Venus"[[/note]] sees Franka become involved in preventing the theft of the titular ''De Blauwe Venus''. It's a blue-toned painting of an armless woman sitting against a window, hence her resemblance to the Art/VenusDeMilo. The thief-to-be turns out to be the owner of a tech company, who got involved in a car crash with his parents at a young age. They died and he lost his arms, giving him a lifelong obsession with arms, lack thereof, and shoulders. Thus he wants the painting for himself. Once the case is over, the story closes with the painting's owner, the very woman depicted, taking it back from the museum that had it on loan. It's revealed that back in the day, she and the artist shared a room in Nice and one afternoon, just before sunset, she sat by the window and draped her arms behind her to rest against the warm outside wall. The artist liked the pose and turned it into a painting he gifted her.

* An episode of ''Series/Warehouse13'' involves a Van Gogh painting called "Stormy Night", which has developed dangerous magical properties. Artie retrieves it and uses another artifact to make a perfect, non-magical copy. It's implied the Warehouse has done this for a lot of famous and non-famous pieces.

* The SeriesFinale of ''Series/NedsDeclassifiedSchoolSurvivalGuide'' features a trip to a museum to see a fictional painting called "The Wild Boy".
* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': In "The Black Book", the sale of a previously unknown painting by an 18th-century painter sends Barnaby into an investigation of murders as well as art forgery. The episode features an entire fictional catalog of paintings by this artist.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek''
** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Requiem for Methuselah". While in Flint's mansion, Spock discovers a number of da Vinci paintings that have never been catalogued. It later turns out that Flint is an [[JuliusBeethovenDaVinci immortal who was da Vinci and other famous men]]. He created the new works after leaving Earth.
** The ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' episode ''[[Recap/StarTrekPicardS2E02Penance Penance]]'' features a painting of one General Jean-Luc Picard in Chateau Picard.

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': One of the three cases in "Tri-Borough" centers around a fictional early-American painting called ''Immortality'' by fictional artist Jacques de Suis. At first it is thought to be a forgery, but turns out to be real in-universe.
* The first episode of ''Series/NightGallery'' featured a segment about a rich man who owns a large painting of his property. After his EvilNephew kills him for his money, [[CreepyChangingPainting details in the painting start changing]] to reflect the dead man's grave, and then him slowly rising from it and coming toward the door. The nephew panics and ends up accidentally killing himself, at which point the [[TheButlerDidIt family butler]] gloats over his trick--he was the one secretly adding the new elements to the painting so he could steal the fortune. But the end of the episode shows the painting [[RealAfterAll changing on its own]], with the ''nephew'' now making his way toward the house, spelling a grisly end for the butler.

* In ''Series/TheDickVanDykeShow'' episode "October Eve," a painter does a portrait of Laura. While the painting is never shown to the camera, we can infer from their reactions that Laura is depicted as mostly or entirely naked, to her shame and Rob's embarrassment.

* ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu''
** Campaign ''Shadows of Yog-Sothoth''. Several rooms in the lodge hall of the Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight have a number of murals with horrible images that can cause any viewer to lose SAN (sanity) points.
** ''The Asylum And Other Tales'', adventure "Westchester House". The MacGuffin of the adventure is a $15,000 painting called "The Hunter". It depicts a man on horseback with two dogs at the horse's feet. The dogs are looking back over their shoulders at a primal forest. Some viewers say they can make out something in the forest looking out at the unsuspecting horseman.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' supplement ''Tir Tairngire''. Jenna Ni'Fairra is one of the members of the Council of Princes. She has an extremely old painting which depicts her with thorns growing out of her skin. This is a portrait of her when she was [[spoiler: Alachia, the elven Queen of the Blood Wood in the ''TabletopGame/{{Earthdawn}}'' setting]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Arcanum}}'': In one quest, your character is tasked with recovering the painting "Kerghan and Persephone", recently stolen from the estate of the Garringsburgs, a family of Tarantian aristocrats.
* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' lets you craft paintings to decorate your base with. While most of them are based on real paintings by Kristoffer Zetterstrand, [[https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/File:Wither_Painting.png one]] is original to the game, depicting the construction process of [[OptionalBoss the Wither]]. You can modify them or even create your ''own'' paintings if you access the game's texture files for the in-game paintings, and some [[GameMod mod]] or texture packs come with their own modified paintings.
* One of ''VisualNovel/HotelDuskRoom215'''s big mysteries revolves around the missing painting of the artist Osterzone called "Angel Opening a Door".
* Most of the paintings in the Princess Toadstool's castle in ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'' are entrances to worlds in Mushroom Kingdom, where Mario has to recover the stars and save the princess from Bowser.

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' has a couple of examples:
** If Bethany is the surviving sibling, there is a minor quest in Act 1 in which Hawke presents her with an old portrait of their mother Leandra, from long before any of them were born. The picture is not shown to the player, but Bethany is thrilled with how beautiful and happy their mother looks in the painting.
** In the ''Black Emporium'' DLC, one of the codex entries found in the eponymous location talks about the "Velvet Cailans," a weird collection of portraits of King Cailan of Ferelden on black velvet canvas. It's an in-universe riff on the real-world phenomenon of portraits of Music/ElvisPresley on black velvet.

* An episode of ''Series/Warehouse13'' involves a Van Gogh painting called "Stormy Night", which has developed dangerous magical properties.

** In the short story "Grendel", space pirates kidnap the famous Kdatlyno touch-sculptor Lloobee and Beowulf Schaeffer helps to rescue him. In thanks, Lloobee creates a set of touch-sculptures depicting Schaeffer and the pirates.

** "The Watchers". This work depicts a wooded area with heavy undergrowth. Anyone who looks at it carefully can see the eyes of creatures looking through the brush. anyone who looks at it for too long can have their mind transferred into that of a small woodland animal living nearby.

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* The plot of ''VideoGame/LayersOfFear'' is driven by the increasingly unstable painter protagonist's attempt to finish his last portrait [[spoiler:which he believes will bring back his wife, who he [[DrivenToSuicide Drove To Suicide]] with neglect]]. A few other paintings by him also make appearances, including ''Baby Face'', a portrait of a child with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrichosis hypertrichosis]].

** The Caretaker shows off various artworks and technology plundered by his {{Space Pirate}}s, including a sculpture called ''Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations''.

What happens when a work focuses on art, but the story itself is entirely fictional? You get this: the fictional painting, which only exists in-universe. Often these paintings are quite important to the story to where the plot hinges on them, so creative control over the exact details of the painting can be very helpful. If one of the characters is a painter themselves, chances are they'll end up making one of these paintings, but more often they're treated as famous historical works found in museums and galleries.

* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' lets you craft paintings to decorate your base with. While most of them are based on real paintings by Kristoffer Zetterstrand, [[https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/File:Wither_Painting.png one]] is original to the game, depicting the construction process of [[BonusBoss the Wither]]. You can modify them or even create your ''own'' paintings if you access the game's texture files for the in-game paintings, and some [[GameMod mod]] or texture packs come with their own modified paintings.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation''

* In ''Theatre/AnimalCrackers'' (both the Broadway show and the film), the entire plot revolves around a painting, "After the Hunt," by the fictional artist Beaugarde, and two student copies of it, one of them quite good, the other not.
* ''Film/ArtOfTheDead'' centres around a series of seven painting by MadArtist Dorian Wilde. Known collectively as 'The Animals', each of the paintings depicts an animal representing one of the SevenDeadlySins. The paintings are said to bring madness and misfortune to whoever possesses them.
* Daniel Robitaille, the eponymous ''Film/{{Candyman}}'', was a portrait artist in life; his paintings are central to the plot of the third film.
* ''Film/GhostbustersII'' features a portrait of Vigo the Carpathian, a sixteenth-century tyrant from Moldavia. The painting becomes central to the plot when Vigo's spirit inhabits the painting and uses it to order museum worker Janosz to do its evil deeds.
* ''Film/TheGrandBudapestHotel'' has the ''Boy with Apple'', which becomes central to the plot once it's mentioned in a will.

->''"The tapestries wove a tale of chaos ignited, an orgy of fire and pain. Undead beings, with rotted skins caked with sulfur and ash, beckoned at me through a burning abyss. Their tortured stares were a testemonial to the price of weakness.

->Their fate would not find me. Yet blood calls to blood."''

->''"The tapestries wove a tale of chaos ignited, an orgy of fire and pain. Undead beings, with rotted skins caked with sulfur and ash, beckoned at me through a burning abyss. Their tortured stares were a testemonial to the price of weakness. ....Their fate would not find me. Yet blood calls to blood."''

-->Kain, encountering some of the paintings in Vorador's Mansion, ''[[VideoGame/LegacyOfKain Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain]]''