From early Germanic roots to Tim Burton's Beetlejuice, the Gothic sensibility has come a long way through the centuries, transforming itself into architecture, painting, fashion, music and film.
Few directors are as instantly recognizable for their aesthetics as Tim Burton.
Ever since The Beatles became an unexpected hit in 1988, his dark sensibility and playful, sharp color palette have captured the imagination of audiences.
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After the recent premiere of the sequel to this film, Burton continues to hold a recognizable place in contemporary filmmaking.
Gothic inspired him in every sense, from the eerie but romantic settings of medieval architecture, to the legendary literary monsters of the genre, and the emotionally encoded fashion of the Gothic subculture.
Burton crosses numerous styles, always with a hero or heroine who proudly stand out as Gothic.
U To Bitlđus, Lydia played by Winona Ryder is presented as an emotionally complex heroine, dressed from head to toe in black with pale skin and sharp bangs, in contrast to her callous mother who embodies the authoritative style of dressing in the eighties.
Edward Scissorhands, with his studded black skin and tousled hairdo, evokes the goth-punk scene of the seventies and the stories of Mary Shelley; his style brings him into conflict with the soft, powdered color palette of the suburbs of the fifties.
Such characters best reflect Barton's childhood alienation, while at the same time connecting with a broader sense of Gothic sensibility.
"I was the right age, yes Beetlejuice left a lasting impression on me - especially Winona Ryder as Lidija Dic, and her unsurpassed Gothic style," says Katrin Spooner, professor of literature and culture at Lancaster University, who has written widely about Gothic culture.
"For me as a 15-year-old goth girl, seeing a goth girl represented in such a positive light on the big screen was an incredibly affirming experience."
Barton both influenced and was inspired by Gothic fashion.
It embraces hybridity, in keeping with the Gothic style's journey through the ages as it has changed in architecture, painting, fashion, music and film.
Some trace its origins to the Germanic Gothic army that played a role in the fall of the Roman Empire.
Another is in Abbot Suger's renovation of the Abbey of Saint-Denis in Paris, in the early 12th century, which borrowed aspects of Romanesque architecture with the aim of raising the height and expanding the volume.
Subsequent designs for the Church of the Virgin Mary and Westminster Abbey are characterized by ribbed vaults, flying buttresses and endless arches.
Prominent rounded features that at first had a practical purpose moved decoratively to entrances, windows and other Gothic objects and works of art.
Gargoyles, created to ward off evil spirits, brought an air of the macabre to these spiritual sanctuaries.
Although later Gothic literature and painting diverged from religious ideals - or even distorted them - there are clear motives behind those original expressions.
Cave buildings with arched vaults and hidden spaces remain in works of Gothic literature, evoking ghostly scenes of the supernatural.
Romance is rooted in these Gothic expressions, and it is still embraced by Gothic culture and can be felt in all of Burton's stories.
"The essence of Gothic literature and painting from the very beginning was effect—not just expressing grandiose emotions like horror and passion, but getting the reader or viewer to share those feelings," says Spooner.
"They developed a whole repertoire of techniques, from the sublime to the twisted, to pull it off. Gothic fashion uses the same techniques and connects with our emotions in a particularly visceral way."
And while the vogue of very early Gothic painting usually reflected the period rather than the emotional content of its characters, contemporary Gothic sensibilities can be found in a host of art history paintings.
Acts as they are Portrait of a man - Memento Mori Andrea Previtalia (circa 1502) were intended as symbolic reminders of the inevitability of death, often depicting skulls and rotting fruit.
Scenes of witches and demons abounded in paintings in the 18th and 19th centuries, combining the monstrous with sublime beauty.
Painting by Johann Heinrich Fuseli from 1781 Nightmare depicts a demonic figure on the torso of a deep-sleeping woman, draped in a billowing white nightgown, while Albert Joseph Penot's work from 1890 The bat woman depicts a sailing woman with pale skin and dark hair in flight, her wings flapping against the background of a turbulent sky.
The Pre-Raphaelite works of Sir John Everett Mile contain more subtle Gothic elements: his Ophelia (1853) she is cocooned in decorative lace and covered with flowers as she floats upstream; while the lovers were doomed to Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew's Day (1852), one Protestant, the other Catholic, wrapped in black cloth.
In the 20th century, the German Expressionists conjured a distinctive blend of horror and beauty.
The movement inspired the rise of Gothic cinema and, later, Burton himself.
Themes of madness, chaos and death flare up in these paintings, many of which were inspired by the burgeoning world of psychoanalysis, reflecting psychology through external features such as setting, clothing and lighting.
Edvard Munch's paintings often depicted figures of outsiders.
His picture from 1895. Love and pain (later affectionately called Vampire) depicts a couple embracing; a woman, with pale skin and flowing curls of bright red hair, hugged a man, dressed in black, with a greenish skin tone.
Munch's paintings were shrouded in shadows and bore titles such as Jealousy, Anxiety and Despair.
His picture from 1893 Jack he famously revels in the scene of guttural restlessness.
Leon Spiliart conjured a similarly cathartic sense of horror in his own paintings.
His Self-portrait (1907) depicts an artist in a vampirically stiff white collar and large black coat being pursued by a group of figures, which can be interpreted as hanging dark clothes or ghostly apparitions.
Spilijartova Absinthe drink (1907) is completely Burtonian, with black circles around the protruding round eyes, long dark blue hair and a neck wrapped around a black scarf and a string of pearls.
Gloomy and romantic
Many Surrealists cultivated a gloomy, romantic fashion in their paintings, especially in relation to occult figures.
Leonor Fini's powerful women often dressed luxuriously in white lace, thick black feathers or lush silk.
Her description of the witch-like Princess Francesca Ruspoli from 1944 presents an aristocrat dressed from head to toe in black, with a top covered in long fur and a floor-length skirt shimmering in the light.
She holds a thin dagger while her coal-black hair swirls in the blue sky.
In the 1949 painting Angel of Anatomy, Finney sheds his clothes, making gothic magic out of the human form; the central figure has flesh only on her face, while her body is exposed to sinewy muscles and bones.
Leonora Carington similarly embraced the dark magic of Surrealism, with costumes echoing the bird-like masks of plague doctors; to women who adorn themselves with black feathers and silk; and ghostly animal-human hybrids.
In the second half of the 20th century, Gothic found new life in the Gothic subculture, heavily inspired by musicians such as Suzy Sue and the Cure.
This movement continued to intersect inner life with outer expression.
Visual artists played with these ideas - a series Exorcism Penny Slinger from the 1970s is currently on display at the Richard Salton Gallery in London, depicting an artist in a dilapidated mansion subverting wedding and religious attire with a dark romantic aesthetic, while evoking the psychological individuation of her heroine as if straight out of a horror film.
Photographers such as Carrie Mae Weems have been characterized as Southern Gothic, as they deal with the ghosts of violence and slavery, and artists such as Marina Abramović have embraced the Gothic in works that deal with death and spirituality.
Gothic has exerted a significant influence on mainstream fashion, with designers such as Rick Owens, Yohji Yamamoto, and Alexander McQueen utilizing not only a bleak aesthetic, but also ideas of rebellion and psychological expression.
Paul Hodkinson, author of the book Goths: Identity, Style and Subculture, pays homage to the constant experimentation with Gothic.
"What fascinates me is how much subcultural styles and mainstream forms of popular culture can inspire each other," he tells the BBC.
"First Beetlejuice drew heavily from the Gothic style, but also influenced the development of the Gothic aesthetic on the ground, with ordinary Gothicists taking on beloved aspects of the characters and themes, just as they had embraced the film itself."
"There has always been a debate within the subculture about the representation of Gothic in mainstream culture, and it would be problematic to suggest that all forms of commercialization have been positive.
"But the idea of subcultures as completely isolated from popular culture is unrealistic.
"Gothic style was borrowed endlessly, in cycles after cycles, in painting, fashion, film, popular music and much more, but also, the subculture developed for itself a pastiche of dark-oriented styles that it drew from other source."
In the 21st century, this volatile force continues to find new forms.
She can be seen in the visual expression of drag artist Gotmilk, with wigs shaped into devilish black horns or thick monochrome stripes.
It metamorphoses through Nick Cave's creative oeuvre, which has transformed from the boyish goth-punk energy of the late seventies and early eighties to the sensitive, complex sadness of his later years - still dealing with themes of death and sublime love.
Designers like Simon Roš use plenty of black lace and silk in their creations.
Contemporary art continues to find inspiration in Gothic storytelling.
Artists such as Tai Shani explore our relationship to the different through 19th century monsters; while Mary Sibande uses gothic supernatural elements to symbolize resistance to apartheid; and Okwui Okpokwasili deals with female sexuality through a fusion of Gothic literature and West African griot storytelling.
In 2022, Barton's Sreda she's become a role model for many young people who don't embrace the blasé of clichéd girlhood, yet this aesthetic is still seen as a threat - just this month, a school in Texas came under fire for banning all-black clothing, citing concerns about mental health of pupils.
Beetlejuice and its sequel evoke the sensitivity and chaos of the Gothic, with the title character played by Michael Keaton touching on parts forever beyond society's control.
His ghostly makeup and legendary monochrome suit evoke not only rich emotions, but also the utter chaos that this misguided form of creativity can express.
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