The Creepy Art of Human Bones

Jun. 17, 2010 | Art | 52 comments

François Robert is a photographer renowned for both his commercial and fine art photography work.

In the mid 90′s, Robert purchased three lockers from a school for $50.00 to furnish his studio. To his surprise, one of the lockers contained a human skeleton, which had been mounted for teaching purposes.

Since he always had a fascination with bones, once spending five weeks photographing skulls in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, he decided to take some of his free time caused by the recession of 2007 and trade in his skeleton for a collection of 206 loose bones.

He arranged these into simple, yet controversial shapes to form the images that you see below over a period of hundreds of hours, resulting in a collection that he titled “Stop the Violence” - a series that he created to increase awareness of war violence. The results are amazing, yet haunting. Check them out below…

911

Bomb

Cross

Dollar Sign

Fighter Jet

Grenade

Gun

Hammer and Sickle

HIV

Islamic Symbol

Kalashnikov

KKK

Knife

Mushroom Cloud

Oil

Skull and Cross Bones

Star of David

Swastika

Tank

War

Compiled exclusively for WDD by Zoe Ajiboye.

You can visit Robert’s website here. What do you think of this type of art? Please share your thoughts below…

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COMMENTS

http://www.behance.net/leventegaal Levi

This is craaaaaazy!!!! :)

May I ask: how many free ours they have in a day????? :))

Levi
steve

nice but creepy! :)
http://www.creadictos.com Luis Lopez

Execllent this is art, that show us that you can use anything to create art, in this case I don’t think is creepy, cause the idea about war is clear and what else could represent better that concept?
http://jerrymannel.com Jerry

Stunning and simply amazing….
http://www.reveriedesign.co.uk/seo SEO Birmingham

Very cleaver idea and to think it had stemed from 3 lockers lol! Great post once again.
Rahul

Great Job..
Boomer

Wow this is great, wish I ad the idea first.
http://www.pscyhed.be/wordpress Darkened Soul

I wish I had come up with this one though, I like it alot!
http://al-kanz.org Al-Kanz

C’est glauque 8/
http://trimbakeshwar.in/ trimbakeshwar

oh!!

i m just appraised by looking at this..
what made u to think like this…..
u must be different….

good luck…
http://molbal.co.cc Bálint Molnár

Levi, I agree with you at all :D
http://www.jordanwalker.net Jordan Walker

Awesome depictions.
Brandon

Lumping all of these subjects into one collection doesn’t express discernment, and frankly this isn’t very original.
http://www.michaelsaathoff.com Michael Saathoff

very creative stuff, a little dark for my taste but definitely creative!
http://www.chrismower.com Chris Mower

Having graduated in Biology and spent my fair share of time around dead human bodies in the cadaver lab, I just have to say that this doesn’t creep me out at all. It’s rather artistic for sure though, and does help express his point.
http://www.kelleythompson.com Kelley

Wow! Beautiful!
Amazing how many textures can be created from arranging bones. Reminiscent of textures in wood-cut lettering.
pesho

so creeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy
Daniel Hagy

Bone-chilling but very creative, telling a positive message to “Stop the Violence”.
http://MELIJOY.FREETOSERVE.INFO Melissa joyce

No words can compare these work because it is too fantastic .Great Thanks for the variety posting….
http://amasestudio.es javi

magnific! original and explicit!
http://wildanr05.student.ipb.ac.id/ wildanr05

Bone art
Tegin

Islamıc symbol is just a crescent , don’t have star.
http://stylishwebdesigner.com/ Tanya

Amazing work. I remeber my biology class after looking at these graphics ;)
http://www.sokaktrendi.com sokak trendi

Really creepy, but I like his way of thinking.
http://knowledgecity.com Jae Xavier

lol…

I saw a post on bones used for platform heels…

Now this…

I can make a library of 3D skeletons bones and accomplish the same thing… but I don’t want to.
http://www.shamoxia.com 丕子

wonderful
http://newevolutiondesigns.com/blog Tom – New Evolution

That was pretty cool, and different.
http://www.creatuswebdesign.nl/ Gert van den Brink

Really creative, but a little creepy at the same time.

Thanks for sharing
http://www.redkoaladesign.pl RedKoala

that’s seriously creepy but in the same time so awesome. What a guy!
http://www.sametomorrow.com/blog adam

Saw this the other day, really interesting and great work.
http://www.weblimner.com Ali Sipahioglu

This is the second comment im writing about that moon and the start not being the islamic symbol. you guys didn’t approve me first one for some reason
- http://www.webdesignerdepot.com Walter
  
  Your first comment was probably flagged as spam and deleted. My apologies for the oversight. As for your comment, can you elaborate on what you mean? This link seems to indicate that the symbol was correctly labeled:
  http://islam.about.com/od/history/a/crescent_moon.htm
  - http://www.weblimner.com Ali Sipahioglu
    
    No worries. It was adopted by the Ottoman Empire, as it is also stated in that article, from the Byzantine Empire so it actually was used by a Christian empire first. It is usually mistaken just because Ottoman Empire was a big Muslim empire and just happened to use that symbol.
    
    The symbol is also used in the Turkish flag and the flag wasn’t chosen like that because of its islamic relations but because of other reasons.
    
    Also you can see towards the end of that article it says;
    “Based on this history, many Muslims reject using the crescent moon as a symbol of Islam”
http://www.seraphimchris.com SeraphimChris

Wow, these are some nice works of art. creepy yes, but still inspirational.
http://www.orphicpixel.com Mars

poor bones, i hope their soul is well rested
William Baldwin

Talk about your Visual metaphors! Bones portraying the causes of death and suffering.
Excellent! diversion from the stifled straight line thinking.
shawn daughty

fantastic and creepy
http://www.ikandy.co.ug I-kandy

Creepy!!! But interesting…
ellroy

Maybe you could find this similar & intersting too:

http://www.behance.net/gallery/TALES-FOR-A-SWEET-DEMISE/481811
http://elizawhat.com Elizabeth Kaylene

Stunning.

I don’t like that he did the Islamic flag, though; I’m taking it that each of these symbols and words he constructed are things that cause death, and I’m tired of the stigma that is being attached to Muslim culture and religion. Suicide bombers and terrorists are extremists. The real Muslim religion is actually very peaceful, similar to Buddhism in some ways.

Still, this is a stunning gallery.
http://yuliantip06.student.ipb.ac.id yulianti

it’s cool..
Annagloul

Great composition and use of “the bones variations” and writing “War” with bones really stresses subconsciously what war brings, I enjoy art with concept, Great work..
http://www.benstokesmarketing.co.uk Website design shrewsbury

I think this is just great, a lovely example on how to use bones for art :) The images actually have a great meaning to the if you look into them properly with an open mind, great work.
Rushty

MIND-BLOWING CREATIVE
http://arieff06.student.ipb.ac.id arieff

Talk about your Visual metaphors! Bones portraying the causes of death and suffering.
Excellent! diversion from the stifled straight line thinking.
Chris J.

Who would’ve thought our bones could be a nice piece of art? Robert did.
http://arifr06.student.ipb.ac.id ardhan

it’s creepy enough
http://tric06.student.ipb.ac.id utari

awesome..great design!
http://ericsons06.student.ipb.ac.id/ eric

thanks for share… :)
wonderfull
http://bambang.wijonarko08.student.ipb.ac.id wij

that’s crazy idea….
amazing imagination design…
http://karimul.makhtidi08.student.ipb.ac.id tedted

so artistic and unique
selena

so amazing. i love it

	Yes, they're great for usability.
	No, they remind me of frames.
	Fixed what?