In the homes of goths hang mainly paintings in the style of Black Romanticism. In most cases, the natural art prints are not originals. Who has money for works by great artists like Goya, Edvard Munch, Max Ernst, Füssli or Caspar David Friedrich? Goths are concerned with the motifs and their depiction of the abysmal and less with the value of an art collection. Pictures with vanitas motifs are also particularly popular in the black scene. They show the transience of life by means of various symbols. One can look at them with a melancholy gaze, but also recognise social criticism, for example when symbols for possessions and power become meaningless in the face of death.
Painting may not necessarily be typical of the gothic scene, but over the decades youth culture has grown up and with age often comes a sense of classical art. That's why there are art exhibitions at big festivals nowadays, especially at the Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig. Contemporary artists use the black scene's desire for melancholic and dark painting to make themselves and their works better known. Of course, the scene also produces painters itself - and if you look at it closely, tattoos with vanitas motifs are also paintings. There are more than enough of them in the gothic scene.
