What's The Controversy With The Spiky Shape Painting On Twitter? The Disturbing Story Behind 'The Morning Visitor' Explained

As a surrealist painting depicting a strange spiky creature assaulting a young woman keeps being used for memes, people on social media continue to denounce those who make these memes, claiming that the subject of the painting is far too serious for it to be used as a template. Who drew "The Morning Visitor" and what's the meaning of the painting? Find answers in our brief explainer.

What Is 'The Morning Visitor' And What Is It About?

"Il Visitatore del Mattino," or "The Morning Visitor" in English, is a 1963 painting by Italian surrealist and writer Dino Buzzati. The painting, which is split into eight smaller paintings comprising a continuous narrative, depicts the story of a young woman named Daniela who wakes up in the morning and is cleaning her house when an intruder, depicted as a surreal spiky shape, enters her house. The last three panels of the painting show the shape grabbing and entering the woman as she screams, and leaving her body deformed after the shape.

While from the first glance of the picture a viewer can tell that the malevolent shape harms Daniela, the description of the painting by its author Dino Buzzati is truly haunting, revealing that 'The Morning Visitor' is a story of sexual assault.

Daniela was cleaning the house when a strange person arrived. He grabbed her, used violence against her, and literally entered her, leaving her deformed.

Why Did 'The Morning Visitor' Go Viral?

While the painting has been shared on social media such as X and Tumblr before, it was a June 15th, 2024, post by X user @ddoniolvalcroze that made it go viral, with the painting accruing over 224,000 likes in ten days.

Like the many unusual artworks that go viral on social media, "The Morning Visitor" became a meme format, with users not putting second thought into whether such use of the imagery may appear distasteful and harmful to others. As memes based on the haunting painting appeared on Twitter, so did posts protesting its use as a meme format.

These protests, however, seemingly only prompted some individuals to make even more memes based on the painting, with some specifically making a point of disregarding the original meaning of the painting, or even making memes specifically to troll those protesting its use as a meme. These, too, were met with a wave of criticisms aimed at those who chose to make memes based on the painting in spite of it depicting assault.

In online discussions, the shape has been sometimes referred to as "Squiggles".

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For the full history of "The Morning Visitor," be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.