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Necronom IV
Hans Rudolph Giger • Painting, 1976, 100×150 cm
Description of the artwork «Necronom IV»
In 1977, Giger released a book of his illustrations which was called The Necronomicon. It made his fans look for parallels between his paintings and Lovecraft’s Cthulhu worlds for many years. In fact, Giger just liked the name. This book called for the first wave of popularity for Hans Rudy, which even reached Hollywood. At the time, director Ridley Scott was working on the concept for Alien and couldn’t find an artist who could provide him with a suitable sketch depicting a bloodthirsty alien. At some point, the film operator showed Scott Giger’s Necronomicon, and when he saw the Necronom IV, he realized that his search was over.
The artist happily agreed to cooperate and set to work. He decided to change the original appearance of the Alien a little, because the creature from the Giger’s painting caused inappropriate erotic associations. Hans Rudi not only created an eerie image of an alien at all stages of its development (egg, face-hijacker and adult), he invented a whole world inhabited by these creatures and drew sketches of the internal structure of the ship. He came to Hollywood to supervise the process of creating the scenery: it was planned that Giger would stay there for only three weeks, but he was delayed for five months. The artist was not satisfied with the work of decorators who tried to recreate the papier-mâché model of the Alien’s body based on his sketches. Hans Rudi got down to business himself and demanded bones and plasticine for work.
The result of the collaboration between Giger and Scott surpassed all expectations. In 1980, the artist received an Oscar for Best Visual Effects in Alien. Later, based on the film, several computer games were created, then numerous sequels followed. The last film that Giger worked on was Prometheus, which has common action with the Aliens series. Moreover, in Switzerland (in Gruyeres and the artist’s hometown), there are two “Giger Bars”, the interior of which were created according to the sketches of Hans Rudy.
Author: Yevheniia Sidelnikova
The artist happily agreed to cooperate and set to work. He decided to change the original appearance of the Alien a little, because the creature from the Giger’s painting caused inappropriate erotic associations. Hans Rudi not only created an eerie image of an alien at all stages of its development (egg, face-hijacker and adult), he invented a whole world inhabited by these creatures and drew sketches of the internal structure of the ship. He came to Hollywood to supervise the process of creating the scenery: it was planned that Giger would stay there for only three weeks, but he was delayed for five months. The artist was not satisfied with the work of decorators who tried to recreate the papier-mâché model of the Alien’s body based on his sketches. Hans Rudi got down to business himself and demanded bones and plasticine for work.
The result of the collaboration between Giger and Scott surpassed all expectations. In 1980, the artist received an Oscar for Best Visual Effects in Alien. Later, based on the film, several computer games were created, then numerous sequels followed. The last film that Giger worked on was Prometheus, which has common action with the Aliens series. Moreover, in Switzerland (in Gruyeres and the artist’s hometown), there are two “Giger Bars”, the interior of which were created according to the sketches of Hans Rudy.
Author: Yevheniia Sidelnikova
