79 Hilarious Pictures That Don’t Explain Themselves And Never Will

Even though photographs are usually more literal than paintings, the ones you see on this list resemble what art historians call a problem picture, a genre popular in late Victorian painting, characterized by the deliberately ambiguous depiction of a key moment in a narrative that can be interpreted in several different ways, or which portrays an unresolved dilemma that incites gossip amongst curious viewers.

"These kinds of paintings were major draws at the annual Royal Academy summer exhibitions, designed to be sold, certainly, but also to attract popular and press attention," art historian Pamela Fletcher tells Hyperallergic.

One successful artist who mastered the genre was John Collier. The British portraitist painted in a Pre-Raphaelite style and notable examples of his work include 'The Prodigal Daughter' (1903) and 'A Fallen Idol' (1913), which both feature women caught in incomprehensible predicaments that inspired viewers to imagine possible explanations behind the perplexing scenes.

"In the 1890s, Collier painted a number of fairly dramatic subject pictures drawn from history or literature — 'The Laboratory' fits into this category, which also includes scenes of Clytemnestra, Cleopatra, the Borgias, and others," Fletcher adds.

In 'The Laboratory,' Collier illustrates a scene in which a woman and an apothecary prepare a fatal elixir for her husband's lover. The painting is based on Robert Browning's 1844 poem of the same name, which centers on the true story of French aristocrat Marie-Madeleine d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers, who was sentenced in 1676 after poisoning her father and two brothers.

When 'The Laboratory' was first unveiled in 1895, it stood out for its purposeful ambiguity, scandalous undertones, and Collier's dramatic use of light, which he often employed as a device to intensify a scene's moral enigma and suspense.