Fall and Spooky Season Resources

Stone carvings of ancient human skulls arranged in rows, with some skulls overlapping each other against a backdrop of greenery and stone structures.

Bring Fall and Spooky Season alive with art history!

Discover videos and activities that are perfect for Autumn, Spooky Season, Halloween, and Day of the Dead!

Skeletons and Skulls

Monsters and the Supernatural

Nature and Omens

Seasons and Cycles of Life

Seasons and Cycles of Life

September

This manuscript page shows peasants harvesting grapes beneath a castle, reflecting the rhythms of labor in Autumn. Learn about September with the Calendar Page in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.

Learn about September

October

Farmers sow wheat, birds peck at seeds, and frost covers the ground, giving us insight into seasonal cycles and life in medieval France. Learn about October with the Calendar Page in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.

A medieval illuminated manuscript depicting a castle with towers and battlements under a sky, with a figure on horseback and another standing nearby in the foreground, alongside a calendar page with decorated initials and keeping track of saints' feast days in red and blue ink.

Learn about October

Two pages are open in a manuscript with one showing a colorful scene of a forest with a pig farmer tending to a group of pigs eating acorns

Learn about November

November

Pig farmers knock acorns from trees in a forest to fatten pigs up for Winter, giving us insight into seasonal cycles and life in medieval France. Learn about November with the Calendar Page in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.

Calaveras for Day of the Dead

Skeletons and skulls connect to Día de los Muertos, a joyful remembrance of ancestors in Mexico

Skeletons and Skulls

What is a calavera?

A group of skeletons ride bicycles while trampling another skeleton

Posada, Calaveras, and Día de los Muertos

Calavera | Guided Notes for Video about Posada's Calaveras

Pair it with our guided notes activity!

Skeletons, Bones, and Skulls

Towering skull racks once displayed the power of life, death, and ritual sacrifice in Mesoamerica. In late medieval Europe, skeletons were often shown dancing with the living, a reminder that death spares no one. Paintings with skulls, bubbles, and extinguished candles reveal the fleeting nature of wealth and beauty. These paintings and sculptures help us understand how cultures visualized mortality.

A Zapotec Spine Stand

A large stone sculpture shows rows of skulls

An Aztec skull rack (tzompantli)

Skeletons dance in a graveyard in a medieval image of the danse macabre (dance of death) in the Nuremberg chroncile

The Dance of Death (Danse Macabre)

A skull sits in a niche with urns and a bubble above

Vanitas Paintings

Monsters and the Supernatural

Beasts

From Europe to East Asia, artists have long imagined creatures that blur the line between human, animal, and spirit. Monsters can symbolize danger, mystery, or the forces that lie beyond the realm of everyday life.

a sculpture of a fantastic hybrid tomb beast with staring eyes, a fanged jaw, a serpentine neck, and real deer antlers in the Brooklyn Museum of Art

Hybrid Tomb Beast from Ancient China

A golden plaque with the Staff God who blends snakes, jaguars, and birds of prey, symbolizing power in Andean art.

Animal-Human Hybrid Deity from Ancient Peru

an artist slumped over his desk, asleep, while a crowd of strange nocturnal creatures—owls, bats, a lynx, and a black cat—converge around him

Superstitions

Learn more about Goya's Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

Bats

While bats often feel spooky in some parts of the world, in others they symbolize blessings and good fortune. A reminder that meaning depends on your culture.