The two confirmed manifestations of Mother Miranda, the villain mastermind in Resident Evil: Village, are the creepy village crone and Mia Winters, Ethan's wife. But, as she herself confesses to Ethan during the final battle, she could take any shape and form that she wanted, listing a series of creatures that he may or may have not encountered on his way to find and rescue Rosemary. Technically, this means that, as Ethan went through all those impossible trials, Miranda could have been anyone or anything among the hordes of enemies and very few allies that he came across. Essentially though this was not exactly the case; Miranda was too busy trying to put everything in order for her ceremony that she definitely had better things to do than constantly shape-shift in the lycan-inhabited village. There is one person though whose form Miranda could have possibly taken, with this manifestation passing unnoticed due to the distinctive circumstances in which it might have taken place.

When Ethan first arrives at the village, the first person that he meets is a terrified resident who very soon is grabbed and devoured by something that attacks from the roof. Minutes later, our hero listens to a radio transmission which directs all survivors to "Luiza's house near the fields". After surviving an attack by a group of lycans, Ethan bumps onto the local crone, who we now know is a manifestation of Miranda and who confuses him with her creepy riddles. As Ethan is about to reach Luiza's house, he finds Elena, a young girl hiding in a shack with her father, Leonardo, who apparently had been attacked and bitten by a lycan.

Elena is the first sane-looking human that Ethan encounters in this cursed place, so he instantly clings onto her for emotional support. He offers to help her and her father get safely to Luiza's house, opening the way for them since they are in an extremely dire situation. When they knock on the door, however, Luiza's gamekeeper, Iulian, refuses to let them in, his main concern being Leonardo's wounds that may attract the monsters towards their temporary shelter. At this point, Luiza arrives and orders him to allow Elena, her father and Ethan to get inside her house before sending him out in the fields to look for more survivors.

When all but Iulian are safe in Luiza's living room, and after only a few minutes have passed, the lycan-bitten Leonardo suddenly turns and mortally attacks first Luiza and then all the other survivors, except Ethan and Elena who somehow manage to move towards the back of the house. As Leonardo is about to attack Ethan, Elena shoots him with a gun and saves Ethan's life. Moments later, during Ethan and Elena's eventful attempt to escape from the attic while the house is on fire, Elena tells Ethan that she hopes his family is safe, to which Ethan casually responds that they would all have the chance to meet each other once all this was over. Just then, Leonardo appears, calling Elena by her name, something that makes her drop her guard and run towards him. Within seconds, the burning floor collapses, burying both Leonardo and Elena in the flames below.

Ethan leaves the house from the upper floor but just as he is about to exit to the fields, he hears a gunshot and a man's voice calling Mother Miranda's name. He opens the gate just in time to witness a mysterious figure, who now we know was Miranda herself, brutally killing poor Iulian then evilly laughing as she walks away. A bit further down, in the church courtyard, Ethan once more bumps onto the crone who again gives him the creeps with her sibyllic chanting.

Now let's switch our focus for a moment away from the main story, which is the hard road that Ethan has taken to find his daughter, and set it on the village itself. Except for the terrified old man who got killed as soon as Ethan met him at the start, most of all the other living souls in the village were already gathered in Luiza's house. The only missing ones were Elena and Leonardo. When Ethan found them, Elena confessed to him that when she knocked on Luiza's door, nobody answered. So apparently, Elena and Leonardo had attempted to get to Luiza before Ethan arrived, but no one let them in. Judging from what happened when they knocked again, with Ethan this time, quite possibly Iulian saw them and didn't want to allow them to enter. And when he finally did open the door, he even pointed his gun at them, making it very clear that they were not welcome in the house, because of Leonardo's injury.

The whole scene that takes place in Luiza's house is quite intense, and there is a lot going on under the surface. People are arguing, crying, praying, shouting, but never nobody asks Ethan what he is actually doing in an isolated village to which he clearly doesn't belong. They acknowledge him as a stranger and an outsider but none of them expresses any wonder as to what business may a stranger and an outsider have in such a place which is, obviously, very hard to locate and reach. So the whole scene ends without anyone ever mentioning anything about why Ethan is in the village. Which makes it extremely weird and suspicious when Elena tells him, as they are climbing towards the attic, that she hopes his family is safe. How could she possibly know that he was actually looking for his family in the village? Since he was not a local, he could have arrived there for whatever other reason. The only way Elena could know about Ethan, since he never had the chance to mention anything himself, was if she already had heard about him, which is impossible since she and her father had apparently been stranded all this time.

When Ethan first meets the Duke, he is surprised to hear that the eccentric merchant already knows him. When he expresses his surprise, the Duke replies with a cryptic "Anyone who is anyone has heard of the likes of you". Anyone who is anyone - not "everybody", not a humble peasant girl like Elena, not even Luiza, who seems to have once been a powerful figure in the village, but anyone with a higher status. Anyone who is anyone, like Miranda's four children, like the Duke and like Miranda herself. 

These peculiar details made me suspect that Elena could very well have been another manifestation of Miranda, who, in the process, was revealed to have done far more complicated things, so killing an innocent peasant girl, then shape-shifting to take her form and place would be nothing for her. My theory is that Miranda wanted to keep Ethan isolated without any potential allies around him. Seeing how all the survivors were locked in Luiza's house, she needed to find a way to infiltrate their shelter, since it was her perfect chance to eliminate everyone at the same time and make sure noone was left alive, but without revealing herself to Ethan just yet. So she somehow caused Leonardo's injury, which could have been very easy with all those lycans roaming the fields, knowing that sooner or later he would turn. At some point, she killed Elena and took her place without her father taking notice; she had already done it with Mia, so she knew very well how to repeat the process with success. Before Ethan arrived, she had tried to enter Luiza's house but Iulian refused to open the door. It is very possible that he did sense something weird about Elena, which made him be so hostile towards her. When Ethan arrived, it was the perfect chance for Miranda to make one more attempt to enter Luiza's house, and this time the plan worked. Under that light, it is not random that, excluding Ethan, Elena was the only person among the locals who managed to survive Leonardo's attack. When Elena / Miranda made sure that everyone was dead for good, she "sacrificed" Elena and then reverted to her original form. Once back in the fields, she bumped onto Iulian whom Luiza had sent out before the tragedy happened. Ethan saw her killing the poor man, but not before he managed to cry out her name. 

Following my theory, Miranda had two reasons to kill Iulian with her own hands: one because if he remained alive he could become Ethan's ally and she didn't want that; and two because, unbeknownst to him, he had "disobeyed" her by refusing to let her in the house when she appeared at Luiza's door in Elena's form, and this disobedience was something that she could never tolerate. But there could also be another reason: maybe Iulian "caught" her during her transformation from Elena to her real self, which partly explains why he said her name before she killed him. So if Elena really was Miranda in disguise, she knew about Ethan already, meaning it is no surprise that she made that comment about his family. Of course Ethan was too overwhelmed with anxiety and fear to actually make the necessary connections, so he simply witnessed the tragedy of the villagers as one more dramatic incident in his life.  

Elena being a manifestation of Miranda kind of ties with my analysis in the article Ethan Winters, An Unfortunate Hero, in that this theory may shed some light on whether Miranda actually knew something about Ethan being a bio-weapon. If she really appeared to him in Elena's form, planning to lure all survivors in Luiza's house and have them killed but leave Ethan alive on purpose, it could possibly mean that she at least suspected that he had super powers and she actually wanted him to get to her so as to be sure and decide what would be the best way to deal with him. Or maybe she did know that he was all mold, but by closely watching him during his interactions with Heisenberg, she realized that Ethan was too strong for her and she would be unable to control him like she did with all her other victims. She knew he would stop at nothing to save his daughter, therefore it would be impossible for her to make him part of her experiments in any way. So killing him would be the only solution for her, but since he had regenerative powers, she knew he would be able to come back to life anyway. She had to make sure to exterminate him in a way that would leave no room for regeneration, so she ripped his heart out. Still, he did manage to revive himself and even fight her afterwards, albeit with very little life left in him. That said, in the dramatic finale we never did actually see him die. We only saw him returning to the ceremony site and then, from Chris's helicopter, we witnessed the explosion down below. This is Resident Evil after all, so we can never tell for sure that someone has definitely died.

If Miranda is a character defined by her dark secrets, the same albeit on a different level can be said about another mysterious figure, the Duke. Although his role is not new in the Resident Evil series, his predecessor, the Merchant in Resident Evil 4, was a neutral character whose part in the story was entirely practical: he would appear in the game's stages, usually positioned in safe havens or at least places that could not be easily reached by enemies, presenting an array of goods and equipment that Leon could choose from and arm himself accordingly. Leon had no other interaction with the Merchant who would only express his opinion about the guns that Leon would decide to buy from him. The Duke in Village, though, is an entirely different story. To begin with, we get a special cutscene when he first appears outside Alcina Dimitrescu's castle. The Duke is an obnoxiously obese man, whose clothing style seems to come from many years ago, yet as we have the chance to observe near the finale, his haircut is rather modern, with the lower back of his head being completely shaven. 

The Duke recognizes Ethan as soon as he sees him, and moreover he seems to know everyone in the region. As the story proceeds, he offers Ethan valuable information about Miranda and the four Lords of the village, as well as about the things that Ethan has to do and what he needs to look for. Additionally, he is obviously in good terms with at least three of the four Lords, since he can be seen in places where normally outsiders wouldn't have been exactly welcome: we find him in the Dimitrescu Castle, in Heisenberg's factory and in the heart of Moreau's Reservoir. He doesn't go near the Beneviento residence, though, which is quite curious, given that there is nothing truly lethal or dangerous in Donna's house, except for whatever creepy hallucinations are produced as an effect of her tricks; but the Duke would definitely be aware of all this anyway.

When Ethan gets back to his senses after Miranda rips out his heart and after Eveline's revelation, he finds himself in the Duke's carriage, lying on the floor, while the Duke is riding at the front. Just then, Ethan asks the Duke who or what exactly he is, to which the Duke replies "Even I can't quite answer that". So really, who or what exactly is the Duke? Is he simply what he appears to be, a merchant who puts his financial interests above all so he doesn't care who he does business with as long as he has money to gain - which would explain why he is in good terms with both the good guy (Ethan) and the bad guys (the Lords)? Is his unusual appearance also a result of Miranda's experiments? Or is he something far more complicated? Is he truly how we see him though Ethan's eyes or, like with Miranda's case, he is a manifestation of something else? 

If we attempt to decipher the Duke via clues offered by the game's scenario itself, there is one crucial keyword we could start from. When Ethan bumps onto him again after killing Alcina in the castle, it is when the Duke starts to be more talkative and to give more information to him, albeit he still speaks in riddles. At the end of one such conversation, Ethan gets frustrated and calls him "Joker". This characterization, on first look, refers to him seemingly making fun of Ethan, like the jesters did in royal courts in the very distant past. But the Joker also nods to the wild card figure that is always featured in a deck of cards. The "Joker" card serves as a balancing one, and can be used in a variety of ways when something is missing, or even as a means to bluff the opponent. It is a card that, plainly put, adapts to its "surroundings", corresponding each time to the rule that its owner sets. Similarly, the Duke assumes a series of roles in the story, depending on how he is needed to act. The peculiarity of his looks is there to highlight his obvious status, that of the merchant who always looks for ways to make money, meaning he is greedy enough so as to overlook other things, like the evilness of a customer like Alcina or Heisenberg, for instance. But when it comes to Ethan, his attitude becomes more friendly and more human. 

So could this mean that the Duke's attitude changes depending on who he deals with, or maybe that he is literally a wild card that takes up the role that its "owner" decides each time? Or does he even exist as we see him, in the first place? Ethan may not be aware of his own situation until near the end, but him being not exactly human definitely grants him with a power to see and feel things that normal people cannot. Given that he is the only one whom we see interacting with the Duke, we can not even be sure that the Duke is just how he appears. Mind you, in Chris's part of the story, there is no sign of the Duke at all. The last time that Ethan interacts with the Duke is when the latter transports him near the Ceremony Site in his carriage. When Ethan gets out of the carriage, we can see that it is led by a black horse. If seen from a distance, the carriage at that point looks like a Victorian hearse. 

Considering that, after this, Ethan confronts Miranda and then sacrifices himself in the subsequent explosion, we could assume that the Duke at that point in the story acts like the Grim Reaper, leading our hero to his death. But while the Grim Reaper is always depicted as a silent, skeletal figure with no human features, the Duke is obese, flamboyant and loud. In that part of the story, Miranda has already ripped out Ethan's heart, which means that Ethan is then in a sort of zombie state. From that point and on, the only entirely human being that he interacts with is Chris. Miranda is more or less like him, Rosemary has been ripped apart then put together again by Miranda; in that stage, Ethan has already crossed the boundary between the living and the dead. But since he had always been more dead than alive anyway, everything he sees, everything he says and does, is anything but normal, and things appear to him in reverse. The Duke could very well have been a manifestation of the Grim Reaper himself all along, appearing in front of Ethan as a figure seemingly opposite in appearance, but in the essence all the same. Isn't the Grim Reaper a merchant of sorts after all? In ancient Greek mythology, the dead were obliged to pay Charon, his counterpart, in order to be able to cross the river Styx to the other side. 

Something that Miranda and the Duke have in common is that they were both introduced to us for the first time in Village, unlike someone else, a most familiar and beloved face, no other than Chris Redfield himself. Chris has been the protagonist or co-protagonist in several stories so far, and we know quite a few things about his stellar career, however very little is known about his and Claire's childhood. In fact we know nothing about the early years of the Redfield siblings, except for the fact that they lost their parents at a very young age. There is no information about how and where they grew up, and how they managed until they became adults.

After Chris saves Ethan and Mia and takes them away from Louisiana, he secretly locates them in an isolated region of Eastern Europe so as to keep them safe. But it is exactly in that place where the heart of Miranda's activities lies. The Megamycete, the fungus that she uses to carry out her experiments grows in the mountains surrounding that area. Even if Chris already had information related to this, it would be very unlikely that he would put Ethan and Mia deliberately in danger by having them live in a place so close to a most dangerous source. So why, from all the places in the world did he choose specifically that region for them to stay? One explanation could be that he indeed have information about Miranda and the Megamycete, but he couldn't leave Ethan and Mia without his protection, so he took them with him; this way, he would be able to investigate the case further while still keeping an eye on them. But even so, it would be too risky to have them exposed to such an extreme danger. So maybe there was another reason why he chose that specific country of Eastern Europe as a hideout for Ethan and Mia.

Since there is almost no information about Chris and Claire's early years, we cannot even be sure that "Redfield" is indeed their real surname. Because they are both so strong and imposing characters whenever they appear in a game, you rarely ever - if at all - enter into the process of wondering about their past. Could it be possible that Chris had his own reasons for picking that specific part of the world to relocate Ethan and Mia? Maybe something personal, something about his past. Consider that one of the promo images of the game features him in a rather cryptic collage, his half face being replaced by that of a wolf. 

The symbolism and imagery of wolves are both very strong in the story and play a great part in its development: the name of Chris's rogue team is Hound Wolf Squad, his own professional alias in it is Alpha (as in, the Alpha wolf, the leader of the pack), and the respective aliases of his team mates are also related to wolves. And of course there are the lycans, the terrifying creatures that inhabit the once peaceful village and its countryside, that are, in their essence, werewolves. These two depictions of the wolf, like a representation of the "good Wolf, Bad Wolf" idea, have both a realistic and an allegorical interpretation. The realistic one has to do to the story itself: the literal lycans that both Ethan and Chris encounter, and the actual name of Chris's team. The allegorical interpretation pertains to the psyche of the two protagonists and how it changes as the story progresses. Ethan is, on a first level, the "good wolf" from the start until the end; he is the good and clean hero, set on a journey to save his daughter. On a second level, however, after it is revealed to him that he is actually mold inside, his human substance collapses and although him being a bio-weapon doesn't make him necessarily bad, it still makes him potentially extremely dangerous. 

Chris, at the beginning, seems to be the "bad wolf", what with killing Mia in front of her husband without explanation. Gradually however, as the truth comes out, he assumes his well-established and pre-determined role as a protector and savior. Therefore we could say that both sides, the "good" one and the "bad" one exist equally in Ethan and Chris. But although Ethan is not responsible, so to speak, for his "bad" side, Chris's case is far more complex. There is something undefinedly dark about him, something that keeps him distant and mysterious, something marginally unworldly. His presence in the game carries a vaguely ominous aura, as if there are things connecting him with that place that he would rather not share with anyone, not even his own team.

Among the various interesting journals and notes that Ethan finds in the Castle Dimitrescu, is one featuring a list of tasks written possibly by someone in charge. One of the names that appear in that list is "Rednic". 

Although "Rednic" and "Redfield" have no common root or meaning, their sounding is cunningly similar. Could it be that Chris and Claire had ancestral roots in the area, and their surname was initially Rednic, then after moving away and relocating in the USA, they changed it to Redfield? Probably keeping the first part as a reminder of their origin, but changing the suffix to make it sound more neutral as far as the ethnic identity was concerned. If this is the case, there could still have been relatives of theirs in that area, who not only were involved in what was going on in the Castle Dimitrescu, but had something to do with the lycans as well, thus connecting Chris with his "wolf" self, his decision to give that specific name to his team and the respective aliases to himself and his partners, and to which the image depicting him as half-human / half-wolf may hint. As an additional side note, when Alcina Dimitrescu was human, she suffered from a hemoglobin deficiency, due to which she needed to consume blood on a constant basis in order to survive, which is why she became an actual vampire after her mutation. This disease, more commonly called vampirism, is also known under the scientific name "Renfield syndrome", which unavoidably alludes to Chris and Claire's surname, and maybe this is not something random.

Art In Video Games: Classic, Contemporary and Folk Art in Resident Evil Village

Like several games of the Resident Evil saga before it, Village also has its fair share of art to showcase, only in this case its galleries are a bit more varied. There are the favorite and always present elements of classic art, others of modern art, but additionally this time, since the game takes place in the Eastern Europe, there are also elements of folk art and culture as well.

The main stages where we come across pieces of art in the game are Ethan's house, the Castle Dimitrescu, the House Beneviento, and the main village section. Unfortunately neither Moreau's Reservoir nor Heisenberg's factory have any art to exhibit, although it would have been so interesting to see the possible artistic taste of those two characters.

Ethan's house is simply decorated with collections of photographs depicting rural scenes, family snapshots and a few pieces of modern art.

There is a photograph of a snowy forest that can be seen in several spots around the house, which kind of foreshadows the upcoming adventure:

There are several artistic corners where the photos and paintings are arranged in groups, like above the fireplace, where there is also a small statuette of a weeping angel which again foreshadows the tragic events in Ethan's life.

On the walls of the house, there are sets of photographs and modern art that seem to have been put up almost randomly. There are photos of flowers, mountains and fields, quite possibly depicting places of the region where Ethan and Mia live at the start of the story.

Some of the photos, like that of the red sunset, do create an uneasy feeling, however.

There is an abstract painting with gloomy colors that can be seen in more than one places:

Another abstract painting in deep red color decorates another wall: 

There is also a painting of a bouquet, which looks a bit out of place, considering the overall style of the house's decoration:

This seems to be in the style of art like Flowers in a Glass Vase by Rachel Ruysch (1704).

The Winterses also seem to have an extensive collection of decorative plates in folk style:

When Ethan arrives in the Castle Dimitrescu, the first painting that he sees is a giant portrait depicting the three Dimitrescu daughters, Bela, Cassandra and Daniela.

This is an existing painting called The Three Robinson Sisters, by George Theodore Berthon (1846). This is one of the very few paintings that can be seen in only one spot, on this specific wall in this empty room.

In the corridor outside, there are two more portraits depicting two men, possibly supposed ancestors of the Dimitrescu family.

These are among the many portraits and paintings in the castle that can be seen on several walls in rooms and corridors, and both of them are also existing paintings. 

The upper one is in fact a combination of two paintings: The body is from the portrait of Marcotte d' Argenteuil by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1810) and the head is from the portrait of Léon Riesener by Eugene Delacroix (1835). A tribute to Leon Kennedy, perhaps?

The lower one is a portrait of Hungarian musician Franz Liszt by an anonymous artist.

Closeby is a painting depicting a gloomy castle, possibly alluring to the very same castle we are exploring.

This again is an existing painting, called The Enchanted Castle, by Claude Lorrain (1664). This painting is said to have inspired British Romantic poet John Keats to write his poem "Ode To A Nightingale". It is one of the many paintings that can be seen on many walls in the castle.

Similarly, another painting that appears in many rooms and places is this one depicting a nautical scene:

Which is also an existing painting called Barges on the Volga by Fyodor Vasilyev (1870), although if you notice carefully, you will see some extra details have been added, probably to make it look more eery and match the atmosphere of the castle.

In the room that's next to the one where Ethan finds himself hanged up after the Dimitrescu ladies attack him, there is a spooky painting entitled "Maidens of the Harvest".

This painting is clearly made specifically for the game, its title reflecting the way the members of the Dimitrescu family "harvest" victims (which also is marginally literal, if you consider that the daughters usually carry a small sickle). It seems, however, to have been inspired by the painting Nymphs Dancing To Pan's Flute, by Joseph Tomanek (1920). It is one of the unique paintings in the castle.

In the same room, there is a circular portrait of a girl, which also can be seen on various walls.

It is yet one more existing painting, The Tambourine Girl, by Friedrich August Kaulbach. 

Above the fireplace in the same room, there is an imposing portrait of a lady holding a cup of tea.

This again is a combination of two existing paintings: the body is from the portrait of Mary Chamberlain by John Everett Millais (1891) and the head is from the portrait of Maria Alexandrovna by Winterhalter (1857).

In the same room, which looks like a gallery of sorts, we can have a better look at a replica of Liszt's portrait.

As well as a replica of the Marcotte d' Argenteuil / Léon Riesener portrait in better spot and light:

On another wall of this room, there is a large painting which can be seen on plenty of walls in the castle. It depicts a hunting scene, showing a man (possibly a hunter or a gamekeeper) who is having his horses rest while three Spaniel dogs watch playfully nearby.

Although this looks like an existing painting, no exact or even remote match can be located anywhere; the artistic style does look familiar, however, and its theme can be found in several paintings of the 16th - 17th century, like in A Grey Hunter with a Groom and a Greyhound at Creswell Crags by George Stubbs, or The Gamekeeper by an unknown artist. What is weird about the painting, however, is that the man is not dressed like a hunter or a gamekeeper, and I couldn't help but notice that the posture of his head and his facial expression and features resemble a lot those of Maja in the drawing Old Beggar and a Maja by Francisco Goya.

In the corridor outside that room, there are several of the paintings we have already seen in the castle, but the most prominent one is that of a smiling girl in a red dress, which showed up first in the anteroom of the main hall, but here we can see it more clearly.

Again this is a combination of two existing paintings. The body is from the portrait of Judith by Eglon Hendrick van der Neer (1678), with the color of the dress changed to red, and the head is from the painting La Printempts (Spring) by Emile Vernon (1913).

On the upper corridor of the main hall, there is a big portrait of a man, which also can be found on several other walls.

It doesn't seem to have an exact match with a real painting, but it is very similar to many existing ones, like the portrait of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, or that of Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham, both by Peter Lely.

The artistic style changes abruptly in the Tasting Room, which is only decorated with two small paintings.  

One rather dark and eery, depicting a lake scene:

And one that resembles the bouquet painting from Ethan's house, only in this one the flowers look like they are melting:

The dining room is decorated with familiar paintings like The Enchanted Castle and the Mary Chamberlain / Maria Alexandrovna portrait:

 The Tambourine Girl also shows up on a side wall:

And the Barges on the Volga painting is above a cabinet:

In the main hall just outside the dining room, there is a creepy photograph on a cabinet, depicting a lake on the shores of which are hanging what seem to be dead bodies:

In the wine room, there is again Liszt's portrait:

 And there is also the Marcotte d' Argenteuil / Léon Riesener portrait:

While looking for Dimitrescu's chambers, Ethan goes up a staircase where, next to a replica of the Enchanted Castle, there is a tapestry with an Ancient Greek theme:

This is part of an existing larger painting, The Intervention of the Sabine Women, by Jacques - Louis David (1799).

In a small room near Alcina's private chamber there is another impressive tapestry hanging on the wall.

The same tapestry can be spotted along the staircase leading to that wing of the castle, and its motif is an existing one. It is a handmade Aubusson tapestry from the 16th century.

In the Opera Hall section, there is a painting depicting three people, two standing and one crouched down:

This is yet one more combination of two paintings. The three people's bodies are from St John The Baptist Baptizing The People by Nicolas Poussin (1635), while their heads are from the painting Et In Arcadia Ego, again by Nicolas Poussin (1637).

In the room with the defunct labyrinth there is a headless bronze male statue next to a small painting depicting two harps and a lyre.

In the Atelier room, there is a painting which is actually the hint to solve the bells puzzle.

In the same room, there is also the compelling giant portrait of Lady Dimitrescu.

This was apparently made specifically for the game, and it is one of the unique paintings that appear in one place only.

In the same room there are some marble busts, which also appear in several places throughout the castle as well, but what is maybe the most interesting find in this room is the stuffed thorn-back tortoise, which is like the one from the collection of Chief Irons in Resident Evil 2 Remake.

 In the attic, there is a a headless bronze female statue:

There is also again a headless bronze male statue, next to a vase with a tribal motif:

There are more statues around the castle, mostly marble. They can be seen in the halls:

Also in puzzle rooms, like the Hall of Ablution:

Sometimes they are used to frame doorways:

The original receptacles holding the four angel masks needed to open the exit are also statues depicting what look like scenes of sacrifice:

The Castle Dmitrescu seems to be in a completely different vibe from the rest of the village, the humble houses of which have nothing of the ostentatious luxury of the Dimitrescu residence. Their narrow interiors are mostly decorated with plates similar to the ones seen in Ethan's house:

A common painting found in several houses is that depicting two adorable cats: 

In the first house that Ethan explores, there is a painting with a floral motif, quite possibly folk - inspired:

In the houses there are also vintage photographs depicting domestic scenes, like this one showing a woman working at her loom:

Other photographs depict rural activities, like this one where a woman is feeding her ducks:

In that first house, there is also a painting of a lake scene with a cabin at its shore, a scenery which resembles the area outside the castle where Ethan arrives after leaving the battle stage with Alcina.

Due to Mother Miranda's influence over the area, there are several pictures in the houses depicting religious themes, and most of them can also be seen together in the church:

The church itself is decorated on the exterior with byzantine iconographies:

While outside, in the main village area, there is a statue of a girl holding a shield and a sword. She looks like she is supposed to be the guardian of the village:

She is the same girl depicted on the Maiden crest which Ethan has to place on its receptacle together with the Demon crest, in order to complete the mural and open the gate leading to the castle:

The only house which looks a bit more well-to-do than the others, is Louiza's house, not only because it is evidently bigger but also because of its more elegant and artistic decoration.

Louiza even has one of the modern art paintings that we saw back at Ethan's house:

She even has the portrait of Liszt and the one of Marcotte d' Argenteuil / Léon Riesener. Maybe she's also related to the Dimitrescu bloodline?

In Louiza's house, we can also see the photographs depicting rural and domestic activities found in the rest of the houses, as well as the painting of the eery lake with the cabin:

There is also one more photograph that we first saw in Ethan's house, the one showing a snowy forest. Probably it's a local trend to have that photo hanging on your wall.

Louiza has more modern art in her house: a classic-looking Still Life and a abstract painting with a bizzare geometrical shape:

In the infamous house with the red chimney, where Ethan finds an important item, there is a vintage wedding photo portrait of a couple:

In Luthier's house, there is a calendar which looks like it has violins painted for every month. Luthier was a craftsman who made violins and other string instruments, so naturally his house has several such elements in and around it.

On the grounds of House Beneviento, there is a chilling atmosphere of decadence, and this is reflected as well in the art that is used to decorate the places. 

On the way to the house, there is a gloomy statue depicting a child carrying grapes. Baby Bacchus perhaps?

A few steps further, there is a statue of a girl carrying water pots.

The interior of the house is very interesting because its decoration seems to incorporate elements from all the other areas: Ethan's house, the village residences and the Castle.

In its main hall, the living room and the sitting room there are decorative plates, like the ones in the village houses:

But Donna, being naturally a lot richer than the other villagers, also has more expensive plates, like the ones found in Ethan's house:

There is also the melting version of Ethan's bouquet painting hanging on a couple of the Beneviento residence walls.

Of course Donna has the photo of the creepy lake with the hanging dead bodies.

 She also has the abstract painting with the geometrical shape seen in Louiza's house:

There is also the Still Life painting, also found on one of Louiza's walls:

She also has one of the snowy mountain photos from the Winters home:

Another piece of modern art found in Donna's residence that we first saw in Ethan's house is this abstract red painting:

There is also the painting of the man with the two horses and the three dogs, from the Castle:

The Tambourine Girl portrait is seen as well on a wall:

Another painting from the Castle that can be spotted in the Beneviento residence is the portrait of the standing man with the white collar:

Donna, however, has her own unique collection of mostly morbid vintage photos that decorate her walls, and are only found in her house and match her obnoxious state of mind.

First of all, it's the photo of a small child with a white cat.

If you look closely, you will notice that this may not be a real child, but a doll.

Then it's a photo depicting what looks like doll sitting on a chair, in a room which is most likely a doll's house, since everything around the doll is so small.

 There is also a photo showing a pile of doll parts (or are they human bones?)

There is a photo depicting two kids, a boy and a girl; the girl specifically looks like it's a result of the infamous "Post-Mortem Photography" trend of the mid-1800s.

As a side-note, the way that Donna herself poses with Angie on her lap in this render, reminds of the trend of the "Hidden Mother Photography" of around the same time, rising many questions as to how much of a doll Angie was after all.

A vintage painting that appears on many walls in Donna's house is this one:

It doesn't have an exact match, but it's clearly an illustration inspired by the children's story "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", taken maybe from a very old edition. A similar depiction of this same scene in the tale is this one by Kate Greenaway from Robert Browning's version (1888).

All of these pictures can be seen around the house separately or in groups, as is the case here:

There is also an interactive picture of a pregnant woman, which is in horizontal position the first time that you pass by it.

After a few pieces of the puzzle are put together, one of the ropes holding the picture gets cut, and the woman appears in a standing position, only if you pay more attention you will see that it looks like she is hanged.

But the most impressive piece of art in the Beneviento residence is definitely the huge portrait on the stairwell that depicts Donna herself with Angie, her beloved doll and alter ego.

Coming from a dark and decadent Victorian past, as if out of time and place, Donna is much more vivid in this painting than she probably ever was in her entire life.