Hell Screen (地獄変, Jigokuhen) is a short story written by Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa.
When Yoshihide is instructed to create a folding screen depicting the Buddhist hell, he proceeds to inflict tortures upon his apprentices, so he can see what he is trying to paint.
The story climaxes when Yoshihide asks the lord to burn a beautiful lady in a carriage so he can finish the screen, as he claims he can only paint what he has seen.
At the story's end, the servant proclaims: Word soon spread that His Lordship had burned the carriage that night in the Palace of the Melting Snows, and there seem to have been many who were highly critical of the event.
I am certain, however, that he did it to punish the twisted personality of an artist who would go so far as to burn a carriage and kill a human being to complete the painting of a screen.