Vincent Van Gogh is having a good pop culture week on the interwebs with multiple humorous GIF treatments and stunning animations of his works exposing classic art to new generations. In this series, artist Kajetan Obarski (known as Kiszkiloszki) mashes up masterpieces by the infamous Dutch painter and others with contemporary life, bringing them firmly into the computer age.
Leonardo da Vinci gleefully photoshopping a range of different animals into his ‘Lady with an Ermine,’ Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel God plays pool, a 17th-century lady rocks out with a skeleton and Van Gogh himself receives a very insensitive gift. There’s chocolate flinging, baby throwing and sexting gone awry, not to mention the inevitable conclusion to Magritte’s men falling from the sky.
Classic art has gotten a big cultural boost lately thanks to projects that appeal to our sense of humor, like the excellent Classical Art Memes. While more conservative art historians may lament that the works aren’t being appreciated in their original context, as the artists meant for them to be, these projects have centuries-old paintings flying around the internet like cat videos, so it’s hard to complain.
