http://arthistory.we-wish.net Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:20:12 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://arthistory.we-wish.net/2008/12/11/people-magazine-recreates-art-badly/ http://arthistory.we-wish.net/2008/12/11/people-magazine-recreates-art-badly/#comments Fri, 12 Dec 2008 00:34:30 +0000 Chelsea http://arthistory.we-wish.net/?p=294 Wow. Well, recreating tableaus of great art out of celebrities isn’t new — see Scarlett Johanssen in Girl with a Pearl Earring or even Brangelina unintentionally posing as a van Eyck painting — but People Magazine’s special “Sexy Forever” issue recreated “iconic female images,” two of which are paintings.  They say they’re trying to make these icons “hipper” and “hotter” but, well, they just kind of manage to mess up the great works of art.  They tackle American Gothic (the mousy young woman becomes a jewelry-laden sex kitten… huh?) but most striking is the one below, of Ann-Margaret as Whistler’s Mother.  Maybe it’s just my art-history-nerd self speaking, but they’ve managed to ruin everything important about Whistler’s painting–the harmony of shapes and colors created by her figure and the background are instead taken up by Ann-Margaret, posing away in a huge gown of unfurling circular shapes.  Say it with me, art historians: What?!

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