When life imitates art: art-lovers on lockdown recreate masterpieces with household objects

Several social media pages have challenged their followers to select their favorite artwork, find three things lying around their house, and recreate the artwork with those items… with varying degrees of success.

Household objects d’art

Even though people are quarantined at home and can’t go out and enjoy art in museums, that doesn’t mean that life needs to be boring or uncultured. Some social media pages have challenged art lovers to recreate famous masterpieces using just three objects from around their house… with varying degrees of success from the sublime to the ridiculous.

The Los Angeles-based J. Paul Getty Museum recently asked their Twitter followers to select their favorite artwork, find three things lying around their house, and recreate the artwork with those items.

Since issuing the artistic challenge last week, the museum’s Twitter inbox has reportedly been “flooded” with amusing recreations.

“Our audience told us loud and clear that they wanted to see beautiful artworks, learn more about art from home, and find delight on social media,” Getty Museum social media manager Sarah Waldorf told Yahoo Lifestyle. “We wanted to offer up a creative challenge to find refuge from the uncertain state of the world and to spark excitement to get creative—no extra materials required.”

The social media challenge was reportedly inspired by the Dutch Instagram page Tussenkunstenquarantaine, which translates to “between art and quarantine”.

Amsterdam-based woman Anneloes Officier and her roommates were reportedly inspired to launch the account after they recreated Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring out of quarantined boredom.

In a matter of just a few short weeks, their account has been flooded with more than 400 recreations—some of which are actually pretty incredible.

Source: GoodNewsNetwork 

The Getty has received many thousands of responses to the challenge

Bored Panda asked the Getty for more about the museum’s challenge and the number of submissions they’ve received.

According to Annelisa Stephan, assistant director for digital content strategy at the Getty, they’ve "lost count" of all the photos that people have submitted to them. She says that they number "many thousands."

"In addition to the ones posted publicly, there have been hundreds and hundreds more DM’d to us! We didn’t expect such a reaction in our wildest dreams—we thought a few people might enjoy the activity, but it clearly struck a chord!" she said.

How are you entertaining yourself during the lockdown, and have you tried recreating art from stuff you have lying around the house?