Movies

Recreating Masterpieces: Paintings Through Film

By  · Published on October 12th, 2017

When you want just one perfect shot to be modeled after something familiar.

I’ve introduced you to videos that explore how paintings have influenced movie posters, but not yet to the transmedia wonder of paintings come alive on screen. Yet, as Fandor explored almost a year ago, the latter phenomenon is an increasingly popular aesthetic choice as technology and set design allows us to get closer and closer to blending the two forms.

This year’s Loving Vincent is the first oil-painted movie, replicating the style of its subject. Film’s great flexibility allows that luxuriant artistic hedonism alongside things that prefer CGI spectacle or indie realism.

Essayist Jonathan Kiefer compiled a sequence of some of the most famous shots grown out of even more famous paintings. Identifying these is part of the fun, but the other part is enjoying just a small slice of film’s vast ability as an art form.

Related Topics: ,

Jacob Oller writes everywhere (Vanity Fair, The Guardian, Playboy, FSR, Paste, etc.) about everything that matters (film, TV, video games, memes, life).