Museum Asks Public to Reinvent a Classic Painting, With Crazy Results #GeekLeap

Woman With a Pearl Earring? Extra like Man With an Apple AirPod. 

The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague put out a name for re-creations of Johannes Vermeer’s iconic seventeenth century portray — with weird and pleasant outcomes. 

Scroll via posts tagged #mygirlwithapearl on Instagram and you will find greater than 4,800 interpretations of the well-known oil portray of a younger woman in a head wrap, a big earring dangling from her left ear. The homages vary from stunning to whimsical to surreal, from classical to abstract to steampunk. You will see the Woman in images, digital drawings and oil work, and re-created in sculptures produced from embroidery thread, toys, school supplies and multicolored beads and buttons. 

She seems as a baby, an older bearded man, a duck, a dog, a bunny and a blue Na’vi from Avatar.  In a couple of picture, she’s decidedly twenty first century, carrying a face mask or earbuds or holding a cellphone. One artist overlayed Vermeer’s painting on a Tinder screen, calling the creation “Swipe Proper.”

Had been among the digital variations created with an AI artwork creation instrument like Dall-E or Midjourney? You possibly can wager on it. 

The Mauritshuis often homes the well-known portray, however for eight weeks beginning in February, the work shall be out on mortgage for a Vermeer exhibit at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. Reasonably than depart the Woman’s wall empty, the Mauritshuis plans to rotate among the crowdsourced interpretations via a digital show.   

“The room the place the Woman hangs will quickly grow to be a spot of inspiration with as many Ladies collectively as attainable, from house and overseas,” the museum says. 

Because the submissions attest, the museum did not place any restrictions on creativity right here. “A self-portrait with a shower towel as a turban, a painted iron or perhaps a pile of crockery,” it says. “Little is just too loopy for us.” Registration for the competition closed on Jan. 15. 

Vermeer, one of the crucial famend Dutch painters of the seventeenth century, is thought for his intimate home scenes and gorgeous use of sunshine.

His iconic Woman With a Pearl Earring has made a quantity literary and cinematic appearances, together with in a 1999 historic novel of the identical title that informed a fictional story of the portray’s creation. That guide led to a 2003 movie adaptation starring Scarlett Johansson as a younger servant within the house of Vermeer, performed by Colin Firth. 

If you wish to discover the unique portray in additional element to raised respect the reimaginings, an augmented-reality function referred to as Pocket Gallery in Google’s free Google Arts & Culture app provides a virtual exhibition space the place you possibly can see and find out about all 36 of Vermeer’s work. None of them function robots.