Several countries around the world have urged citizens to remain indoors and forgo direct human contact except where necessary. The J. Paul Getty Museum, perhaps rightly seeing its moment to strike a blow for art appreciation, challenged the internet to recreate famous works of art with three objects in their homes. And considering a large portion of the world is stuck indoors with literally nothing else to do, they rose to the occasion.
? Choose your favorite artwork? Find three things lying around your house⠀? Recreate the artwork with those items And share with us. pic.twitter.com/9BNq35HY2V — Getty (@GettyMuseum) March 25, 2020 The original idea came from the Instagram account Tussen Kunst & Quarantaine, where you can find dozens of such recreations. The Getty acknowledged the inspiration in a subsequent Instagram post.
A post shared by Getty (@gettymuseum) on Mar 31, 2020 at 12:07pm PDT You can find the many, many recreations on social media under various hashtags: #GettyMuseumChallenge or #BetweenArtandQuarantine are the most common. Considering the only thing most of these challengers have at their disposal is their own clothes and household items, a lot of these recreations are actually not bad. I noticed a tendency for everyone to incorporate their pets, which I’m absolutely not complaining about. I never knew I needed a dog recreation of Girl with a Pearl Earring, but I’m so glad I’ve got it now.
— Blair Braverman (@BlairBraverman) April 4, 2020 The Getty has reposted the most promising images for your perusal, so if you need a laugh (I wouldn’t blame you) and a glimpse into the ingenuity of truly bored people, then check its Twitter. My favorite out of all of them is the recreation of Edward Burne-Jones’ Temperantia, in which a lady puts out a fire of passion with a vase of water — only in this case the salve is precious, precious toilet paper. (And wow, put that on the list of sentences I never, ever thought I’d write.)
— Suzanne King (@thesuzeum) April 1, 2020 In addition to the challenge, the Getty’s halls are available for a virtual tour via Google Arts & Culture, meaning you can see the (non-household item) artwork on display from the comfort of home, if the recreations aren’t to your taste. If you needed something a little light and fluffy to distract you for a few moments from the COVID-19 outbreak, you couldn’t really ask for better.
