This post is also available in: Español (Spanish)
The artworks we’ll talk about also escaped because of the annoying virus
It isn’t easy for anyone to stay home in confinement for forty days, nor is it for the characters in these artworks that decided to leave their original place and take a break. Or at least that’s what the Spanish painter and photographer José Manuel Ballester depicted in his series Hidden Spaces.
Velázquez, Botticelli and Bosco’s characters disappear
In addition, it is a way to promote the quarantine with these paintings where the artist suppressed his main characters. For example, in Velázquez famous painting, Las Meninas escaped the living room; and in Bosco’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, fantastic beings left a barren and empty land.
Furthermore, in Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, both Jesus and his apostles chose to leave the table; in the Birth of Venus painted by Botticelli, the goddess and cherubs are gone, leaving only the shell on which the woman stands.
These images went viral on social media due to the recent wave of Coronavirus contagions that plagues Spain. We’ve seen the cancellation of events like the Fallas de Valencia and people are following government instructions to stop the wave of deaths and expansion of this invisible evil.
Moreover, the reinterpretations by the Spanish artist are accompanied by the hashtag #QuédateEnCasa (#StayHome) which invites the entire population to remain sheltered as this crisis subsides. Ballester’s paintings have been retweeted hundreds of times and received thousands of Likes in the midst of a health crisis.
Additionally, thanks to the digital edition, the artist proposes to turn to look at the spaces where these famous paintings hang. Thus, narratives change and the sense of emptiness become present. According to the people on social medial, the characters are also fully complying with the quarantine.
Hence, this perspective of space was taken up by users to exemplify the health crisis that not only plagues Spain but the world. Finally, these are some of the reinterpretations that are becoming popular on social media. A fun job to make this contingency feel a little lighter.
This post is also available in: Español (Spanish)
