Remakes: The Paintings

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later I suppose. Given that Hollywood seems to be stuck in a rut of remaking or 're-imagining' older films for the past few years, it should come as no surprise that this trend is starting to 'branch out' a bit and no I'm not talking about television. Television has been on that trend for a very long time; movies are starting to catch up and now so are famous paintings. Apparently artists in California have used computer software and celebrity images to recreate famous paintings by classic painters like Van Gogh or Rafaello but have used celebrities as the models for some of the main characters within the paintings.

Now some will call this move sacrilege while others will applaud the effort to make classical paintings more appealing to a new generation of people. Funny how that has a tendency to be the catch all rationale to re-visit and often re-vamp (all too often horribly) the original concept. Now I'm not against the idea of revisiting or revamping some idea but there should be a need for it. The painting included in today's blog is Raffaello's famous painting of Madonna (the Biblical icon not the singer) but in the newer version it is a painting of Natalie Portman as Madonna. So what? Well the reasoning some give to support this is that at least now people will be more inclined to see the painting. I disagree. Now people will see the painting and remember it for being the portrait of Natalie Portman. There is another painting of Van Gogh (his famous self-portrait) which has been 'updated' with Bruce Willis' image.

Inherently there's nothing wrong with this but I just think that people who see these paintings first will be hurting themselves from an appreciative standpoint and I say this from experience from what happened with the movies. When the newer "Star Wars" movies were released in 1999, there was a general consensus among kids that the newer films were far superior in terms of effects than the original ones. What kids fail to realize is that when the original films were released in 1977, 1980 and 1983 they were considered cutting edge and ahead of their times. Now it's true that George Lucas has the money to go back and make these films in the same style and slickness as the newer films but is there a need to? I think it's important to see the contrast and appreciate the originals for what they were. In 1977 the technology didn't exist to do the things that were done in the newer films but so what? It was still stunning and amazing and in some ways, a lot more realistic than what was so very obviously computer generated in the newer films.

So what does that little side bar have to do with these paintings? Simple. If you don't know or appreciate what the originals were like, you're doing yourself a disservice by 'appreciating' these images. They are not homages to the originals, they are attempts to divert attention from what was original to what has been remade into something more familiar. Natalie Portman may portray Anne Boelyn with some gusto but is she an appropriate Madonna? I don't know, but I would rather appreciate the original version of the Madonna than this remade version. Images such as this are often appealing because you can't relate to them on such a deep level. When you see the painting of the Madonna on its own I find it more appealing because she is a person so far back in time that any accurate images of her are long since lost. The painting may not be accurate but the anonymity it affords the viewer is what makes it more appealing. Now when you look at it you're likely to remember Madonna as Queen Padme Amidala of Naboo. Perhaps the child in her arms isn't baby Jesus but rather young Luke Skywalker. Not the same painting anymore is it?