The ups and downs of the COVID-19 pandemic have made various cultural and artistic venues extremely anxious between opening and closing. How to solve the problem of large-scale gathering of people due to the epidemic, and continue to play the function of public culture and art popularization undertaken by these institutions? Looking back at the famous painting imitation boom that once emerged on the Internet not long ago, we can see that a good idea is entirely possible to turn crises and problems into new opportunities for the popularization of art.
The initiator of the famous painting imitation boom is a network famous painting imitation challenge game first launched by Dutch netizens, followed by the Getty Museum to actively follow up, plan, promote, and then the positive response of the world's netizens. This wave of imitation swept the Internet, creating a game spectacle of joy in the oppressive atmosphere brought about by the epidemic.
The pandemic has created isolation, the Internet has provided connectivity, games have gathered popularity, and art has maintained its tone. A small idea, let us see that if the new and old media can be good at their own strengths, it is not difficult for the popularization of art to be carried out at the mass level.
All along, the popularization of high art has faced the embarrassment of doing more or less half the work, the museum as a giant hall carrying the essence of the past civilization, more like the show off of wealth and power, rather than close to the public cultural carrier, her preference for knowledge, identity, fame, value, so that the mediocre people are not keen to go.
The Internet, on the other hand, offers a vast space for information, all-encompassing and readily available. No traditional medium can match the gap between time and space. Sudden acquisition of rights, however, does not necessarily lead to liberation. Ordinary people trapped in the net of data and algorithms are actually difficult to cross the limitations of origin and knowledge.
How to cross borders and break down barriers? The Imitation Of Famous Paintings campaign provides a solution – games! And it's the most basic form of the game: imitation—one of the most primitive instinctive behaviors of human beings. This seemingly simple form connects the daily playful jokes with the beauty, the sublime, and even the sacred realm; connects the seemingly unrelated ends—the vast number of beings in the invisible network and the classical art of the high temple. Imitation, lifting weights, eliminates the gap between the public and art, dissolves the huge differences in knowledge and taste of different groups of people, and enables everyone to face the same painting with great interest. Piety, playfulness, structure, deconstruction, mockery... All kinds of emotions and all kinds of ideas are displayed calmly, and in this atmosphere, the classic becomes close to the public. Perhaps, this is the original intention of the establishment of modern museums based on Enlightenment ideas.
One might say that a game is just that, as for rising to such heights?
But a lot of things do happen inadvertently in this seemingly simple art game.
In the traditional world, only a few geniuses can break through the taboos of life, tradition and form, find different beauty in ordinary life, and create excellent works of art. In this game, the public demonstrates the amazing power after nature is unleashed and creativity is stimulated: pots and pans, household daily use, hand in hand, turning stones into gold. When you see the most imitated "Girl with Pearl Earrings" become "Cat with Pearl Earrings" and "Corn with Pearl Earrings", you have to be impressed by the strange brain holes and teasing skills of netizens; when a group of medical staff wearing masks interpret the layout of "The Last Supper" in the lounge, in the dark atmosphere of the epidemic, the warning, compassion and apocalyptic feelings implied by this picture have gone beyond simple imitation and touched the deep core of great art... In the traditional normal art popularization activities, whether it is elegant art entering the campus into the community, or the museum open day, night tour museum and other activities, mostly stay in the knowledge of things, people, broaden the horizon, enrich knowledge, enhance cultivation, cultivate sentiments. It is rare to be able to take a step forward in the middle and stimulate the artistic creativity and imagination of the public, in this sense, this famous painting imitation show has reached the peak of artistic popularization.
But the value of this game should be said not to stop at the simple popularization of art, compared to the obscure depression brought by the epidemic, it brings comfort to people in the epidemic! When people bother to search for imitation props, people temporarily leave the life of the virus; when they think about how to turn the air into a strange place, people temporarily suspend the irritability of isolation; in the tasting of online mutual appreciation, people get the satisfaction of creating rather than simply imitating... The grim face of life is temporarily hidden, in the joy and frolic, people recover their nature as a whole, and various bad emotions are given the opportunity to vent. Artistic imitation, "bringing a temporary, limited perfection to imperfect worlds and chaotic lives" (Sheizimha's Man of Games: A Study of the Composition of Games in Culture), is limited but still worth cherishing.
In addition to solace, it also allows us to see the possibility of art transforming the online environment. As an emerging medium, the Internet has brought extension to human beings, but also brought disintegration. The flood of information makes people lose their grasp of the world; the anonymized environment makes indulgence and malice lose the bottom line; in this noisy world, foolishness, violence, rumors, and hidden evil are pervasive, and fairness, justice, and beauty need to be deliberately maintained. The imitation of famous paintings makes full use of the hidden nature of the Internet to stimulate potential, the convenience of dissemination and the low threshold of participation, and guides the public to art with famous paintings. The artwork itself provides a classic, healthy thematic basis, with all sorts of whimsical ideas framed within a modest range. Participants, facing the common artistic reference, simple rules, stand on the ladder of the essence of human civilization, communicate, display, and live towards beauty.
It must be acknowledged that smartphones and the Internet have changed our world. In the Internet age, the fact that human beings coexist in different places and live side by side has not enhanced mutual identity and empathy, and in comparison, the "perception of coexistence with the world" conveyed by traditional media such as books, newspapers, and television is deeper and stronger (McLuhan, "Understanding the Medium: On the Extension of Man"). In this highly engaged and deeply alienated cyber world, there is a need for a force to reconnect, meaningfully, humanity. The famous painting imitation show shows a possibility, in this game that everyone can participate in, regardless of whether they are high or low, noble and inferior, the public proudly declares their existence and personality in a rich form, and tolerates and accepts the expression and creativity of others. The freedom, equality, tolerance and rationality expressed in the meantime are utopian spiritual pursuits for human beings, which have been precious since ancient times and to the present. Facing the common goal, human beings share emotions, share fun, and feel the joy and excitement of spiritual harmony and resonance, as if they have stepped into the realm of harmony in the world, which is a beautiful realm worth pursuing.
This is a new possibility brought to the world by the popularization of art in the Internet age, and it also provides new thinking, challenges and development opportunities for traditional cultural and artistic institutions.
Author: Gu Ying, Associate Researcher, Shanghai Art Research Center
Editor: Xu Luming