The process that people go through to craft these amazing classical art memes is called remixing. During it, they take a piece of art from its original context and create a newer piece of media. Initially, remixing was only used for music or sound manipulation, but now it can be employed to produce a new version of anything.
Even the classical artists themselves are guilty of doing this. Embracing remixing often drives innovation and pushes the boundaries of creative expression. One of the most renowned artists, Pablo Picasso, has famously said, “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” He frequently borrowed from African, Iberian, and other artistic traditions, redoing them and creating his own groundbreaking style.
But in order to create a classical art meme that people will find amusing and relatable, the creator has to be literate in art, its history, and meme culture. Therefore, creating and sharing them acts as a way to learn more about art history and the meaning behind each painting.
English and Great Books professor Christine Cornell says, “I think it’s a fun thing to try out at least. Yeah, and it maybe introduces some people to art they might not have run into otherwise, so that’s always good.”
In fact, for many people, classical art memes are the only gateway to the artistic world, as classical art is often viewed as “highbrow” and “high-class, which makes it unwelcoming and unattainable for some. The paintings also tend to be ambiguous and require research to be dissected, which can scare off those who don’t really have time to do that.
That said, some see taking original masterpieces and adding humorous text to them as devaluing them. Francesca Testa from the online art platform Cartellino in a way defends memes by saying, “After so much research and attempts to understand art history, it's safe to say that what these memes brought is no depreciation.
Medieval and Renaissance art is indeed considered priceless today, but just because they've been used as tools for injecting humor into the tragic everyday lives of angsty millennials or trivial adventures of young individuals doesn't mean they devalue the art pieces used. They simply start a conversation that transcends time.”
In fact, Cornell argues that these memes are the same as any art being repurposed into a collage or something broken being created into a new artwork. “There’s nothing wrong with repurposing things as well. It’s like sampling in music, there’s no reason artists shouldn’t do that,” she said. “And I think art works that way all the time so it kind of makes sense that they get used this way.”
We also shouldn’t forget that being proficient in history, art, and modern culture in order to create a successful art meme isn’t an easy task, considering that we have decades and centuries' worth of digital and physical media. For this reason, some people are starting to see memes as a form of art. And if we take the definition of art, we can see that memes do fall into its definition.
