Art Reincarnated

In preparation for their trip to the Netherlands over Christmas, Carrie asked our friend Elliott if he would give the Gregory family an art history lesson via Google Video so they could learn a bit about the art they’d see. One of the pieces he covered was The Feast of St Nicholas by Jan Steen, a piece that exemplifies a popular trend from that time period in which the scenes depicted serve as warning against vice. In this piece, we see a greedy child who won’t share, her sobbing brother who has been naughty, a drunk father, a creepy grandma, food and debris strewn around, etc. etc.

Carrie made a joke about how “our family could serve as a warning against vice” and thus the idea to recreate the painting was conceived. It’s amazing how willing everyone was to participate and how quickly it all came together - Carrie decided who was going to play which part, everyone helped find their own costume and rearrange the dining room, Beth and Sydney directed us, Sarah outperformed everyone, and I did minimal photoshop edits. And thus the masterpiece was reborn:

 

Presenting our “living tableau” to Elliott for Christmas was so satisfying. He loved it so much he was at first speechless, then he couldn't stop talking about it. His only critique: "You know what's missing? The vice. Everyone in your family is just filled with too much goodness." He says he's going to share this in all his art history classes.

I thought that was the end of it, but then I decided to jump on a current fad where you use the Google Arts and Culture app to take a selfie and have your face analyzed to see what piece of artwork you look like. Guess what result I got?

A self-portrait of Jan Steen, painter of the Feast of St Nicholas! I like to think Google face analytics stared into my soul and saw that since I helped recreate his painting, a little bit of Jan is reborn in me.

But also, I do kind of look like him.