When artworks come to life: the reign of the GIF
Gifs, cinemagraphs, 3D video... These last years new techniques and formats have appeared to try to break the physical barrier between the digital world and reality. There are many artists who find in the animation of the most classic works a canvas to create a more conceptual and expressive art.
One of the most beautiful formats in today’s photography is the cinemagraph, the union between video and photography that mixes motion graphics with motionless backgrounds. An impressive effect that invites to live even more deeply the great works of all times artists.
The great reference in this technique is the artist Rino Stefano Tagliafierro. After the successful publication of his short film 'Beauty' in 2014, the Italian video artist has used this technique in numerous exhibitions and publications.
Last year the artist participated in the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of El Museo del Prado with a wonderful video entitled 'The Prado: Beauty and Madness'. In it, we could see how the ‘Meninas’ come to life before us laughing and playing or we could suffer with the protagonists of '‘Fusilamiento de Torrijos y sus compañeros en las playas de Málaga’ preparing for a tragic ending.
Rino Stefano Tagliafierro is aware of the importance in today's art of this type of format and has founded the Museum of Animated Paintings , the first virtual art museum where animated gifs of different artists are exhibited.
This mixed technique of movement in pictorial works has also been represented in the world of cinema. In the film 'The Mill and the Cross' (2011) by director Lech Maiewski, Pieter Bruegel's masterpieces illustrate with their movement the story of Christ's passion situated in the Flanders of the Spanish occupation of 1564.
In this film we can recreate ourselves in the artist's paintings thanks to the director's method that digitally combines on the one hand the actors recorded on a chroma and the landscapes similar to those in Bruegel's paintings (Poland, Czech Republic, Austria) and on the other hand segments of the painter's own work in 2D that serve as a background. All this together made the paintings come to life.
Other digital artists have been able to mix moving artwork with humor. One of the best known in the world of Instagram is the brilliant Scorpiondagger.
With more than 75 thousand followers on the platform, this artist from Montreal has been generating gifs with Renaissance works for years in a mixture of humor and art in which the GIF becomes a living and surprising format. Portraits of nobility, Renaissance Jesus Christ and cherubs are integrated into our current world by playing the electric guitar, having a beer or looking for a partner in Tinder.
These formats respond, as mentioned by Rino Stefano Tagliafierro “ to the intimate human need to confront art, and satisfy the desire to see with their own eyes what happens after the moment fixed by the artist and defy death with beauty”.