While looking at the painting Portrait d’une negresse by Marie-Guillemine Benoist I have also come across Christian Louboutin’s advertisement where photographer Peter Lippmann reinterprets the painting – quite faithfully and tastefully in my opinion – and he has done it for several ad campaigns.

Advertisement has borrowed and will continue to borrow from art in many more occasions – and not as tastefully; could have the artists ever imagined that their work would have been reinterpreted and used to sell goods or services? Or would they have liked the attention and been flattered by the choice? Isn’t art - once created - of public domain?

In any case interesting and amusing to see what it’s been made with some of the masters’ best known works – good and bad. There is a lot more on the internet, I have only just selected a few.

Lipton Tea/Salvador Dali

knowone.de/Leonardo da Vinci

Mazda/Picasso

Centrum vitamins/August Rodin

Magimix/Magritte

Lego/Escher

Orbit/ Andy Warhol

Kraft Els AG/ Piet Mondrian

All ads photos rights reserved to the authors. 

Web sources

http://www.stylebubble.co.uk/style_bubble/2011/06/portraits-reinterpreted.html

http://www.designer-daily.com/advertising-inspired-by-famous-painters-19619

http://www.moillusions.com/2008/12/create-impossible-by-lego.html