Archive feature, first published 2019-01-04.
October 28, 2018, marked the 22nd Halloween parade in Kawasaki city in Kanagawa prefecture, Japan. Approximately 2,000 people in costume marched the streets with 120,000 excited spectators. Among ghosts, skeletons, vampires, and other cosplay creations, a team of art-loving participants dressed as famous paintings brought some of the world’s most renowned art history masterpieces to life.
Among the creative costumes one could see Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Vincent van Gogh’s Self Portrait, Edvard Munch’s Scream, Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, Pablo Picasso’s The Weeping Woman, and even “Beast Jesus”—the comically botched restoration of a fresco painting that recently became Internet-famous. From the waist up, each person was styled in subject-specific makeup, masks, clothing, wigs, and accessories, transforming them into uncanny painterly depictions. They also wore gold frames with painted backgrounds, completing the museum-worthy looks.
h/t: Golem13
The frame travels with the figure
The 2019 account named the Mona Lisa, The Scream, Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Weeping Woman among the parade references. It also described painted backgrounds and gold frames carried with the costumes. Those details explain why the result is more than dressing like a figure from a painting: the surrounding image is recreated too. Compare how the flat background meets a moving person. The playful difficulty is preserving the familiar composition while allowing it to walk through a street.
For another way familiar paintings enter popular culture, explore Lothlenan Blends Classical Paintings With Pop Culture.
Because the costumes were photographed at a 2018 event, the gallery is best understood as a record of those participants' work. It does not announce a current parade or a returning performance.
A closer look
The frame does more than identify the reference. It gives the moving person a rectangular boundary and helps the painted background meet the real body. Makeup can flatten features or emphasize the marks associated with the original artwork, while clothing continues the illusion below the face. The challenge is not only resemblance, but keeping those parts legible as the wearer changes position.
Links: Beast Jesus · Golem13
(The Instagram post originally embedded here is no longer available.)
#カワハロ アート展 技術力ヤバかったし、脚が綺麗で2度おいしかった pic.twitter.com/lCOlv4DS8E
— eillie/森川エリー☞福岡アジア美術館展示中 (@_eillie_) October 28, 2018
Fantastici. pic.twitter.com/vhRSBvDtWc
— Antonio (@blusewillis) October 29, 2018
(This post is no longer available on X.)
カワハロヤバイ！ pic.twitter.com/DujCo7XT9d
— 突撃人生 (@kennyhorie) October 28, 2018
学芸員さんもいる
— eillie/森川エリー☞福岡アジア美術館展示中 (@_eillie_) October 29, 2018
あと修復済みのやつ pic.twitter.com/nOShL9IkzH
Related reading: Stefan Draschan's Museum Visitors Who Match the Art.
A familiar painting becomes a costume
A still photograph can briefly restore the costume to the format of a painting. In the street, however, the wearer has to walk, turn and interact with other people. That difference gives the project its humour: an image associated with a fixed museum wall becomes a mobile participant in a parade. The event date keeps the gallery attached to those particular performances.
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