The art of bringing a painting from hundreds of years ago to life

2020-11-28T06:00:09.054Z

Agustín Vidal and Spencer Blanchard edit classic paintings to give them depth and movement.In the painting The Death of Julius Caesar, by Vicenzo Camuccini, the title contains spoilers: the work immortalizes the exact moment in which the conspirators raise their arms against Caesar, although it does not show the moment of their death. In the animated version made by the 22-year-old American Spencer Blanchard, death is a little closer to the dictator: using different photo and video edit

In the painting

The Death of Julius Caesar,

by Vicenzo Camuccini, the title contains spoilers: the work immortalizes the exact moment in which the conspirators raise their arms against Caesar, although it does not show the moment of their death.

In the animated version made by the 22-year-old American Spencer Blanchard, death is a little closer to the dictator: using different photo and video editing programs, this young man has animated this painting from the early 19th century.

Now, it can be seen how the conspirators pounced on the dictator.

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A post shared by Spencer Blanchard (@dolphin_republic)

"I did my first animated painting in December 2019," Blanchard email

Verne

"Since then, I have animated seven more, and each one receives more attention than the last."

This November 19, the user @Artnau published one of Blanchard's videos on his Twitter account, where he has exceeded 6,000 retweets and 100,000 reproductions in less than a week.

In the description of all the works that Blanchard animates and uploads to his Instagram account, he explains that the original idea of making these animated paintings is from another author, the Argentinean Agustín Vidal based in Dublin.

“A year ago, a friend found these animated painting videos, sent them to me, and challenged me to do something similar,” Blanchard says.

"We brainstormed and decided to animate

The Swing,

by the 18th century French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard."

This is the result:

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A post shared by Spencer Blanchard (@dolphin_republic)

Agustín Vidal, the original author whom Blanchard always cites as inspiration, explains to

Verne

that he started doing these works after moving to Dublin from his native Argentina.

"Having always been self-taught and not having a university degree, I needed to have something to show what I knew how to do," he says.

“I dusted off my passion for classical art, I dared to manipulate it and recorded the process showing how a work created in another century could return to our time in a new way.

The idea was that, to understand the movement of painting and continue it in a new dimension of technology that classical artists could not imagine in their time ”.

His first animated work was "the ceiling of a church that I saw in Rome, called

Triumph of the name of Jesus,

painted by Giovanni Battista Gaulli."

Is:

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A shared publication of Agustín Vidal Saavedra (@agustinvidalsaavedra)

To choose which paintings to animate, Vidal says that he is looking for works that arouse some emotion in him.

“I pay attention to the movement of the image, I analyze what it generates in me and I try not to modify it too much, but to extend its effect, and include something new in it: a flash of current affairs,” he explains.

For his part, Blanchard claims that he "accepts suggestions" and that most of his animations are recommendations from other people.

However, he prefers "neoclassical paintings, since they have more color, contrast and, in general, are more attractive."

The process to animate works, as can be seen in the videos of both authors, begins by cutting out all the figures in the painting and filling in the gaps they leave.

The figures are then animated and, with the background, a 3D stage is built.

Then comes what, in Vidal's words, is “the best part”: animating the camera, the expressions, the lighting… “It is a very organic process, it changes along the way and the final result comes, sometimes, after several days or even months with the same piece ”.

Blanchard, who works as a video producer in an advertising agency, says that he learned to animate pictures in a self-taught way, "by trial and error."

"Every time I do one of these animated paintings, I get faster," he explains.

"The most recent, The Death of Julius Caesar, took me only seven hours."

While Blanchard continues to publish animated pictures, Vidal has stopped doing so during this 2020. He says that, on the one hand, it is due to the projects in which he is working professionally in an advertising agency.

On the other, to the current situation caused by the coronavirus.

"The creative process depends a lot on one and the closure of the covid-19 was for me a time of much reflection on myself and my role as an artist," he says.

"The dynamics of social networks is incredible: I receive a lot of love from my followers, and one way to thank them is to share with them the animations that come from my heart, to choose paintings that captivate them and they can share it to the world."

Below, you can see more paintings animated by Spencer Blanchard and Agustín Vidal:

The School of Athens,

by Raphael

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A post shared by Spencer Blanchard (@dolphin_republic)

Night owls,

by Edward Hopper

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A post shared by Spencer Blanchard (@dolphin_republic)

Fashionable Wedding II,

by William Hogarth

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