Pop Quotery combines fine art with equally fine movie quotations
Caravaggio’s Narcissus is a renowned masterpiece of 16th century Italian art, amply demonstrating the painter’s almost theatrical use of lighting to underscore the fraught emotions of its subject. It also pairs nicely with dialogue spoken by Christopher Guest as heavy metal guitarist Nigel Tufnel in 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap. Surrounded by darkness on all sides while pondering his reflection, the figure of Narcissus wonders aloud, “It’s like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.” Here, the rich, mysterious darkness of Caravaggio’s canvas is compared to the infamous all-black album cover for the Smell The Glove LP. And this is but one of the fortuitous marriages of Pop Quotery, a Facebook account that assigns (via comic-book-style word balloons) quotes from prominent movies with famous paintings.
Frederic, Lord Leighton’s Light Of The Harem, for instance, is instantly repurposed with the simple addition of one of Tyler Durden’s monologues from Fight Club:
John William Waterhouse’s Jason And Madea from 1907 was originally meant to depict characters from Greek mythology, but the somber painting is hijacked by an argument between Jeff Bridges and John Goodman in The Big Lebowski: