What do you get when you cross the works of surrealist painter René Magritte with SNES-era videogame aesthetics?
Belgian artist René Magritte passed away in August of 1967, so unfortunately the man never really had a chance to witness the birth and ascendance of videogames as an entertainment medium. Despite this, his paintings lend themselves well to the sort of dreamy, whimsy-infested worlds made so very famous by Nintendo. But don’t take my word for it. All the proof you need can be found in a new Tumblr specifically devoted to hybridizing Magritte’s most famous works with the 16-bit pixelated art style found in Super Mario World.
Dubbed “Our Princess Is In Another Castle Of The Pyrenees” – because seriously, there’s no more fitting title – the Tumblr currently features 14 new efforts based on famous Magritte paintings such as The Listening Room and The Man In The Bowler Hat. The latter painting served as the inspiration for that image you see embedded here, which is cleverly titled “The Plumber In The Super Cape.” Compare that picture to this image of the original, and you can clearly see the attention to detail and wry, referential wit.
Is this crucial news? Will anyone die because René Magritte’s most famous works of art have been remixed by the Internet? Of course not, but this Tumblr does serve as a testament to the creative spirit of our collective electronic womb. Or, more accurately, its willingness to reshape any cultural touchstone of the past to better suit its own egocentric, worryingly nostalgic needs. We’ve created a popular culture that periodically devours and regurgitates itself, like some kind of ethereal ouroboros of New Wave records and old Simpsons episodes. This sounds bleak, but as long as people are doing clever remixes like those found on Our Princess Is In Another Castle Of The Pyrenees, maybe we don’t need any more truly novel ideas.
Nah. That’s stupid. Forget I mentioned it.
