{"id":15750,"date":"2021-08-12T19:18:23","date_gmt":"2021-08-12T19:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artjournalstg.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=15750"},"modified":"2021-08-12T20:28:42","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T20:28:42","slug":"the-art-of-the-covid-copy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?p=15750","title":{"rendered":"The Art of the COVID Copy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vintageren-recreation_2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"530\" height=\"824\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vintageren-recreation_2.png\" alt=\"A woman in three-quarters view with crossed wrists holds a roll of toilet paper. She wears a toilet paper headdress and make-up to resemble Bernhard Strigel's Portrait of Martha Thannstetter.\" data-id=\"15766\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vintageren-recreation_2.png\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=15766\" class=\"wp-image-15766\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vintageren-recreation_2.png 530w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vintageren-recreation_2-322x500.png 322w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vintageren-recreation_2-129x200.png 129w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 530px) 100vw, 530px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\"><b>1A<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/brennamcmann.medium.com\/to-whom-it-may-concern-6e91e52fe8c1\">Re-creation<\/a> by Brenna McMann (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/vintageren\/\">@vintageren<\/a>), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/B-uiVoaBhWb\/\">Instagram<\/a>, April 8, 2020 (published under fair use)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Strigel-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"643\" height=\"1000\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Strigel-643x1000.jpg\" alt=\"A woman in three-quarters view with crossed wrists holds a scroll. She wears a cloth headdress that covers her hair.\" data-id=\"15738\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Strigel-scaled.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=15738\" class=\"wp-image-15738\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Strigel-643x1000.jpg 643w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Strigel-322x500.jpg 322w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Strigel-129x200.jpg 129w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Strigel-988x1536.jpg 988w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Strigel-1317x2048.jpg 1317w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Strigel-720x1119.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Strigel-560x871.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Strigel-scaled.jpg 1647w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 643px) 100vw, 643px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\"><b>1B<\/b> Bernhard Strigel, <i>Portrait of Martha Thannstetter (n\u00e9e Werusin)<\/i>, ca. 1515 (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by Scala\/Art Resource, NY)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Toilet paper and hand sanitizer may have been scarce in stores during the coronavirus lockdown, but they featured prominently on social media in the re-creations of fine art that went viral beginning in March 2020 (Figs. 1A, 1B). Home cleaning supplies provided a palette for stay-at-home #instaart photographs that soon numbered in the tens of thousands. This is how the art lover did self-isolation in the face of COVID-19 museum closures. As airlines suspended flights and institutions locked their doors, museumgoers responded to the distance placed between them and their cherished artworks by reenacting those very objects. In the midst of this public health crisis and accompanying confinement, immobility motivated mimicry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The global phenomenon of tableau making that surfaced when access to art came to a startling halt is worthy of art historical analysis. Imitating works of art is not a new practice\u2014these modern-day copyists are participating in acts of repetition that date back to antiquity. However, the form of that participation has changed in the LOL culture of online communication. Quarantine encouraged a museological practice in which physical immobility created a new cyber community focused on the copy. Through a historical analysis of the act of copying, I argue that these mise-en-sc\u00e8ne remakes reimagined ideas of subjectivity and selfhood in the age of COVID. Here I study the most popular quarantine copies that circulated on social network sites at the outset of the pandemic, with a keen eye on Renaissance-inspired imagery.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-1' id='fnref-15750-1' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>1<\/a><\/sup> In early modernity, the copy found new cultural consequence with the rise of the status of the artist; the emergence of a burgeoning art market; claims on the authenticity of the artist\u2019s hand by patrons, collectors, connoisseurs, and dealers; and the development of \u201cthe individual.\u201d<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-2' id='fnref-15750-2' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>2<\/a><\/sup> I argue that such historical traditions provide us insight into how the COVID re-creations reconceptualized the self in a moment of self-isolation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just as London\u2019s Victoria and Albert Museum solicited Britons to send in handmade signs that had been placed in residential and commercial windows during the lockdown, Los Angeles\u2019s Getty Museum and Amsterdam\u2019s Rijksmuseum challenged patrons to re-create their favorite work of art using whatever their house had. Initially inspired by the Dutch Instagram account Tussen Kunst en Quarantaine (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/tussenkunstenquarantaine\/\">@tussenkunstenquarantaine<\/a>), these museums encouraged creators to connect anew with Leonardo da Vinci, Artemisia Gentileschi, Johannes Vermeer, T\u014dsh\u016bsai Sharaku, Frida Kahlo, and Pablo Picasso. On March 25, 2020, the Getty used Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to call art enthusiasts to action: \u201cWe challenge you to recreate a work of art with objects (and people) in your home. 1. Choose your favorite artwork; 2. Find three things lying around your house; 3. Recreate the artwork with those items. And share with us.\u201d<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-3' id='fnref-15750-3' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>3<\/a><\/sup> The Getty\u2019s digital content editors, Sarah Waldorf and Annelisa Stephan, provided pointers on best practices, including the use of pets as props, sassy facial expressions, curated lighting, and abstract thinking.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-4' id='fnref-15750-4' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>4<\/a><\/sup> In an interview with <em>PBS NewsHour<\/em>, Stephan expressed surprise at the vast number of submissions: the Getty expected around thirty entries, but by mid-April, only a month into the global lockdown, that number had exceeded thirty thousand.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-5' id='fnref-15750-5' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>5<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Museums have capitalized on the trending power of social media. Beginning in 2013, museums of all kinds dedicated the third Wednesday in January to Museum Selfie Day, a day in which museums lift their restrictions on photography and allow visitors to snap a selfie beside their favorite object(s).<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-6' id='fnref-15750-6' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>6<\/a><\/sup> Many large museums such as the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art already permit still photography in their permanent collections for noncommercial use. The selfies that American supercouple Beyonc\u00e9 and Jay-Z shot in 2014 when they rented out an emptied Louvre embraced this new trend and instantly ignited a myriad of memes. Celebrities were not alone in their desire to strike a pose with legendary masterpieces, and through partial release of photographic restrictions museums democratized their galleries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 wp-block-gallery-2 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens-reproduction_2_edited-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"469\" height=\"1000\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens-reproduction_2_edited-469x1000.jpg\" alt=\"A gray-haired man dressed only in a towel loincloth looks fiercely at a young child draped over his arm. This image is a re-creation of Rubens's Saturn Devouring His Son. In this version, the child appears upside down and laughs with delight. This re-creation is adorable because the young child is having so much fun!\" data-id=\"15800\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens-reproduction_2_edited-scaled.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=15800\" class=\"wp-image-15800\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens-reproduction_2_edited-469x1000.jpg 469w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens-reproduction_2_edited-234x500.jpg 234w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens-reproduction_2_edited-94x200.jpg 94w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens-reproduction_2_edited-720x1536.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens-reproduction_2_edited-960x2048.jpg 960w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens-reproduction_2_edited-562x1200.jpg 562w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens-reproduction_2_edited-560x1195.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens-reproduction_2_edited-scaled.jpg 1199w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 469px) 100vw, 469px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\"><b>2A<\/b> Re-creation by Manny and Leo Avetisyan (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/manaty_life\/\">@manaty_life<\/a>), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/B_HD5_FDQ4d\/?\">Instagram<\/a>, April 17, 2020 (photograph by Natalia Avetisyan)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens_2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"468\" height=\"1000\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens_2-468x1000.jpg\" alt=\"Rubens paints Saturn as an old man in a loincloth who begins to consume his son. The boy looks terrified.\" data-id=\"15756\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens_2.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=15756\" class=\"wp-image-15756\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens_2-468x1000.jpg 468w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens_2-234x500.jpg 234w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens_2-94x200.jpg 94w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens_2-719x1536.jpg 719w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens_2-959x2048.jpg 959w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens_2-562x1200.jpg 562w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens_2-560x1196.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Rubens_2.jpg 1177w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\"><b>2B<\/b> Peter Paul Rubens, <i>Saturn Devouring His Son<\/i>, 1636 (artwork in the public domain; photograph by Erich Lessing, provided by Art Resource, NY)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yet the quarantine copies that hit social media during the pandemic reference a different form of cyber participation than that organized by the #MuseumSelfie movement. While museum selfies depict the self <em>alongside<\/em> the work of art, the quarantine images portray the self <em>as<\/em> the work of art. These dress-up tableaux of renowned paintings and sculptures are not duplicates of their illustrious antecedents. They do not seek to replicate the original with fidelity. Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s <em>Mona Lisa<\/em>, posted by u\/Krlmhl, or Peter Paul Rubens\u2019s <em>Saturn Devouring a Son<\/em>, posted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/manaty_life\/\">@manaty_life<\/a>, reference the ur-image through playful props and choreographed poses (Figs. 2A, 2B). They also denote \u201chome\u201d through their blanket backdrops and towel loincloths. Many of the quarantine copies feature stuffed animals, vacuum cleaners, macaroni noodles, and plastic pails. Isolation within the house inspired domestic improvisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/JennyBoot_edited2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"845\" height=\"1000\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/JennyBoot_edited2-845x1000.jpg\" alt=\"A woman in three-quarters view, dressed in a black headdress and tunic, looks over her left shoulder to exchange gazes with the viewer. Her black skin is luminous. She is a re-creation of Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and a celebration of Blackness.\" data-id=\"15805\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/JennyBoot_edited2.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=15805\" class=\"wp-image-15805\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/JennyBoot_edited2-845x1000.jpg 845w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/JennyBoot_edited2-423x500.jpg 423w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/JennyBoot_edited2-169x200.jpg 169w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/JennyBoot_edited2-720x852.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/JennyBoot_edited2-560x663.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/JennyBoot_edited2.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 845px) 100vw, 845px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\"><b>3A<\/b> Re-creation by Jenny Boot (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/jennyboot2\/\">@jennyboot2<\/a>), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BvCBT00FkYs\/\">Instagram<\/a>, March 6, 2018 (went viral in 2020)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vermeer-scaled.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"845\" height=\"1000\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vermeer-845x1000.jpeg\" alt=\"A white woman in three-quarters view, donning a yellow and blue headdress, looks over her left shoulder to exchange gazes with the viewer. Her large pearl earring catches the light.\" data-id=\"15742\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vermeer-scaled.jpeg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=15742\" class=\"wp-image-15742\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vermeer-845x1000.jpeg 845w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vermeer-422x500.jpeg 422w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vermeer-169x200.jpeg 169w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vermeer-1297x1536.jpeg 1297w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vermeer-1730x2048.jpeg 1730w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vermeer-720x852.jpeg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Vermeer-560x663.jpeg 560w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 845px) 100vw, 845px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\"><b>3B<\/b> Johannes Vermeer, <i>Girl with a Pearl Earring<\/i>, ca. 1665. Mauritshuis, The Hague (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by Bridgeman Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Getty\u2019s recently released picture book <em>Off the Walls <\/em>offers a collage of such museum challenge images.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-7' id='fnref-15750-7' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>7<\/a><\/sup> The mystique of Vermeer\u2019s seventeenth-century <em>Girl with a Pearl Earring <\/em>captured the imagination of many twenty-first-century quarantiners. These submissions feature bearded men, pouty dogs, assembled foodstuffs, and even a desk lamp donning the sitter\u2019s memorable yellow and blue turban. The homogeneity of Vermeer\u2019s oeuvre is placed in contradistinction to the diversity represented in re-creations of the pearled beauty. These homemade simulants include the presence of racial, gender, national, and intergenerational difference. Photographer Jenny Boot posted on Instagram a remake that includes a model looking over her left shoulder in three-quarters view (Figs. 3A, 3B). Boot replaces the chromatic variations of Vermeer\u2019s work with a monochromy that harmonizes with the sitter\u2019s dark skin and celebrates her Blackness. Direct lighting effects illuminate her flawless complexion and emphasize the reflective surfaces of her white pearl drop earring, chiaroscuro eyes, and raspberry glossed lips. Art historians suggest that the word \u201cBaroque\u201d derives from the Portuguese term for uncultured pearl (<em>barroco<\/em>); it is fitting, then, that Boot\u2014channeling the Dutch Baroque master Vermeer\u2014alters a pearl-focused work to create a modern-day revision with renewed cultural relevance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dressing up as Vermeer\u2019s imaginary figure is nothing new; the painting has inspired many Halloween costumes. However, the social resonance of artful dress-up unequivocally changed during the COVID lockdown. Craving the museum in a moment of global immobility, homebound copyists turned to the turbaned sitter as a form of self-distraction or self-assertion to combat the isolation of quarantine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As exemplified in this Vermeer from the Mauritshuis collection, the conditions for participation in the Getty Museum Challenge did not require mining examples exclusively from the Getty. The Getty website recommends that potential re-creators study the online collections of many museums: \u201cLACMA, The Met, Cleveland, Indianapolis, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Walters, or the National Gallery.\u201d<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-8' id='fnref-15750-8' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>8<\/a><\/sup> They then advise those participants to \u201cshare your creation with the world.\u201d<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-9' id='fnref-15750-9' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>9<\/a><\/sup> While Museum Selfie Day is a global event that focuses patrons\u2019 attention on local museums, the pandemic museum challenge asks local individuals to think globally. These reenactors become living and breathing avatars, real people transformed via digital photography following their virtual visit to the world\u2019s museum collections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Copying Botticelli\u2019s <em>Birth of<\/em> <em>Venus <\/em>with a potted fern landscape or Raphael\u2019s <em>Sistine Madonna <\/em>with DIY angel wings made from cut paper plates is not just a lesson in art appreciation. It is a performative pedagogy that teaches us the role the museum plays in our collective humanity. As Ellery E. Foutch notes, \u201cThe act of researching and performing <em>tableaux vivants <\/em>compels students to look closely, to research works of art, to think critically, to interpret and create, and to engage in metacognitive and embodied experiences.\u201d<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-10' id='fnref-15750-10' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>10<\/a><\/sup> The act of emulation personified in these tableaux physicalizes art history. For the COVID copyists, parroting practices of simulation made the static scenes of the museum come alive in quarantine. An economy of emulation emerged via a social media event that combined the public and private self in a form of sequestered spectacle, reminding quarantiners of the \u201ctransformative spiritual, ethical, and emotional power\u201d of the art museum.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-11' id='fnref-15750-11' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>11<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 wp-block-gallery-4 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"732\" height=\"1000\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Squidrobots_edited-732x1000.jpg\" alt=\"A woman with the corner of a blue fitted sheet over her head looks at the viewer. A bald and bearded man appears next to her with his hand touching her. This is a re-creation of Mantegna's Madonna and Child. In this version, the child is a grown man.\" data-id=\"15802\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Squidrobots_edited.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=15802\" class=\"wp-image-15802\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Squidrobots_edited-732x1000.jpg 732w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Squidrobots_edited-366x500.jpg 366w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Squidrobots_edited-146x200.jpg 146w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Squidrobots_edited-720x983.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Squidrobots_edited-560x765.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Squidrobots_edited.jpg 798w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 732px) 100vw, 732px\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\"><b>4A<\/b> Re-creation by Squidrobots (u\/squidrobots), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/GettyMuseumChallenge\/comments\/g3sltg\/ugly_renaissance_baby\/\">Reddit<\/a>, April 18, 2020 (photograph provided by Angelica Ballard)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"732\" height=\"1000\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Mantegna-Figure-4b_2-732x1000.jpg\" alt=\"In this Marian image, Mantegna paints the Virgin Mary with a blue headdress. The Christ Child reaches out to her and looks up to the heavens.\" data-id=\"15758\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Mantegna-Figure-4b_2.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=15758\" class=\"wp-image-15758\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Mantegna-Figure-4b_2-732x1000.jpg 732w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Mantegna-Figure-4b_2-366x500.jpg 366w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Mantegna-Figure-4b_2-146x200.jpg 146w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Mantegna-Figure-4b_2-720x984.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Mantegna-Figure-4b_2-560x765.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Mantegna-Figure-4b_2.jpg 1004w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 732px) 100vw, 732px\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\"><b>4B<\/b> Andrea Mantegna, <i>Madonna and Child<\/i>, ca. 1480 (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by Scala\/Art Resource, NY)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 wp-block-gallery-5 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"383\" height=\"545\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Covid-Classics_2.jpg\" alt=\"A group of roommates, who called themselves @covidclassics, stage Artemisia Gentileschi's Susanna and the Elders. A man plays the role of Susanna, who is terrified by the two men looming above and threatening her.\" data-id=\"15753\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Covid-Classics_2.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=15753\" class=\"wp-image-15753\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Covid-Classics_2.jpg 383w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Covid-Classics_2-351x500.jpg 351w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Covid-Classics_2-141x200.jpg 141w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 383px) 100vw, 383px\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\"><b>5A<\/b> Re-creation by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/covidclassics\/\">@covidclassics<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/B-2h3c4An5I\/\">Instagram<\/a>, April 11, 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"704\" height=\"1000\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Artemisia-Gentileschi-704x1000.jpg\" alt=\"Artemisia Gentileschi paints a vivid portrayal of a woman threatened by the advances of two older men. She is seated on a bench, as two men peer over a parapet and invade her space.\" data-id=\"15745\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Artemisia-Gentileschi-scaled.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=15745\" class=\"wp-image-15745\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Artemisia-Gentileschi-704x1000.jpg 704w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Artemisia-Gentileschi-352x500.jpg 352w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Artemisia-Gentileschi-141x200.jpg 141w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Artemisia-Gentileschi-1081x1536.jpg 1081w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Artemisia-Gentileschi-1441x2048.jpg 1441w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Artemisia-Gentileschi-720x1023.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Artemisia-Gentileschi-560x796.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Artemisia-Gentileschi-scaled.jpg 1802w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 704px) 100vw, 704px\" \/><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\"><b>5B<\/b> Artemisia Gentileschi, <i>Susanna and the Elders<\/i>, 1610 (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by incamerastock\/Alamy Stock Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As museum challenge participants enacted art objects in static postures, their work blurred traditional boundaries of genre. Contemporary history paintings and genre scenes transformed into present-day portraits, as the visages of the re-creators (and their pandemic pods) personalized the copy. Authorship shifted from the canonical artist to the COVID copycat. These quarantine imitators never intended to forge the venerable original. Instead, the true protagonists were the re-creators themselves, who wanderlusted in place. When restaged within the domestic interior, sacred art secularized in the typical quarantined home. On Reddit, u\/squidrobots became Andrea Mantegna\u2019s <em>Madonna and Child <\/em>with a fitted blue bedsheet replacing the Virgin\u2019s lapis lazuli headcover (Figs. 4A, 4B). On Instagram, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/covidclassics\/\">@covidclassics<\/a> roommates, quarantined friends who drew nearly ninety thousand followers from their forty-five posts, became Artemisia Gentileschi\u2019s <em>Susanna and the Elders<\/em> (Figs. 5A, 5B). It was not piety that inspired the scantily clad Sam Haller of East Rock, Connecticut, to play the role of Susanna. According to an interview he gave to the <em>New Haven Independent<\/em>, public praise and exhibitionism fueled his participation in the re-creations.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-12' id='fnref-15750-12' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>12<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 wp-block-gallery-6 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/KentoDesign-Sharaku-B_edited2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"684\" height=\"1000\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/KentoDesign-Sharaku-B_edited2-684x1000.jpg\" alt=\"Kento Mizuno, in collaboration with Katie Mizuno, re-created Sharaku's woodblock print of a kabuki actor. Kento Mizuno, adorned with dramatic make-up, appears in three-quarters view with his hands extended before him.\" data-id=\"15807\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/KentoDesign-Sharaku-B_edited2.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=15807\" class=\"wp-image-15807\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/KentoDesign-Sharaku-B_edited2-684x1000.jpg 684w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/KentoDesign-Sharaku-B_edited2-342x500.jpg 342w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/KentoDesign-Sharaku-B_edited2-137x200.jpg 137w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/KentoDesign-Sharaku-B_edited2-1050x1536.jpg 1050w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/KentoDesign-Sharaku-B_edited2-720x1053.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/KentoDesign-Sharaku-B_edited2-560x819.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/KentoDesign-Sharaku-B_edited2.jpg 1176w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 684px) 100vw, 684px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\"><b>6A<\/b> Re-creation by Kento Mizuno (u\/kento-box) and Katie Mizuno, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/pics\/comments\/gl7tul\/my_fianc\u00e9e_says_im_handsomelike_a_japanese\/\">Reddit<\/a>, May 16, 2020 (photograph by Kento Mizuno, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/kentomizunodesign\/\">@kentomizunodesign<\/a>, and Katie Mizuno, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/katiemizuno\/\">@katiemizuno<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Sharaku_2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"684\" height=\"1000\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Sharaku_2-684x1000.jpg\" alt=\"Sharaku creates a colorful portrayal of a kabuki actor. The actor wears a striped robe over his shoulders and gesticulates dramatically with his hands extended in front of him.\" data-id=\"15757\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Sharaku_2.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=15757\" class=\"wp-image-15757\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Sharaku_2-684x1000.jpg 684w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Sharaku_2-342x500.jpg 342w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Sharaku_2-137x200.jpg 137w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Sharaku_2-1050x1536.jpg 1050w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Sharaku_2-720x1053.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Sharaku_2-560x819.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Sharaku_2.jpg 1141w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 684px) 100vw, 684px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\"><b>6B<\/b> T\u014dsh\u016bsai Sharaku, <i>Kabuki Actor \u014ctani Oniji III as Yakko Edobei in the Play \u201cThe Colored Reins of a Loving Wife (Koi ny\u014db\u014d somewake tazuna),\u201d<\/i> 1794. British Library, London (artwork in the public domain; photograph \u00a9 British Library Board. All Rights Reserved\/Bridgeman Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Portraiture also turns to self-portraiture. For example, the Reddit user u\/kento-box documented his process of self-representing T\u014dsh\u016bsai Sharaku\u2019s woodblock print of actor \u014ctani Oniji&nbsp;III in the role of the servant Edobei (Figs. 6A, 6B).<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-13' id='fnref-15750-13' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>13<\/a><\/sup> This particular autodepiction, executed in collaboration with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/katiemizuno\/\">@katiemizuno<\/a>, embodies a layering of identities: from titular servant to kabuki actor to self-isolating imitator. U\/kento-box\u2019s selfie appearance is inseparable from Sharaku\u2019s historical portrait. To corroborate that visual analogy, he presents his self-image on Reddit with the caption: \u201cMy fianc\u00e9e says I\u2019m handsome . . . like a Japanese woodblock print.\u201d<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-14' id='fnref-15750-14' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>14<\/a><\/sup> Here u\/kento-box personalizes Japanese woodblock art through his homespun ukiyo-e performance. His selfie is relational; it references a past artistic tradition with the singularized face of the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/L1_SAM_SELFIES_ADS_OF_THE_WORLD3-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/L1_SAM_SELFIES_ADS_OF_THE_WORLD3-786x1000.jpg\" alt=\"The Leo Burnett Advertising Agency re-created a D\u00fcrer self-portrait. In this version, however, the viewer sees D\u00fcrer from behind holding up a Samsung NX Mini Camera. In the camera's digital screen, we see the famous self-portrait of D\u00fcrer that is now in the Prado Museum.\" class=\"wp-image-15748\" width=\"590\" height=\"750\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/L1_SAM_SELFIES_ADS_OF_THE_WORLD3-786x1000.jpg 786w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/L1_SAM_SELFIES_ADS_OF_THE_WORLD3-393x500.jpg 393w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/L1_SAM_SELFIES_ADS_OF_THE_WORLD3-157x200.jpg 157w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/L1_SAM_SELFIES_ADS_OF_THE_WORLD3-1207x1536.jpg 1207w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/L1_SAM_SELFIES_ADS_OF_THE_WORLD3-1609x2048.jpg 1609w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/L1_SAM_SELFIES_ADS_OF_THE_WORLD3-720x916.jpg 720w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/L1_SAM_SELFIES_ADS_OF_THE_WORLD3-560x713.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/L1_SAM_SELFIES_ADS_OF_THE_WORLD3-scaled.jpg 2011w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 590px) 100vw, 590px\" \/><\/a><figcaption><b>7<\/b> Advertisement by Leo Burnett Switzerland for Samsung NX Mini, \u201cMasterpiece\/Albrecht D\u00fcrer,\u201d 2014, creative director Axel Eckstein, art directors Johannes D\u00f6rig and Pedro Moosmann, copywriter Fabian Windhager, photographer Fredrik \u00d6dman, production company Hobby Film (photograph provided by Axel Eckstein)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Technology also plays a role in genre blurring. Media studies scholars underscore the difficulties in distinguishing between the self-portrait and the selfie.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-15' id='fnref-15750-15' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>15<\/a><\/sup> The advertisement campaign for the Samsung NX Mini entitled \u201cMasterpiece\u201d highlights such debates. In one ad, Albrecht D\u00fcrer, seen from behind, takes a picture of himself with the smart camera (Fig. 7).<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-16' id='fnref-15750-16' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>16<\/a><\/sup> In its flip-up display, we see D\u00fcrer\u2019s 1498 self-portrait (Museo del Prado). The tagline at the bottom of the page reads: \u201cFor self-portraits. Not selfies.\u201d Differentiating categories of self-photography may prove challenging, but the selfie is particular in that it relies on smart technology and social network sites. With the selfie, the face becomes an <em>inter<\/em>face intended for public consumption on social media.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-17' id='fnref-15750-17' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>17<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No matter how proximate or elastic the genre, the museum challenge images have much in common. They all present their authors as art lovers with remarkable visual acuity. They all function as metonyms for self-quarantine. And they all were intended for social media. The individuals depicted situate themselves in the world.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-18' id='fnref-15750-18' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>18<\/a><\/sup> Images staged in the United States, the Netherlands, Spain, Russia, Norway, Iran, and beyond participate in an open and responsive technological network that creates affiliations between individuals living in different countries and on different continents.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-19' id='fnref-15750-19' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>19<\/a><\/sup> These tableaux were \u201cconceived for being feedbacked and looped further on the internet.\u201d<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-20' id='fnref-15750-20' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>20<\/a><\/sup> They activate a networked community in which socialization during isolation is shared and participatory within the public domain. These images represent isolation, but they are not isolationist. On the contrary, the museum challenge images make private domesticity public on the internet\u2019s world stage. Tableau creation documents the isolation of the COVID quarantine as a phenomenon of mass visual culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Counterfeiting, forging, replicating, imitating, re-creating, remaking, and reincarnating are not analogous concepts in the history of art, nor are they interchangeable. These terms differ in relation to issues of aesthetic taste, social identity, and cultural value. The duplication of works of art in their varying conditions and contexts renders the word \u201cauthenticity\u201d imprecise and inconsequential. Nevertheless, what joins these disparate yet homologous concepts of reproduction is a desire to acknowledge the distance (geographical, temporal, cultural, moral) between the original and the copy. The discipline of art history recognizes that distance to contend with the resulting ripple effects.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-21' id='fnref-15750-21' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>21<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The history of art abounds in the art of reproduction. Copying works of art dates back to Roman antiquity. The <em>Kopienkritik <\/em>tradition, in which Roman replicas stand in for lost Greek originals, still informs studies of Roman sculpture.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-22' id='fnref-15750-22' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>22<\/a><\/sup> The art of ancient Rome offers strategies for exploring how copying motivates innovation, eclecticism, and emulation.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-23' id='fnref-15750-23' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>23<\/a><\/sup> In early modernity, the geographic reach of the copy expanded across oceans and continents with the advent of the print. &#8220;Old World&#8221; paintings found &#8220;New World&#8221; form vis-\u00e0-vis the circulation of printed facsimiles.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-24' id='fnref-15750-24' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>24<\/a><\/sup> Repetition may help us recognize originality, or, as Maria H. Loh argues, repetition is itself a form of originality.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-25' id='fnref-15750-25' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>25<\/a><\/sup> Copies overcame physical distances to make immediate the original prototype.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Imitation may indeed be the sincerest form of flattery\u2014and it has a long history. During the Renaissance, copying was a pedagogy that served to train great masters and apprentices alike. Michelangelo copied Masaccio\u2019s <em>Tribute Money <\/em>in a drawing now housed in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-26' id='fnref-15750-26' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>26<\/a><\/sup> The Bolognese engraver Marcantonio Raimondi reproduced in print Raphael\u2019s <em>Parnassus <\/em>fresco in the Vatican\u2019s Stanze della Segnatura. Raphael so admired Marcantonio\u2019s work that the two High Renaissance artists combined their manual and mechanical skills in graphic collaborations, ultimately culminating in the <em>Massacre of the Innocents <\/em>engravings.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-27' id='fnref-15750-27' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>27<\/a><\/sup> During a trip to Spain in August 1628, Rubens famously copied Titian\u2019s <em>Rape of Europa<\/em>, one of Philip IV\u2019s most treasured paintings<em>. <\/em>Titian himself copied the recumbent nude of Giorgione\u2019s <em>Sleeping Venus <\/em>and then repeated that <em>donna nuda <\/em>format over and over again at the request of dukes, kings, and cardinals. Serial repetition did not injure the archetype. According to Loh, the artistic processes of repetition instead perpetuated the emulative desires of Titian\u2019s esteemed (male) patrons.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-28' id='fnref-15750-28' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>28<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the 1568 edition of <em>Lives of the Artists<\/em>, Giorgio Vasari describes how copies at times brought early charges of copyright infringement. The skilled storyteller details the ire Marcantonio incited in D\u00fcrer when counterfeiting his prints.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-29' id='fnref-15750-29' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>29<\/a><\/sup> Vasari\u2019s accounts have some inconsistencies, but Marcantonio did in fact reproduce D\u00fcrer\u2019s woodcuts from <em>The Life of the Virgin <\/em>series around 1506, right down to D\u00fcrer\u2019s own \u201cAD\u201d monogram. D\u00fcrer, according to Vasari, brought suit against Marcantonio in Venice for pirating his work. The Venetian Signoria found Marcantonio\u2019s plagiarized copies lawful but prohibited his use of D\u00fcrer\u2019s monogram. Vasari was a teller of tall tales, so this anecdote about the lawsuit may be apocryphal.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-30' id='fnref-15750-30' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>30<\/a><\/sup> Yet an analogous case involving D\u00fcrer took place in Nuremberg against a foreign forger, who was compelled by the city council \u201cto remove all the said monograms.\u201d<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-31' id='fnref-15750-31' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>31<\/a><\/sup> Selling prints with D\u00fcrer\u2019s monogram was criminal; however, the courts found counterfeiting the composition, sans signature, an acceptable practice in the visual arts. Counterfeiting works of art was not a fraudulent act in early modernity. An <em>imago contrafacta <\/em>was a practice of reportage in which an artist faithfully copied an image of visual interest without (or with nominal) emendation.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-32' id='fnref-15750-32' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>32<\/a><\/sup> <em>Contrafacta <\/em>does not carry the negative connotations of its English cognate. In fact, early moderns used the term to describe the rendering of portraits or nature with an exacting eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 wp-block-gallery-7 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Hazel-Lavery_edited.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"404\" height=\"1000\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Hazel-Lavery_edited-404x1000.jpg\" alt=\"In this photograph, Hazel Lavery is dressed up as Flora from Botticelli's painting Primavera. She wears a dress and head covering with flowers sewn onto them.\" data-id=\"15798\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Hazel-Lavery_edited.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=15798\" class=\"wp-image-15798\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Hazel-Lavery_edited-404x1000.jpg 404w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Hazel-Lavery_edited-202x500.jpg 202w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Hazel-Lavery_edited-81x200.jpg 81w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Hazel-Lavery_edited-621x1536.jpg 621w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Hazel-Lavery_edited-485x1200.jpg 485w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Hazel-Lavery_edited-560x1385.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Hazel-Lavery_edited.jpg 728w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 404px) 100vw, 404px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\"><b>8A<\/b> Hazel Lavery as Flora in Botticelli\u2019s <i>Primavera<\/i>, 1913 (photograph provided by Pictorial Press Ltd\/Alamy Stock Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><a href=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Botticelli-detail_2-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"404\" height=\"1000\" src=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Botticelli-detail_2-404x1000.jpg\" alt=\"Botticelli's Primavera is a large panel painting that depicts mythological figures set in a garden scene. This particular detail features the beautiful Flora, a woman in a dress of flowers.\" data-id=\"15752\" data-full-url=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Botticelli-detail_2-scaled.jpg\" data-link=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?attachment_id=15752\" class=\"wp-image-15752\" srcset=\"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Botticelli-detail_2-404x1000.jpg 404w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Botticelli-detail_2-202x500.jpg 202w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Botticelli-detail_2-81x200.jpg 81w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Botticelli-detail_2-621x1536.jpg 621w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Botticelli-detail_2-828x2048.jpg 828w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Botticelli-detail_2-485x1200.jpg 485w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Botticelli-detail_2-560x1385.jpg 560w, http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Botticelli-detail_2-scaled.jpg 1035w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 404px) 100vw, 404px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-item__caption\"><b>8B<\/b> Sandro Botticelli, <i>Primavera<\/i>, ca. 1482, detail of Zephyr and Flora. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by ItalyPhoto, \u00a9 Raffaello Bencini\/Bridgeman Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the late eighteenth century, copying took on a new form through <em>tableaux vivants<\/em>, or \u201cliving pictures,\u201d that merged the visual and performing arts. A popular practice of Enlightenment-era entertainment, tableaux vivants consisted of people staged to imitate works of art or prominent historical or literary scenes. For instance, Hazel Lavery (the wife of Irish painter Sir John Lavery) attended the 1913 Picture Ball dressed as Flora in Botticelli\u2019s <em>Primavera<\/em> with a gold metal wig and diaphanous dress strewn with flowers (Figs. 8A, 8B).<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-33' id='fnref-15750-33' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>33<\/a><\/sup> Copying in this context dramatized visual art to elevate the social status of its aristocratic and bourgeois practitioners. Today the emulative powers of tableaux can be found in pop culture. In her 2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=IDvu1ehPq0g&amp;feature=emb_logo\">music video for \u201cMine,\u201d<\/a> Beyonc\u00e9 dons a Carrara-colored strapless dress and cradles a youth painted marble white as a modernization of Michelangelo\u2019s <em>Piet\u00e0 <\/em>(see timestamp 1:16)<em>. <\/em>She again turned to early modern visual traditions in 2017 when she announced her pregnancy and then the birth of twins Sir and Rumi on social media. Posed before a floral mandorla, Beyonc\u00e9 becomes both Virgin and Venus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Art history recognizes distinctions in mimicry to address the distance, whether near or far, between the original and the copy. In the age of COVID, the travel bans and museum closures imposed during the 2020 lockdown underscored that distance, and the quarantine copies embodied its vastness through their sheltered settings. In a moment when in-person social relationships were limited to members of a single household, art enthusiasts turned to the museum challenge to collapse that distance. According to sociologist Gabriel Tarde, \u201cAny social production . . . tries to multiply itself by thousands and millions of copies in every place where there exist human beings.\u201d<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-34' id='fnref-15750-34' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>34<\/a><\/sup> Repetition, he argues, fosters social relations between individuals. Even in isolation (or especially because of it), the act of imitation creates social connection that requires us to confront ourselves as social beings.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-35' id='fnref-15750-35' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>35<\/a><\/sup> We remake renowned works of art starring ourselves to understand ourselves. We create living pictures to show ourselves living. These works unmistakably index the self in self-isolation. Perhaps it is unsurprising that self-quarantine inspired self-analysis. The limitations of isolation require us to confront the self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These domestic tableaux were not quite what Walter Benjamin had in mind when he wrote, \u201cIn principle a work of art has always been reproducible. Man-made artifacts could always be imitated by men.\u201d<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-36' id='fnref-15750-36' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>36<\/a><\/sup> In his 1936 essay \u201cThe Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,\u201d Benjamin explored how new media such as photography and film altered our understanding of aesthetic value. Benjamin\u2019s humorous side may have delighted in the pet cats or stuffed tyrannosaurus replacing the ermine in quarantine versions of Leonardo\u2019s portrait of Cecilia Gallerani.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-37' id='fnref-15750-37' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>37<\/a><\/sup> He may have equally enjoyed the acoustic guitar substitute for the lute played by Rosso Fiorentino\u2019s musical angel, the avocado flanked by two spoons that re-creates Edvard Munch\u2019s <em>The Scream, <\/em>and the miscellaneous charcuterie dancing around a trenchcoated gentleman in an adaptation of Francis Bacon\u2019s <em>Second Version of Painting 1946<\/em>. Benjamin might have seen these images as laughter-inducing re-creations of celebrated masterworks; however, he did not affirm mechanical reproduction, arguing technical reproducibility depreciated the \u201caura\u201d of the work of art to challenge its singularity. Embedded with specific temporal and spatial coordinates, the aura relies on \u201cthe unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be.\u201d<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-38' id='fnref-15750-38' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>38<\/a><\/sup> For Benjamin, the aura reaffirms the distance between the original\/copy binary. Before technology gave rise to mass reproduction, viewing art required pilgrimage to particular locations: catacomb or castle, monastery or mosque. Art objects and their accompanying auras were dependent on in situ rituals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this COVID-19 moment of virtual reproduction, art enthusiasts have effectively reclaimed the artistic aura through homage. With canceled flights, suspended visa services, and closed borders, foreign travel has become complicated, if not impossible. At the time of this essay\u2019s writing, the Louvres in Paris and Abu Dhabi had only recently reopened, accessible primarily to local residents. Despite the renown of these institutions, which induces international travel, most foreigners can currently only gain entry virtually as armchair tourists. Early modern loose-leaf broadsheets will not be the souvenirs that today\u2019s couch potatoes acquire from their digital journeys. These virtual pilgrims instead post do-it-yourself mementos as a new quarantine ritual for other stay-at-home wayfarers to view. The coronavirus has prevented physical pilgrimage to these esteemed landmarks, leaving artsy quarantine replicas in its wake. Reenactments with dogs, tuna cans, brooms, and an excess of toilet paper do not challenge Benjamin\u2019s thesis. The aura of the original artwork is never lost or diluted. Instead, the quarantine copies become a new \u201coriginal\u201d that collapse the distance previously traversed in pilgrimage. In lockdown, semblance becomes a unique mode of self-expression and self-preservation to counteract the shelter-in-place conditions of COVID.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The museum challenge doppelg\u00e4ngers provide accessibility to the inaccessible artworks shuttered in museums, and they visualize publicly our private selves in the strangeness of seclusion. They offer vignettes of domesticity, while always remaining tethered to the hallowed spaces of the imitable collection. More importantly, these museum challenge copies testify to events that extend well beyond the museum. Through their viral presence on social media, they document in first person the coronavirus\u2019s global spread. Virality becomes a double entendre, as the biological contagion of the coronavirus mobilizes the immediate internet dissemination of the tableaux.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-39' id='fnref-15750-39' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>39<\/a><\/sup> These images are \u201cepoch-making works,\u201d to use Joseph Leo Koerner\u2019s words, that separate life into before COVID and after.<sup class='footnote'><a href='#fn-15750-40' id='fnref-15750-40' onclick='return fdfootnote_show(15750)'>40<\/a><\/sup> With their glue-gunned accessories, the museum challenge re-creations depict world history in tableau form to represent bodily life within the picture frame and expose bodily loss outside it. They speak of our collective isolation and isolated collectivity with eyewitness authority. As repositories of past masterworks, these COVID copies document our emulative desires for the future of ourselves and our humanity, which we see now with fresh eyes and masked faces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Dana E. Katz<\/strong> is Joshua C. Taylor Professor of Art History and Humanities at Reed College. Her research explores representations of religious difference in early modern European art. She is the author of <em>The Jew in the Art of the Italian Renaissance <\/em>(University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008) and <em>The Jewish Ghetto and the Visual Imagination of Early Modern Venice<\/em> (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Her current book project,&nbsp;\u201cMaterials of Islam in Premodern Europe,\u201d studies the material effect of Christian and Muslim encounters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n<div class='footnotes' id='footnotes-15750'><div class='footnotedivider'><\/div><ol><li id='fn-15750-1'> For their conversations, questions, and insights, I would like to thank Nicole Archer, Sarah Bavier, Kris Cohen, Mark Jurdjevic, Stephanie Leitch, Kathryn Lofton, Lia Markey, Kevin Myers, Akihiko Miyoshi, Sonia Sabnis, Amy Stewart, Michelle Wang, Tara Ward, and the anonymous readers of my manuscript. Because I emphasize the Renaissance artistic practices of simulation, I concentrated my article on early modern images. However, these COVID copies offer an extraordinary array of images from different time periods and cultures, including, for example, Katsushika Hokusai\u2019s <em>Under the Wave off Kanagawa<\/em> (ca. 1830\u201332), Diego Rivera\u2019s <em>The Flower Carrier <\/em>(1935)<em>, <\/em>and Jeff Koons\u2019s <em>Balloon Dog (Blue)<\/em> (ca. 1994\u20132000)<em>. <\/em>Enjoy searching for them online during virtual happy hour with a quarantini in hand! <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-1'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-2'> Renaissance contracts often insisted that commissions (or portions thereof) be completed in the artist\u2019s own hand, rather than that of a workshop apprentice. On autographic art and the early modern contract, see, for example, Hannelore Glasser, <em>Artists\u2019 Contracts of the Early Renaissance <\/em>(New York: Garland, 1977); Michael Baxandall, <em>Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy <\/em>(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 1\u201328; and Michelle O\u2019Malley, <em>The Business of Art: Contracts and the Commissioning Process in Renaissance Italy <\/em>(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005). On Renaissance individualism, see Jacob Burckhardt, <em>The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy <\/em>(New York: Modern Library, 1954), esp. part 2. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-2'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-3'> Getty (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/gettymuseum\/\">@GettyMuseum<\/a>), <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GettyMuseum\/status\/1242845952974544896\">Twitter<\/a>, March 25, 2020, 9:09 a.m. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-3'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-4'> Sarah Waldorf and Annelisa Stephan, \u201cGetty Artworks Recreated with Household Items by Creative Geniuses the World Over,\u201d <em>The Iris<\/em> (blog), March 30, 2020, https:\/\/blogs.getty.edu\/iris\/getty-artworks-recreated-with-household-items-by-creative-geniuses-the-world-over\/. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-4'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-5'> Joshua Barajas, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/arts\/in-these-quarantine-tableaus-household-items-turn-into-art-history-props\">\u201cFamous Paintings Come to Life in These Quarantine Works of Art,\u201d<\/a> <em>Canvas <\/em>(blog), <em>PBS NewsHour, <\/em>April 15, 2020. See also \u201cIn This Quarantine Art Challenge, Creativity Begins at Home,\u201d <em>PBS NewsHour<\/em>, April 15, 2020, video, 3:38, https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BVXuu1U_p8A#action. The number of quarantine copies submitted to the Getty Museum Challenge continues to grow in summer 2021; however, the phenomenon of the COVID copy was at its peak in 2020. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-5'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-6'> Laurence Allard, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mobactu.org\/selfie-un-genre-en-soi-ou-pourquoi-il-ne-faudrait-pas-prendre-les-selfies-pour-des-profile-pictures\/\">\u201cSelfie, un genre en soi: Ou pourquoi il ne faut pas prendre les Selfies pour des profile pictures,\u201d<\/a> <em>MobActu, <\/em>January 14, 2014; and Mairin Kerr, <a href=\"https:\/\/edgitalblog.wordpress.com\/2014\/08\/29\/the-value-of-museum-selfies\/\">\u201cThe Value of Museum Selfies,\u201d<\/a> <em>edgital, <\/em>August 29, 2014. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-6'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-7'> Sarah Waldorf and Annelisa Stephan<em>, <\/em>eds., <em>Off the Walls: Inspired Re-Creations of Iconic Artworks <\/em>(Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2020). <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-7'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-8'> Waldorf and Stephan, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.getty.edu\/iris\/getty-artworks-recreated-with-household-items-by-creative-geniuses-the-world-over\/\">\u201cGetty Artworks Recreated with Household Items.\u201d<\/a> <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-8'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-9'> Ibid. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-9'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-10'> Ellery E. Foutch, \u201cBringing Students into the Picture: Teaching with Tableaux Vivants,\u201d <em>Art History Pedagogy &amp; Practice <\/em>2, no. 2 (2017): 1. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-10'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-11'> Donald Preziosi, ed., \u201cThe Other: Art History and\/as Museology,\u201d in <em>The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology<\/em> (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 452. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-11'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-12'> Allison Hadley, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newhavenindependent.org\/index.php\/archives\/entry\/covid_classics_goes_international\/\">\u201cCovid Classics Goes International,\u201d<\/a> <em>New Haven Independent, <\/em>April 1, 2020. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-12'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-13'> See u\/kento-box, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/GettyMuseumChallenge\/comments\/gl91xo\/sharaku_kabuki_portrait_behind_the_scenes\/\">\u201cSharaku Kabuki Portrait\u2014behind the scenes!,\u201d<\/a> Reddit, May 17, 2020, 12:17 a.m. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-13'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-14'> u\/kento-box, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/pics\/comments\/gl7tul\/my_fianc%C3%A9e_says_im_handsomelike_a_japanese\/\">\u201cMy fianc\u00e9e says I\u2019m handsome . . . like a Japanese woodblock print. Here\u2019s to the Getty Museum Challenge,\u201d<\/a> Reddit, May 16, 2020, 10:49 p.m. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-14'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-15'> See, for example, Julia Eckel, Jens Ruchatz, and Sabine Wirth, eds., <em>Exploring the Selfie: Historical, Theoretical, and Analytical Approaches to Digital Self-Photograph <\/em>(Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-15'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-16'> Samsung NX Mini\u2019s \u201cMasterpiece\u201d advertising campaign also features reproductions of self-portraits by Vincent van Gogh and Frida Kahlo. On D\u00fcrer and the selfie, see also Jason Farago, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2020\/09\/25\/arts\/durer-self-portrait.html\">\u201cSeeing Our Own Reflection in the Birth of the Self-Portrait,\u201d<\/a> <em>New York Times, <\/em>September 25, 2020. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-16'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-17'> Hagi Kenaan, \u201cThe Selfie and the Face,\u201d in Eckel, Ruchatz, and Wirth, <em>Exploring the Selfie<\/em>, 113\u201330. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-17'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-18'> See James J. Hodge, C. A. Davis, and John Bresland, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.triquarterly.org\/node\/303191\">\u201c\u2018Touch\u2019: A Video Essay on the Experience of Always-On Computing,\u201d<\/a> December 3, 2018, video, 19:50. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-18'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-19'> Derek Conrad Murray, <a href=\"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1080\/10253866.2015.1052967\">\u201cNotes to Self: The Visual Culture of Selfies in the Age of Social Media,\u201d<\/a> <em>Consumption Markets &amp; Culture <\/em>18, no. 6 (2015): 490\u2013516. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-19'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-20'> Angela Krewani, \u201cThe Selfie as Feedback: Video, Narcissism, and the Closed-Circuit Video Installation,\u201d in Eckel, Ruchatz, and Wirth, <em>Exploring the Selfie, <\/em>105. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-20'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-21'> On types of distances associated with the copy, see Aaron M. Hyman, \u201cInventing Painting: Crist\u00f3bal de Villalpando, Juan Correa, and New Spain\u2019s Transatlantic Canon,\u201d <em>Art Bulletin <\/em>99, no. 2 (June 2017): 102\u201335. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-21'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-22'> Elaine K. Gazda, \u201cBeyond Copying: Artistic Originality and Tradition,\u201d in <em>The Ancient Art of Emulation: Studies in Artistic Originality and Tradition from the Present to Classical Antiquity, <\/em>ed. Elaine K. Gazda (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 6. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-22'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-23'> See Ellen Perry, <em>The Aesthetics of Emulation in the Visual Arts of Ancient Rome <\/em>(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); and Johannes Siapkas and Lena Sj\u00f6gren, <em>Displaying the Ideals of Antiquity: The Petrified Gaze <\/em>(New York: Routledge, 2014). <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-23'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-24'> See, for example, Stephanie Porras, \u201cGoing Viral? Maerten de Vos\u2019s <em>St. Michael the Archangel,<\/em>\u201d <em>Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek<\/em> 66 (2016): 54\u201378; and Hyman, \u201cInventing Painting,\u201d 102\u201335. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-24'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-25'> See Maria H. Loh, <em>Titian Remade: Repetition and the Transformation of Early Modern Italian Art <\/em>(Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2007). <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-25'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-26'> Alexander Nagel, <em>Michelangelo and the Reform of Art <\/em>(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 3\u20135. See also Alexander Nagel, <a href=\"http:\/\/cabinetmagazine.org\/issues\/14\/nagel.php\">\u201cThe Copy and Its Evil Twin: Thirteen Notes on Forgery,\u201d<\/a> <em>Cabinet <\/em>14 (Summer 2004). <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-26'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-27'> Lisa Pon, <em>Raphael, D\u00fcrer, and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print<\/em> (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 67\u2013136; and Edward H. Wouk, ed., <em>Marcantonio Raimondi, Raphael and the Image Multiplied <\/em>(Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2016). <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-27'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-28'> Loh, <em>Titian Remade<\/em>, 33. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-28'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-29'> Giorgio Vasari, <em>Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, <\/em>trans. Gaston du C. de Vere, 2 vols. (London: Everyman\u2019s Library, 1996), 2:78\u201379; and Giorgio Vasari<em>, Le vite de&#8217; pi\u00f9 eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori<\/em>, ed. Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi (Florence: Sansoni, 1984), vol. 5:1 (Testo), 4\u20137. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-29'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-30'> On Vasari\u2019s storytelling, see Paul Barolsky, <em>Why Mona Lisa Smiles and Other Tales by Vasari <\/em>(University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1991); and Pon, <em>Raphael, D\u00fcrer, and Marcantonio Raimondi<\/em>, 137\u201354. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-30'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-31'><a href=\"#_edn31\"><sup> <\/sup><\/a>Joseph Leo Koerner, <em>The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art <\/em>(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 209. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-31'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-32'> See, for example, Peter Parshall, \u201cImago Contrafacta: Images and Facts in the Northern Renaissance,\u201d <em>Art History <\/em>16, no. 4 (December 1993): 554\u201379; Koerner, <em>Moment of Self-Portraiture<\/em>, 208\u201314; Pon, <em>Raphael, D\u00fcrer, and Marcantonio Raimondi, <\/em>141\u201342; Christopher S. Wood, <em>Forgery, Replica, Fiction: Temporalities of German Renaissance Art <\/em>(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), esp. 164 and 360; Alexander Marr, \u201cWalther Ryff, Plagiarism and Imitation in Sixteenth-Century Germany,\u201d <em>Print Quarterly <\/em>31, no. 2 (June 2014): 131\u201343; Claudia Swan, \u201cCounterfeit Chimeras: Early Modern Theories of the Imagination and the Work of Art,\u201d in <em>Vision and Its Instruments: Art, Science, and Technology in Early Modern Europe, <\/em>ed. Alina Payne (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2015), 216\u201337; and Stephanie Leitch, \u201cD\u00fcrer\u2019s <em>Rhinoceros <\/em>Underway: The Epistemology of the Copy in the Early Modern Print,\u201d in <em>The Primacy of the Image in Northern European Art, 1400<\/em>\u2013<em>1700: Essays in Honor of Larry Silver<\/em>, ed. Debra Taylor Cashion, Henry Luttikhuizen, and Ashley D. West (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2017), 244\u201345. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-32'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-33'> Daphne Winifred Louise Fielding, <em>Emerald and Nancy: Lady Cunard and Her Daughter <\/em>(London: Eyre &amp; Spottiswoode, 1968), 56. See also William S. Smith, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-in-america\/features\/tableaux-vivants-replicate-art-masterpieces-during-covid-19-quarantine-1202686492\/\">\u201cTableaux Vivants Are Giving Us Life during the Pandemic,\u201d<\/a> <em>Art in America<\/em>, May 8, 2020. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-33'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-34'> Gabriel Tarde, \u201cMonadology and Sociology,\u201d in <em>The Social after Gabriel Tarde: Debates and Assessments, <\/em>ed. Matei Candea (New York: Routledge, 2010), 61. See also Bruno Latour, <em>Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory <\/em>(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 15. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-34'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-35'> See Elisha Cohn, \u201cOscar Wilde\u2019s Ghost: The Play of Imitation,\u201d <em>Victorian Studies <\/em>54, no. 3 (Spring 2012), 474\u201385. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-35'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-36'> Walter Benjamin, \u201cThe Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,\u201d in <em>Illuminations: Essays and Reflections<\/em>, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken, 1968), 218. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-36'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-37'> Walter Benjamin found a sense of humor necessary for critical and creative deliberations. He writes, \u201cLet me remark, by the way, that there is no better starting point for thought than laughter; speaking more precisely, spasms of the diaphragm generally offer better chances for thought than spasms of the soul.\u201d Benjamin, <em>Understanding Brecht,<\/em> trans. Anna Bostock (London: Verso, 1998), 101. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-37'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-38'> Benjamin, \u201cWork of Art,\u201d 222. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-38'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-39'> See Porras, \u201cGoing Viral?,\u201d 54\u201378. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-39'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><li id='fn-15750-40'> Koerner, <em>Moment of Self-Portraiture<\/em>, 35. <span class='footnotereverse'><a href='#fnref-15750-40'>&#8617;<\/a><\/span><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The practice of re-creating masterworks goes viral<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":15814,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"kia_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[405,1610,1613,1611],"class_list":["post-15750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-texts","tag-art-and-the-novel-coronavirus","tag-instaart-2","tag-re-creations","tag-renaissanceart",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}