Creative self-isolators are recreating famous artworks at home

By R.D.

IN RECENT WEEKS as many as 3.9bn people—half of the world’s population—have been living under lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. Many have sought to recreate what is lost. Unable to meet in person, friends and families gather on Zoom for digital approximations of after-work drinks, birthday parties and even funerals. Hopeful romantics set up online dates. Live webcams allow schoolchildren to take ersatz field trips to zoos and famous geographical sites. Many museums and art galleries—including the British Museum in London, the Museé d’Orsay in Paris and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence—have launched virtual tours of their buildings and exhibits.

Such simulacra are rarely as satisfying as the real thing. But one initiative, from the Getty Museum in California, has allowed people to engage with art in an especially creative way. The museum, whose collection of art and antiquities is one of the largest in the world, asked people to recreate their favourite artwork using items in their homes and to post the results on social media. The idea was not a wholly original one: the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam had already issued a challenge from an Instagram account called “Tussen Kunst en Quarantaine” (“Between Art and Quarantine”). But while the Rijksmuseum encouraged home-made versions of any art, the Getty prod participants to riff on pieces in its collection, a great number of which are available to view and download online.