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From Botticelli to Basquiat, Art History Goes Emoji

• by Carey Dunne on July 28, 2016

Jean-Michel Basquiat (all images by and courtesy Cantor Fine Art)

Some might find the translation of Vincent van Gogh’s “Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear” into a smiling cartoon head spurting blood a little sacrilege, or just tacky, but it was only a matter of time before the emoji-fication of art history took it there.

The Scream emoji has long been a fixture of our emoji-scape. (image via emojipaintings.tumblr.com)

To continue in the vein of “The Scream” emoji, which makes existential despair seem cute, Cantor Fine Art Gallery has designed a series of emojis based on legendary artists and artworks. Salvador Dali, Frida Kahlo, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Yayoi Kusama, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol are all represented by little pictogram portraits. Other artists get more abstract tributes: Damien Hirst is a glittery cartoon skull; Keith Haring is a dancing heart with legs; Marcel DuChamp is R. Mutt’s toilet; Georgia O’Keefe is a cow skull adorned with a calico rose. 
The gallery took requests for art-inspired emojis via its Instagram account, where it posted the series. Unfortunately for millennial art history nerds, they’re not functional emojis and there’s still no pictorial shorthand for texting “Oh, Jeff, I love you too, but…” or “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” so words are not yet obsolete.

Vincent van Gogh, “Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear”

Rene Magritte, “The Son of Man” (1964)

Damien Hirst, “For the Love of God” (2007)

Frida Kahlo

Johannes Vermeer, “Girl With a Pearl Earring” (1665)

Roy Lichtenstein, “Oh, Jeff…I Love You, Too…But…” (1964)

Banksy, “Balloon”

Botticelli, “The Birth of Venus” (1484-1486)

Keith Haring, “Three Eyes” (c 1981)

Keith Haring, “Heart”

Andy Warhol, “Self-Portrait in Fright Wig” (1986)

Emoji inspired by Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” (1511)

Salvador Dali

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