Animated Paintings | WATTS GRAPHICS

Animated Art

A collection of animated paintings

Motion can reintroduce an image in a way that we have never seen it before. I started by searching for paintings in the public domain, the Rijks Studio and The Hague website were great resources.

I was attracted by this Still Life as it had elements that would have been animated in real life, allowing me to bring a new perspective to the ’Still life’. Areas of the painting were isolated into layers in Photoshop and parts of the background image had to be filled where the animation would take place. The Photoshop file was then imported into After Effects.

Still Life with Lemon and Cut Glass, Maria Margaretha van Os, 1823 – 1826. Rijksmuseum

‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ is one of the most iconic artworks ever created. Yet her story remains just as mysterious. In popular culture, her story is obscured by the novel and film ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ which portrayed her as Vermeer’s maid turned mistress. However many believe the painting to be more innocent, the subject being Vermeer’s daughter. In truth, the ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ never existed. Her earring being too heavy in weight to be worn and the odd fashion for the time lead many historians to believe the subject was a fantasised image based on a decorative bust. A type of painting known as a tronie offered an escape for the viewer into an exotic world. For this animation, I played on the stories that surround the image, an exaggerated earring and wink.

Girl with a Pearl Earring. Mauritshuis, The Hague.