Art World
Are Renaissance Paintings Full of Ikea Furniture?
Cait Munro
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Need some fresh decorating tips? Look no further than circa the 15th century. A new Tumblr blog from social media whiz Cecilia Azcarate proves that the classics truly never go out of style—she’s found dead ringers for Swedish design giant Ikea’s furniture and home accessories in classical paintings. The long-lost twins are reunited on the aptly named Tumblr Ikea b4-XVI.
Did you know that the Gurli cushion cover in red made a cameo in Hans Memling’s The Annunication? Or that the Trogen Storage Bench is prominently featured in Hieronymus Bosch’s Death and the Miser? Neither did we, but now we can’t help but feel like Ikea is really onto something. And that perhaps they should be paying Azcarate for turning her sharp eye toward their products.
A Renaissance pillow and its Ikea twin.
Photo: Via Ikea b4-XVI.
This also isn’t her first Tumblr hit. In the celebrated blog B4XVI, she finds modern hip-hop stars swagger soul mates in pre-16th century artworks. REAL QUICK (02100) is a collection of animated GIFs that match perfectly with the beat of Drake’s hit song “1 to 100.” Clearly, she has an uncanny ability to find strange, hidden links between yesterday and today—but, it’s her ability to turn them into viral Internet fodder that makes us really love her.
“I started wondering if there was a timeless iconography of cool,” she told Fusion. While she was speaking about B4XVI, we can see how this applies to Ikea furnishings as well.
[h/t In The Air]
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