Spanish Artist Shows How Classical Paintings Would Look Without Characters In Them

Published 10 years ago

Spanish artist José Manuel Ballester has created a rather poetic exploration of the role that people play in classical paintings – by removing them. This unique series, titled “Hidden Spaces” (“Espacios occultos) looks pretty unsettling without the people that we know should be there, but it gives another kind of depth to the paintings, revealing the never-before-seen spaces behind them.

Ballester did a remarkable job digitally altering the classical paintings, which gave him the opportunity to scrutinize the historic artworks better than ever before. The disappearance of these characters from these familiar paintings provides us with visual insight into to the relationship between people and their surroundings.

More info: josemanuelballester.com | guggenheim-bilbao.es (via: BoredPanda.es)

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The Birth of Venus (Sandro Botticelli, c.1486)

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The Raft of Medusa (Théodore Géricault, 1819)

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The Third of May 1808 (Francisco Goya, 1814)

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The Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci, 1498)

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Christ Crucified (Diego Velázquez,1632)

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Las Meninas (Diego Velázquez,1656)

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The Allegory of Painting (Jan Vermeer, 1668)

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Guernica (Pablo Picasso, 1937)

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artist, characters removed, classic, classical art, classical painting, Espacios occultos, full-post, Hidden Spaces, historical art, Jose Manuel Ballester, masterpiece, masterpiece painting, painting, people removed, without characters, without people
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