Gilette’s Venus

Gilette’s new campaign for female razors utilizes the old image of Venus the goddess of love and beauty.

Although there are a lot of artistic interpretations of this subject, I prefer Botticelli because of the wind and because it’s the best known.

Crucifixion

This photo was published by Harper's Bazaar China September 2008 in celebration of the Olympic Games.

It’s a quotation of the painting by Salvador Dalí Christ of Saint John of the Cross (1951).

Star Wars Fashion

In Highlights Magazine Fall 2008 appeared a series called 'Armour Karma'. The photographer was Kah Poon.


Without any doubt nice pictures, but I see a strong influence of the dresses of queen Amidala from Star Wars.

Vanity Fair's Pin Ups

I just have mentioned, that pin ups became fashionable. Probably it’s the colors and the artificial poses which made them so attractive to photographers and designers. Anyway, since some years Vanity Fair presents a relatively new and up-coming actress in form of a 50s-style pinup shot.

The Vanity Fair edition of October 2008 shows the actress Milena Markovna "Mila" Kunis.

But Mila Kunis is not only posing as "a" pin up, she’s exactly copying the pin up by Edward Runci which was published with the title "They're Easy To Handle" in 1953.

Sin City Fashion by Steven Meisel

In spring 2005 the film Sin City by Frank Miller was real sensation. The impressive colors and the perfectly arranged film noir and pulp esthetics made Sin City also to an ideal pattern for a special kind of dark fashion.

Because of that it isn’t very surprising to me that it was Steven Meisel who has an inclination to dark and sometimes violent arrangements shot in the same year a Fashion Editorial for Vogue Italy, inspired by the film.

Medea

Despite it happens frequently that older (and lesser known) art is used as an inspiration in advertising without any reference or quoting, there are also many a modern photographer who are paying their respects to art history.

So did for example the british digital artist Rebecca Parker with her photo Medea:

It’s a well arranged quotation of the famous artwork from 1898 by the Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Maria Mucha (1860 –1939).

There you find more examples about Medea in art.

Beer Surfer

Few days ago a friend showed me this nice clip on Youtube about the Guinness Surfers.

A wonderful clip without any doubt by I wished that the English painter Walter Crane (1845-1915) would have been mentioned.

Walter Crane: Neptune's Horses (1892)

Campari Fairy Tales

A very popular method to tell stories with advertising is to quote fairy tales. The 9th edition of the Campari Calendar for the year 2008 is composed of twelve fairy tales all with the beautiful Mendes.

Cinderella

Puss in boots

Levi’s on a Skyscraper

This nice ad for Levi's Cling fits is from 2007 and was made by JWT Advertising Agency in Bangalore. The photographer was Steve Koh.

To me it looks like a quotation of the famous photo by Charles C. Ebbets "Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper" from 1932. Above all because I think that no photographer in the whole world can take a picture of a crossbeam with people on it without thinking of Ebbets.

Post-Apocalyptic Fashion

In Vogue Italia appeared in November 2003 this series by Steven Meisel with the title “Mother Nature”. We see some skinny models posing in abandoned buildings or a deserted landscape.



These images didn’t quote any paintings but they refer in my opinion to a lot of post-apocalyptic movies and fiction. Here only a screenshot from the movie "Downstream" (2009).

Here you will find more about post-apocalyptic stuff.