Becoming Landscapes

Imagine life vanishing from painting masterpieces. No people, no animals, no movement. If you have, then Spanish artist José Manuel Ballester did. He cleared every living creature from some of the most famous paintings, and the result is a collection of disturbing backdrops and locations.

For example, The Garden of Earthly Delights (the famous triptych by Hieronymus Bosch and a personal favorite), now without any people or other crazy creeps. Or Fra Angelico's Annunciation with no Virgin and no angel on the scene. These are some of the ‘hacks’ at Ballester’s current exhibition Espacios Ocultos.

According to his official site, Ballester's work seeks to "purge all human anecdotes" from historical landscape painting and invert the hierarchy, giving priority to traditionally considered “background”.

Winter landscape, Pieter Brueghel

The story of Nastagio degli Onesti, Sandro Botticelli