A Facebook group has offered the world a glimpse of what the creative arm of humanity can accomplish when indoors for a really long stretch of time. The answer? Artistic masterpieces, but in real-life. The Изоизоляция (Izoizolyacia) Facebook group, which translates to "art isolation", invites its members to take a masterpiece and recreate it, post it side-by-side with the real thing, and then upload it for its half a million members to judge. What began as a competition run by well-known Russian cartoonist and artist Vasya Lozhkin has quickly amassed a cult following, with hundreds of thousands of plucky members taking part. The result, as you can imagine, is the kind of thing social media scrolling dreams are made of: pure, unabashed joy. Works by masters including Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo are given a modern reworking here, using everything from real-life models to kitchen scraps. Naturally, Johannes Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' has been recreated several times, by women and men of all ages, while there are also several attempts at abstracts – Picasso quickly becoming a hot favourite. A Mihaly Zichy masterpiece has been remade with sweet wrappers, onion shavings, paper clips and more. Animals feature rather a lot, too. A dog recreating Vincent van Gogh's 'Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear'? You bet it's been done. The group was created less than two weeks ago, on March 30, 2020, but already has 417,428 members. In its description, the founder of the page, Lozhkin, a well-known Russian artist who is famous for his cartoons, issued a public challenge: for people to recreate famous artworks. Ten of the best would win a prize consisting of merchandise from his own brand: t-shirts, books and prints of his paintings. The winner will be chosen on April 20, though it seems Lozhkin will have his work cut out for him. In the last 24 hours the page has welcomed 1,673 new posts. Since its inception, more then 10,000 posts have compared modern masterpieces to everyday life.
