11 amazing recreations of art masterpieces done by Russians staying at home

From Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' to Van Gogh's 'Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear', people in Russia are getting creative with remarkable results

Vincent Van Gogh's self portrait, recreated with a dog. Facebook.

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.

Here are a few of our favourites:

1. Filipp Malyavin's 'Laughing Girl' 

2. Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earring', with someone's child

3. Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earring', with someone's pet

4. An ingenious take on a Picasso

A Picasso painting recreated with part of a wall. Daria Karamba / Facebook

5. A very 2020 riff on Yuriy Pimenov's 'New Moscow' 

6. Mihaly Zichy's 19th century painting of the Ballroom in the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, but with food scraps

Mihai Zici's 'Ball in the Winter Palace Concert Hall during the official visit of Shah-ad-day in May 1873', recreated with sweets, onions, paper clips and more. Mikolaj Dadela / Facebook

7. Inge Leek's beloved cartoons recreated with a quarantine buddy

8. The Great Wave in Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai, remade in a washing machine

9. Van Gogh's 'Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear'

Vincent Van Gogh's self portrait, recreated with a dog. Facebook.

10. A 2002 piece entitled Dandelions by Andrey Cikacev

11. Rose Freymuth Frazier's Cornucopia

Rose Freymuth Frazier's 'Cornucopia'. Iryna Levit / Facebook.