The Face of Bill Murray Adds Some Joy to Classic Paintings

Bill Mur­ray isn’t one of those actors who dis­ap­pears into a role.

Nor is he much of a chameleon on can­vas, how­ev­er icon­ic, as artist Eddy Tori­goe demon­strates with a series that grafts Murray’s famous mug onto a num­ber of equal­ly well-known paint­ings.

Tori­goe told Digg that he was inspired by acci­dent, when he was struck by the uncan­ny resem­blance between Gilbert Stuart’s Lans­downe por­trait of George Wash­ing­ton, and a pho­to of Mur­ray post­ed by a Red­dit user.

He down­loaded both images and bus­ied him­self with Pho­to­shop.

The rest is his­to­ry.

The Pres­i­den­tial update is an improve­ment in ways. Mur­ray-faced Wash­ing­ton appears kind­ly, and not averse to a bit of fun. No teeth of enslaved peo­ples com­pro­mis­ing that mouth.

While Mur­ray is capa­ble of main­tain­ing a straight face—wit­ness his work in Lost in Trans­la­tion, The Razor’s Edge, Ham­let 2000, and Torigoe’s homage to Whistler’s Moth­er, above—more often than not a cer­tain puck­ish­ness shines through.

One won­ders what would have befall­en painter Jacques-Louis David had he bestowed The Emper­or Napoleon in His Study at the Tui­leries with Murray’s goofy expres­sion.

And it’s well estab­lished that a key ele­ment of Grant Wood’s oft-par­o­died Amer­i­can Goth­ic is the pok­er faced reserve of its male sub­ject.

Had they been alive today, it’s con­ceiv­able that Lucas Cranach the Elder’s por­trait of Mar­tin Luther might have depict­ed a lighter side of his friend, some­thing more Mur­ray-esque. Though giv­en the Ref­or­ma­tion and his 95 The­ses against Indul­gences, maybe not….

Explore more of Eddy Torigoe’s Bill Mur­ray-enriched mas­ter­pieces of art, includ­ing self-por­traits by Rem­brandt, Fri­da Kahlo, and Picas­so, on his web­site.

via My Mod­ern Met

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Bill Mur­ray Explains How a 19th-Cen­tu­ry Paint­ing Saved His Life

Bill Mur­ray Reads the Poet­ry of Lawrence Fer­linghet­ti, Wal­lace Stevens, Emi­ly Dick­in­son, Bil­ly Collins, Lorine Niedeck­er, Lucille Clifton & More

Mas­ter­pieces of West­ern Art with All Gluten Prod­ucts Removed: See Works by Dalí, Cézanne, Van Gogh & Oth­ers

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.