BONUS: Emoji Painting Gallery

I cannot tell you how or why, but at some point a few years back I discovered that Instagram Stories not only allows you unlimited emojis, it ALSO allows you to enlarge them to an apparently infinite degree. Thus, a very strange new hobby was born. As far as I can tell, I am the inventor of this art form, since I am a genius and everyone else has a life.

And so, may I present: FAMOUS PAINTINGS RECREATED USING ONLY EMOJIS!

“Judith Slaying Holofernes,” Artemisia Gentileschi

Judith’s confrontational stare and angry eyebrows lend a mischievous air to this vengeful scene, as if she dares the viewer to join her in this gruesome yet satisfying task. Her bosom has been fashioned from the stumps of two severed thighs.

“Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Johannes Vermeer

The titular fashion-forward girl boldly locks eyes with the viewer, her vacant gaze concealing some other mysterious emotion. What secrets does she hold? Are said secrets perhaps hidden in the empty cereal bowl balanced atop her head?

“Saturn Devouring His Son,” Francisco Goya

Here, the artist experiments with a moody chiaroscuro effect by expanding the base of the shinto shrine emoji 3000% and layering the transparent pixels at its edges, a painstaking and hyper-specific skill that cannot be applied to any other task in real life at all. Being a genius is lonely.

“The Creation of Adam,” Michelangelo

The water polo player begins to emerge as an important masculine archetype as he is brought into this world sans nipples but plus a jaunty little hat. God is depicted by an unholy chimera made up of Santa Clause and a nonbinary volleyball player.

“Comedian,” Maurizio Cattelan

But is it ART?

“American Gothic,” Grant Wood

The artist began this piece completely confident in the existence of a pitchfork emoji. The artist was wrong.

“Christina’s World,” Andrew Wyeth

While this piece is, on the surface, quite minimal (as if the artist abandoned the effort early in the process due to having a “real job”), it nonetheless captures the haunting and precarious futility of the original painting. Will Christina ever be able to run up that hill? She seems indifferent either way.

“The Son of Man,” René Magritte

This piece has come together so effortlessly that it is tempting to surmise that Magritte painted the original with the prophetic knowledge that someday, it would be recreated with emojis. Thus, it can be considered a collaboration across time and space.

“The Death of Marat,” Jacques-Louis David

If examined closely, it becomes apparent that the letter and scroll emojis contain REAL AND LEGIBLE WORDS. This fact makes the artist uncomfortable.

“Drowning Girl”

This piece has been deliberately stripped of its original attribution, as this artist instead claims all credit for himself. Suck it, Lichtenstein! How does it feel when a cartoonist steals from YOU?

“The Kiss,” Gustav Klimt

This piece was created at the Albuquerque airport during the Great Southwest Airlines Christmas Fiasco of 2022, three margaritas deep. It is broadly considered the peak of the artist’s emoji career.

“Nighthawks,” Edward Hopper

These late-night patrons are trapped within a large glass jar (an emoji that turns out to be pleasingly transparent), fittingly lacking a door to represent their self-imposed isolation. Outside, the artist has added a few beams of chilly streetlamp lighting, supplied by the shower emoji.

“The Swing,” Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Here, Dancing Woman in Red Dress (the uncontested best emoji) gets her moment to shine, her skirt creating a billowing sense of movement as if she were created for this very purpose. Nonbinary Volleyball Player and Male Polo Player (his missing lower half haphazardly repaired) take their roles as dramatic supporting characters very seriously.

“The Persistence of Memory,” Salvador Dalí

The artist tried. What more can you ask for.

“A Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” Georges Seurat

While the original painting was a groundbreaking work of pointillism, this piece pushes the use of emojis as modern hieroglyphs to its breaking point. Broomsticks become a pristine row of trees as broccoli forms a lush canopy overhead. A child dons a lab coat; his mother wears a bucket for a hat as two nonbinary bunny boys approach behind them. In the foreground, a dog and a monkey play beside a woman with an impressive bustle. Did you know there was a monkey in this painting? The artist did not.

“Impression, Sunrise,” Claude Monet

Here, the artist has attempted a soft impressionistic style, only to give up and slap a couple boat emojis on it because that shit’s hard.

“Sunflowers,” Vincent van Gogh

This attempt at creating stylistic brushstrokes out of emojis is questionably successful. It is left notably incomplete, as if the artist realized how much time they were spending on it at the expense of the previously mentioned “real job” and gave up in a state of deep shame.

“Fountain,” Marcel Duchamp

…but is it ART????