Hi everyone! This week I wanted to talk about this variation of photos and paintings being combined together. I keep seeing these photos when I stroll through Facebook, art blogs, and other social media platforms, and I love the creativity revolved around them.

The photo I wanted to talk about is Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous photo of V-J Day in Times Square. This photo represents a US Sailor kissing a nurse, who is supposedly a stranger. This photo was taken in August 14th, 1945 in New York. This was the day that Japan had surrendered, and WWII was finally over. Eisenstaedt states that this man was kissing other women as well, due to his excitement, before this picture.

V-J Day in Times Square has been combined with some paintings; one of these paintings was Francesco Hayez’s The Kiss created in 1859. This is one of Hayez’s best known paintings. This painting was created during the Italian Romanticism and is meant to be read as a “hymn to freedom” (christies.com). It’s meant show a moment before the Italian solider went to go fight for Italy’s unification, and the two figures embrace each other very passionately.

I found two different versions of these artworks being combined. Both of these photos combined the paintings and photo together, but one has a snapshot of the painting in the photo (theguardian.com), while the other one has a cutout of The Kiss figures in the photo (instagram.com):

It’s amazing that these two artworks are combined because they fit so well together. The movements of the both figures are almost parallel to one another. And I think it’s a unique combination to add a painting that reflects on a kiss before someone leaves to go fight for their country, and a photo that depicts a kiss after having fought.

Feature Image from thisiscolossal.com