VISUAL NOTES: Album Covers Inspired by Famous Paintings
If you are a band planning to release an album, and you’re lacking in visual artist friends…look no further than the closest art museum!
I spotted a photo of a Bow Wow Wow album cover in an new edition of The Oxford History of Western Art that was an “interpretation” of Manet’s “Picnic on the Grass”, and committed this ridiculous and awesome idea to memory.
CHALLENGE: Scour The Internet for apparent match-ups between famous dead painters and rock stars.
Of course there are several paintings that come to mind.
Foremost is Queen’s modifying of Frank Kelly Freas’ ‘The Gulf Between’ for ‘News of the World’ (1977), substituting the band members for the dead human in the robot’s hand.
Henri Rousseau’s ‘Tiger in a Storm (Suprise) was used by jazz crooner Michael Franks for the cover of ‘Tiger In The Rain’ (1976).
Before the ‘Alien’ movies, H. R. Giger’s art was better known through Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s ‘Brain Salad Surgery’. Giger also reportedly designed the band’s logo. The same colaboration goes with Ken Kelly and Kiss, Roger Dean and Asia, etc.