When was the last time you visited an art museum? You know, really took in the artwork around you and engaged with some thought-provoking media? Museums have a funny way of making you feel like either you have no real interests, or you’re too unintelligent to understand what the artist in question is trying to say through their work. That’s the thing about art: It is what you make of it. If it makes you feel nothing, look deeper. If you still feel nothing, that’s as deep as it is with you. No harm, no foul. Not every piece of art can move us, but usually, when the real thing fails, the meme version finds a way to influence us in one way or another.
The internet, at least for the last decade and a half, has been filled with memes that use classical art paintings (or any kind of paintings, really) as reaction images for whatever prompt they deem fit for the portraits. If you’re not new here, you know the drill: Art is memes is art. No matter which way you try to swing it, memes are thought-provoking in their own way, and that is inherently artistic. Scroll below to get those wheels turning.