There’s really nothing quite as awesome as taking folk art that is thousands of years old and revitalizing it by sneaking in some movie and pop culture references. That’s exactly what Russian artist Andrey Kuznetsov did with his series of Hollywood blockbusters reimagined as Russian fairy tales. The results speak for themselves, so stop chomping the popcorn and pick up a nice cold bowl of borscht. Mmmm, beets!

I love stuff like this. You take an underappreciated form of art like this, put something in that the kids will be interested in (in this case, Jerry Bruckheimer movies), and maybe you can gather up enough people interested in this form of art to go back and look at the historical art with new eyes. There is nothing as difficult as getting kids interested in learning, especially about historical artwork, and if a reference to Lord of the Rings is what turns cranks, then why not?

There are 15 pieces over at the site, none of which are identified. Feel free to head on over and see if you can place the Russian fairy tale art to its Hollywood inspiration. I got 10 out of the 15 right, so I’m officially laying down the gauntlet and challenging someone out there to knock off my high score. Bonus points if you can identify this flat-topped governor picture above.

As always, your definition of Hollywood blockbuster may be different from mine, but I’m pretty sure the 10 movies I got correct all count as big-budget Hollywood success stories, except for one that was more a classic piece of literature. Still, close enough!

Tags: russian folk art, popular culture, art, fairy tales, hollywood

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