collections

12 Memes From The 12th Through 20th Centuries

Left: a goose nad a man in a painting about being a people or goose person. 
Right: St. Jerome in an old painting, almost waving
Left: a goose nad a man in a painting about being a people or goose person. 
Right: St. Jerome in an old painting, almost waving

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Published 2 years ago

Published 2 years ago

People of the distant (or recent) past may seem very different from us: their habits are odd, their values foreign, and their reasons for doing what they didare… sometimes difficult to understand. But in old paintings, manuscripts and tapestries, there’s a lot of stuff you just have to laugh at, and can rightly suppose they laughed at too, or at least wished they could without the living artist being very angry. Thankfully, that's no longer a concern for these older paintings.

It might not be the most traditional form of humor, but it turns out old paintings can be pretty entertaining, and not in the ways they were intended to be. On Reddit's /r/trippinthroughtime, the people in old art are given modern words to speak, react to 21st-century situations and generally relate to us as peers rather than as distant historical forebears.

Calibrating Appropriate Social Response

(Source: Reddit)

Waving is a surprisingly difficult task, both then and now.

A Rhapsody

(Source: Reddit)

According to historical records, he was a poor boy from a poor family.

Tights of the Round Table

(Source: Reddit)

The Merry Trio

(Source: Reddit)

Same Question, Bro

(Source: Reddit)

Painters are always getting into your business when you're a 19th-century gentleman.

Jitterbug

(Source: Reddit)

Boomer memes are socialist realism.

Not Gonna Happen

(Source: Reddit)

Exhaustion turns a person into an indolent 18th-century damsel.

The Friends You Make Along The Way

(Source: Reddit)

When the lights come up, you learn things that may surprise you about who you have passed the evening's revelry with.

Victorian Mix-Up

(Source: Reddit)

Jeepers creepers!

Extroverts

(Source: Reddit)

Seems like they are well-matched.

The Face When You're Missing One

(Source: Reddit)

In the era of this painting, he was likely looking for his billfold, handkerchief, and cutlass.

Baby Fella

(Source: Reddit)

Every morning, this is what it's like for me to open Twitter again.

Tags: history, history memes, old paintings, reddit, classical art memes, art memes, collections,