When Art Objects Come to Life. Animation of Artworks in the Digital Age

Animating paintings by Old Masters is a phenomenon that has in recent times become increasingly widespread, and we aim to analyse it here by taking a closer look at a selection of digital artworks. The dream of bringing artworks to life is one that we already find in the Ancient myth of the sculptor Pygmalion, and it has lost nothing of its attraction to this day. The Latin verb animare means “to give life to”. Its root, anima, means both “air, breath, life” and “soul”. In Michelangelo’s ceiling fresco in the Sistine Chapel, God the Father animates the first man, made from clay, by stretching out his right index finger to touch Man’s hand gently. A contemporary advertisement for a computer tablet offers a parody of this famous gesture of creation, by having God touch a computer screen with his index finger. This gesture is more familiar to us today than ever. We use our index finger on our touchscreens to animate virtual worlds. Apps such as Cinemagram and Flixel enable every smartphone user to take photos in which individual elements actually move.