THE Mona Lisa? Boring. The public would queue for hours to see the originals of these masterpieces:
Dogs Playing Poker, by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge
The Louvre gets 2.8 million visitors a year, but imagine how many more they’d get if they ditched the Caravaggio for paintings of dogs playing poker. Michaelangelo didn’t paint these because he lacked artistic imagination, wasting his talents churning out boring pictures about stuff from the Bible.
Tennis Girl Scratching Arse, by Martin Elliot
Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa might be famous, but it’s never inspired teenage boys to knock one out. Tennis Girl led the charge of posters-as-soft-porn and it was on sale in Woolworths next to the pick-and-mix. Dewy-eyed 70s adolescents would admire it reverently.
Magic Eye images
Many say the Renaissance period, with artists such as Da Vinci, Botticelli and Titian, was the peak of Western civilisation’s artistic endeavours. Those people must have missed the Magic Eye revolution. Initially colourful noise, but stare at it cross-eyed for long enough and a horse or a car suddenly swims into view. You don’t get that with Rembrandt.
Che Guevara in a beret, by Alberto Korda
The French bloody love berets, so the absence of Che Guevara in a beret from the Louvre is a mystery. They should ditch the Venus de Milo, which doesn’t even have arms, for the iconic image of Che, beloved of Marxists who also very much like weed.
Trainspotting poster
Every student flat in the late 1990s had the Trainspotting poster on the back of the bathroom door. Featuring the opening ‘choose life’ monologue from the film, students who read it while having a crap could now use it as a checklist for all the stuff they’ve got.
The Wings of Love, by Stephen Pearson
A naked woman in front of a swan with a 40ft wingspan with a naked man stepping lightly from one wing, this surreal artwork is the equal of anything by Hironymous Bosch. The Louvre’s stuffed to the brim with nudes so its omission is utterly baffling.
