Famous historical figures are immortalized in history books and old paintings. But have you ever wondered how they would look like in modern day? Dallas-based artist Becca Saladin resolves this mystery by re-imagining historical portraits of some of the most iconic people through history as modern-day people. Everything changes over time and people are no exemption. We’ve seen how people’s lifestyle, fashion, and even hairstyles have continuously evolved over the course of time. So until time machine becomes a thing, there’s no way of seeing how historical figures would look like in today’s world.
Well, not until Saladin began giving historical portraits a modern makeover using Photoshop. It all started when she saw a portrait of Anne Boleyn and became curious about what she would look as a modern woman. To satisfy her curiosity, she decided to recreate the portrait digitally by morphing Boleyn’s face into an existing stock image of a modern woman. She completes the transformation by giving her face a modern look. So, Boleyn doesn’t only sport a modern dress and hairstyle but also flaunts a trendy makeup.
Graphic Designer Modernizes Historical Portraits Using Photoshop
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Since her recreation of Anne Boleyn’s portrait, Saladin was determined to make more of these modernizations. Her now-famous project Royalty Now kicked off in 2018 and there was no turning back since then. With her impressive Photoshop skills, she can make it seem like Napoleon Bonaparte, Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Antoinette, Julius Caesar, and Joan of Arc were brought from the past to the modern era. Aside from the most influential people of the past, she also modernizes some of the most iconic subjects in classical paintings such as Mona Lisa, The Birth of Venus and the Girl with a Pearl Earring.
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While her series Royalty Now mostly feature recreations of historical portraits, she also applies the same modernization process on ancient statues of prominent figures such as Nefertiti, Alexander the Great, Aristotle, Cleopatra, and many more. And while she mostly transforms the subjects as modern people, the graphic designer also makes sure not to totally scrape away the personality of the figure.
“I want the end result image to embody the personality of the figure as closely as possible.”, Saladin says. “I’ll make a little nod to their heritage or history…I also did Girl with a Pearl Earring, where I made sure to update her iconic pearl earring into a modern-day Chanel earring—just making sure those historical through-lines are there.”
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Check out our previous post featuring her earlier works here. Follow the artist on Instagram to see her entire repertoire of modernized historical portraits and to get updated with her latest projects.
Source: Etsy | Instagram | Facebook