Homemade masterworks – from the sublime to the ridiculous

Introducing Rakewell, Apollo’s wandering eye on the art world. Look out for regular posts taking a rakish perspective on art and museum stories

Following government orders, your usually roving correspondent is in lockdown – and has, like so many others, noticed his social media usage skyrocket. Luckily (or perhaps not) there is plenty of new content to consume on these channels. Hundreds of people, for example, have taken the Getty Museum up on its challenge to recreate a historic artwork using only materials found in their homes, and post the results on Instagram or Twitter.

Rather than spend another afternoon perfecting his homemade sourdough bread, Rakewell has taken it upon himself to pick out the best and the worst of a different batch of domestic masterpieces – and identify one particularly notable trend within this recent wave of quarantine-induced creativity.

Kicking things off, then, is this suitably moody Caravaggio from the Instagram account @covidclassics, operated by (according to the feed’s bio) ‘4 roommates who love art… and are indefinitely quarantined’. Bonus points for the makeshift lighting rig (see slide three).