It was a social media smackdown between Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and Atlanta's High Museum Friday. The two teams went at it with a vengeance on Twitter, boosting their respective ball clubs and talking trash, but with a veneer of cultural refinement.
These competitors don’t hit as hard as Sean Weatherspoon or Devonta Freeman, but their knowledge of landscape painters and abstract expressionists can be devastating.
At the kickoff Boston Tweeted “Get ready for some art inspired trash talk,” and included the image of a painting by 19th Century French master Henri Degnault, whose portrait of a Greek charioteer received the addition of some face-paint and a foam rubber “We’re Number One!” finger. Did Degnault need photoshopping? Were the Greeks Patriot’s fans? We don’t think so.
The High countered with a scary 16th Century Venetian engraving showing a procession of witches and such riding animal skeletons, declaring Atlanta is “coming in for the kill!” Unnerving.
Boston followed up with a self-portrait of Rembrandt wearing four Super Bowl rings and declaring “Good thing I have another hand … I’ll need it after this Super Bowl is over.”
But Atlanta had a response:
Others began piling on, and we saw Degas’ dancer with a football in her hand and Revolutionary War hero Mercy Otis Warren wearing eye black.
It might not be a fair fight: Boston has 450,000 pieces in its permanent collection, including a boat-load of French Impressionists and Claude Monet out the yin yang, but Atlanta has also got game, with Auguste Rodin’s sculpture “The Shade” right out front and killer murals from Hale Woodruff within.
You can follow the battle at #museumbowl.
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