What is art? According to Google’s Oxford Dictionary, it’s “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.”
And surely, this definition can make “art” the only word to describe the very exact opposite of this illustration that depicts Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man from the Amazing Spider-Man film duology, being held by by the ghost of Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacey while holding what appears to be Zendaya’s Michelle “MJ” Jones (from the successful Spider-Man trilogy starring Tom Holland) in his arms.
The impressionist master Vincent Van Gogh once said,
“As I work at my drawings, day after day, what seemed unattainable before is now gradually becoming possible. Slowly, I’m learning to observe and measure. I don’t stand quite so helpless before nature any longer.”
And indeed, “RedditorBeta Omega” has stood before nature and made the impossible, possible. Thanks to the multiverse that brought together the Spider-Men of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland, it isn’t just the human imagination that brings us a meeting of these characters, but bucketloads of money.
And in a way, the power of fan worship has brought together these three characters that would otherwise have never met. Vincent Van Gogh died in poverty, having only sold two paintings in his lifetime. In 1987, his world-famous Sunflowers sold for $40 million, or almost $103 million in today’s dollars. If a Marvel movie took in $103 million at the box office, it would be considered the biggest failure in the history of the MCU. Which means that Spider-Man: No Way Home, which took in over a billion dollars at the box office, is ten times as great a work of art as one of the great paintings in the history of Western art.
As with all great art, it’s suggested you sit and just study and enjoy this work of fan art and decide whether it’s great, or if it’s cringe. But also, it’s cringe.
