Starting out with a loose rendition of The Last Supper (in which Matisse seems to have painted a sky above Leonardo’s iconic fresco), French-American band Hold Your Horses takes viewers on a head trip through art history in their new video for the track “70 Million.” Janson’s this is not; instead we see members of the band playing instruments in reconstructed paintings from the operating table to the boudoir. Watch the video after the jump and then follow along on the world’s most entertaining art history lesson.
“70 Million” by Hold Your Horses, produced by l’Ogre.
Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (c. 1485-87). Housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
The Creation of Adam, from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel (1511). The Sistine Chapel ceiling is located in The Vatican in Rome.
Caravaggio, The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (1608). The canvas is housed in St. John’s Co-Cathedral of Valletta, Malta.
Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632). On permanent view in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, the Netherlands.
Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas (1656). On display at the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
Johannes Vermeer, Girl with A Pearl Earring (c. 1665). Also part of the permanent collection in the Mauritshuis in The Hague.
Jacques-Louis David, Death of Marat (1793). Part of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium collection.
Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa (1818-1819). The giant canvas is at the Louvre in Paris.
Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (1830). The artist’s best known work is also housed in the Louvre collection.
Édouard Manet, Olympia (1863). Located in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
Vincent Van Gogh, sunflower series (c. 1880s). The version pictured above from 1889 is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Gustav Klimt, The Kiss (1907-08). In the permanent collection of the Neue Galerie in New York.
Joseph Chagall, La Mariée (1950). This painting is held in a private collection — sorry!
We also noticed some stylized portraits of Piet Mondrian, Frida Kahlo, René Magritte, and Andy Warhol. Anything we missed? Put your sleuthiest observations in the comments.