It seems impossible to think that after finishing The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Vermeer looked at the painting from a distance and, unsatisfied, destroyed it. And yet sometimes it must have happened. It must have happened to Van Gogh as it did to Klimt, Munch, and many others. It is precisely from the idea that one of his works was erased or remade from scratch that Patrick Kramer‘s paintings were born. 

Patrick Kramer is an artist originally from Springville, Utah, who perfectly reproduces some of the masterpieces of art, from Starry Night to The Kiss, adding a personal touch: with a hyper-realistic technique he represents these works as if they had been damaged as if someone had scraped the surface with a spatula and removed the layer of paint. 

Obviously it’s all an optical illusion made possible by a meticulous attention to detail that goes hand in hand with a hyperrealist technique. 

Unlike the great painters of art history, Patrick Kramer is still a child of his time, which is why his modus operandi does not lack the support of digital and programs such as Photoshop. In fact, it is the artist himself who reveals his secrets in a video that you can find below in which he plays The Girl with the Pearl Earring. 

Discover Patrick Kramer’s damaged paintings below.