Imitation, I was always told, is the highest form of flattery.  Some people, it seems, have been taking flattery a bit too seriously. Canadian based artist Jeff Hamada has started ‘remake’- a project centred on, you guessed it, remaking famous works of art. But rather than being about replicating classics stroke for stroke, entries must be photographs only, with creative energy going into ‘re-creating and re-staging the image’.

The 30 or so entries range from the inspired to the much-to-be-desired. A personal favourite has to be Stefano Telloni’s version of ‘Le Désespéré’ by Gustave Courbet. Telloni has got the dramatic wide-eyed facial expression down, quite literally, to an art.

While it’s good fun just to enjoy the new interpretations, I have to add that they do make you look afresh at paintings which have become overly familiar. As with those ‘spot the difference’ puzzles that you get in crappy papers, in looking at two versions you notice subtle nuances previously hidden. Who appreciated the peacock feathers in ‘Grande Odalisque’ by Jean Ingres? Or the strangely positioned leg in Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’?

That said, I could have done without Spencer Harding’s remake of ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’ by Caspar Friedrich- I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a holiday picture of his that he happened to notice bared a slight resemblance to the aforementioned. Have a look for yourself at www.booooooom.com/2011/10/04/remake-submissions.