What a tempting title, what an intriguing proposition … and what a chewy book. Unfortunately academic art historians are not generally known for their readability and Koenraad Jonckheere lives up to their reputation.

However, it’s worth persisting, aka sampling and jumping around in the pages, to truffle hunt out insights into how social media, in particular images on instagram, perform their magic upon us. From the point of view of the Lürzer’s Archive reader, there might well be secrets – even inspiration – in these pages that are worth the pain of extraction.

For example, a better understanding of how the Holy Trinity works on the eye – the ‘image trinity’ – might do wonders for your posts. Consider, with reference to Hockney, Caravaggio, Van Eyck (and then apply to your own feed).

Saint Luke_Painting the Madonna

Jan Gossaert

Adam and Eve

Titian

Or draw some dry sustenance from paintings by Magritte, Richter and Bosch, among diverse others, to understand more about the magical powers dispensed through playing with similitude in an image. And why did filters take off, what did we do with them and what did they do for us? There are explanations, if not answers, herein.

L’Origine Du Monde I

William Daniels, 2006, oil on board

L’Origine du monde, Facebook Version

Gustave Courbet’s 1866, censored with Facebook underwear

In a way, what this book does is make a good case that there’s nothing new under the sun. Our stunning social images are remixed, refashioned, from archetypes that have driven some of the great artists past and present to shape and advance our ideas of what images can be and can mean. But you don’t need to think too hard on all that stuff to draw a tip or two from the rich images within Instagrammable.

Rembrandt refashioned

Remake of a portrait of Gérard de Lairesse, whose face was badly pockmarked from congenital syphilis refashioned through FaceApp

Virtual influencer Lu Do Magalu

De anima

Aristotele, courtesy of The Wellcome Library, London

Top image: Meme of a Michelangelo Cat.