Classic Art Under Water! Florence Street Art of Blub

Florence street art may be something you don’t expect to see when you visit this beautiful city. Some time ago I visited Florence and while wandering its streets full of Renaissance architecture I spotted something very unexpected. It appeared that in Florence there is street art inspired by classic art, all with snorkel masks and scuba diving gear and created by Blub!

Blub is a mysterious artist whose identity is unknown. He uses art history icons like Dante and Botticelli’s Venus and sometimes some contemporary icons, like Freddie Mercury, and placing them all in underwater scenes. His project L’arte sa nuotare – or ‘Art Can Swim’ gave him quite a recognition, and he fully deserves it. Especially for featuring pieces by my favorite Rene Magritte!

Blub creates his art on posters that are handmade on thin paper. This technique doesn’t do any harm to the architecture – unlike the classic “spray” graffiti. Blub also only pastes his masterpieces on the gas boxes around the Florence city center and doesn’t use building walls. With his works, he believes he beautifies and improves the look of Florence.

Why water? The artist said he wanted to use it as a metaphor of challenges in human life and to illustrate the fact that the art survives and swims on regardless of whatever happens.

Below you will see the gallery of the photographs sent mostly by one of our Facebook fanpage fans, Judit Erharter (thank you!) Let’s see how many of those classic pieces you can identify :]