Artist Julien de Casabianca was recently invited to create a huge wheatpaste mural at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Tennessee alongside an exhibition and workshop. Julien’s seven-story mural features a melancholic girl pulled from William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s 1886 neoclassical painting “Au pied de la falaise” (At the Foot of The Cliff) which is included in the museum’s collection.

Scroll down to see this monumental work in all its glory!

The folks at Brooklyn Street Art spoke to Julien to find out more about his Memphis project:

Brooklyn Street Art: What is this original piece of art and where did you find it?
Julien de Casabianca: It’s William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s 1886 painting “Au pied de la falaise” (At the Foot of the Cliff). Its part of the Brooks Museum collection.

Brooklyn Street Art: Why does it resonate for you and how do you think she likes her new home?
Julien de Casabianca: She seems melancholic, I wanted to give her a second life in the real life, liberate her from the frame. I feel always guilty when I leave from a wall where I pasted a child, as in Nuart Aberdeen in Scotland, because even they are giants, I feel they are so fragile in this violent world and in this contemporary world. She’s a time traveller, she doesn’t know our new world and she’s probably surprise and moved.

Brooklyn Street Art: One of your underlying philosophies is to bring art that is hidden away to the public. Why is this important for you and society?

Julien de Casabianca: Museums are always in rich areas. I bring the art from the museum to paste in a poor area. Beauty has to be shared too. Classical beauty as well. There is lot of urban street art in poor areas which is of course amazing and beautiful, but where there is modern architecture and street art there and there is no place for the classical beauty. And the classical beauty has one power: to reunite all generations about a same taste. Old, young, teenagers, everybody loves what I paste, and that is not normal, not ordinary. It’s because we have all something in common; a long history of art and beauty that built the present. Nike is a brand and a goddess from Antiquity. Apple is a brand and an apple formed Adam & Eve. These two brand names this century have continuity 2000 year old stories that we still talk of!

William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s 1886 neoclassical painting “Au pied de la falaise” (At the Foot of The Cliff)