10 Classic Paintings That May Have Inspired Kanye West's Yeezus Tour Stage Design

Last week, Kanye West's 2014 Yeezus Tour kicked off at Penn State University's Bryce Jordan Center. Fans who missed out last year now have another chance to watch Yeezy perform hits from his decade-long career against an epic backdrop with a massive mountain, an installation of women, and even an actor dressed as Jesus. Over the course of ten years, the world has seen a wide range of stunning visuals in Kanye West's live performances, and while each one has been unique in its own way, Yeezus has the most groundbreaking and elaborate stage design so far.

Towards the end of Kanye's 2013 Yeezus Tour, we noticed some parallels between the rapper's stage design and filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain, which 'Ye himself talked about in his "visionary stream of consciousness" at Barclays Center.

For someone who constantly likens himself to great artists like Michelangelo, Kanye may actually be creating designs in line with the greats. We took a stab at comparing his stage design to paintings like Caspar David Friedrich's Chalk Cliffs on Rügen or René Magritte's The Lovers. Here are 10 Classic Paintings That May Have Inspired Kanye West's Yeezus Tour Stage Design.

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Although the mountain featured in the Yeezus tour stage design seems to reference Alejandro Jodorowsky's cult film The Holy Mountain, the massive structure also resembles German painter Caspar David Friedrich's Chalk Cliffs on Rügen.

While this piece might not strike today's viewers as particularly fascinating, it was actually quite unorthodox and avant-garde for its time. Unlike his classical forefathers, Friedrich rendered paintings which diminished the role of humans. Instead, he spent his time contemplating and depicting the natural world, which was something many people couldn't understand or appreciate until years later. It's easy to see why Kanye would find inspiration in the works of an artist like Friedrich.

Kanye is no stranger to controversy. In fact, sometimes it seems as if he invites and embraces it, only to later quash it with his musical and visual masterpieces. Throughout his Yeezus show, for instance, a group of choreographed women crowd around and cradle him. The entire time, the dancers are dressed in nothing but close-fitting body suits which make them appear nude.

While some viewers may have been offended by Kanye's use of almost-naked women as stage props, he's been able to pull it off. In fact, this part of his stage design feels more like a celebration of women than a disrespectful re-appropriation.

Throughout art history, there have been many controversial paintings depicting nude women, such as Manet's Olympia. Like Kanye's installation of women, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres' The Turkish Bath did not shock many people, simply because it remained in the possession of private collectors for much of its life. Nevertheless, it's easy to see the similarities between Kanye's choreographed dancers and The Turkish Bath, which portrays a horde of nude women in a harem.

Those who have attended Kanye's tour in 2013 are aware of the fact that Yeezus attendees don't actually get to see his face for very long. In fact, Yeezy changes several times throughout the night, donning four elaborate masks. While some fans loved it, others hated it, and one fan in San Antonio actually got herself kicked out of the concert after yelling at Kanye to take off his Maison Martin Margiela covering.

Just as some people fail to see the art in Kanye's masks, many also fail to appreciate or even take the time to ponder works like René Magritte's The Lovers. The Belgian surrealist artist was known for rendering ordinary objects like pipes and green apples in new, thought-provoking ways. Magritte was brilliant because he could transform a simple kiss into something mysterious and unexplainable just by concealing the couple's faces. Unfortunately for Magritte and Kanye, many people are turned off by works of art with no straightforward explanations—not that public opinion has ever mattered to either one of them.

From his recent interviews to his latest album title and the very song "I Am A God," Yeezy has made it clear that he thinks pretty highly of himself. He's also made it a point to remind people that they shouldn't be afraid to assert themselves as higher than what society accepts. Though he has raised eyebrows for likening himself to everyone from Walt Disney and Michael Jordan to Michelangelo and God, Kanye's self-praise is not without precedent. Unlike many artists today, he has followed through with his bold proclamations, breaking conventions in his latest album, calling out those who've wronged him in the fashion world, and taking his stage to a whole new level with an actor dressed as Jesus.

Despite how blasphemous this may seem to some people, Kanye is merely doing what many other artists have done throughout history time and time again. For centuries, artists like Caravaggio, Raphael, and Botticelli have created paintings like Rembrandt's The Ascension of Christ, so Kanye bringing out a Jesus actor is not any different.

A shadowy figure with glowing red eyes emerges on stage as Kanye performs "Hold My Liquor." Though the monster seems strange at first, it makes perfect sense to have a physical manifestation of a monster appear as Kanye raps about his inner demons. Though the monster from Kanye's tour is certainly no creature we've ever seen in storybooks before, it does bear some resemblance to the wide-eyed Saturn in Francisco Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son.

Goya's painting is his take on the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus, also known as Saturn in Roman mythology. Saturn, who overthrew his father, lived his life in fear that his own children would one day do the same to him. Paranoid, Saturn would eat each one of his children after they were born. Though Goya's piece is a disturbing image portraying a twisted story, it's become iconic over the years.