A museum in Germany is reportedly experiencing a surge in visitors after Taylor Swift released a music video that apparently references a painting in its collection.
Monopol reported that visitors flocked to the Museum Wiesbaden over the weekend to view Friedrich Wilhelm Theodor Heyser’s “Ophelia” (1900), which portrays the titular subject in a supine position, wearing a white, flowing dress, presumably drowning herself in a stream, as in the plot of the Shakespearean tragedy.
The German artist’s rendition of Ophelia is eerily similar to one of the first scenes of Swift’s music video for the lead track of her newest album, The Life of a Showgirl. In the video for “The Fate of Ophelia,” the singer appears in a framed image lying in a stream with an arm outstretched, the same gesture as in Heyser’s painting; her gaze, like in the artwork, is downcast.
She then rises and steps out of the frame in the music video in a nod to her on-the-nose lyric, “You dug me out of my grave and saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia.” The video has garnered nearly 63 million views in nine days and is currently the number one trending music video on YouTube.
Swift’s new album cover also features the singer half-submerged, evoking John Everett Millais’s “Ophelia” (1851–52), held in the collection of the Tate Museum in London.
According to Monopol, hundreds of additional visitors appeared at the Museum Wiesbaden, including one family that traveled from Hamburg to see the work for its purported Swift connection. The museum told the magazine that it has reached out to Swift to invite her to see the painting, but has not heard back.
Perhaps no other contemporary musician could get away with melding an art historical reference and the lyrics “pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes” in the same song.
