28 Paintings That Inspired Album Covers
Coldplay used Delacroix. Guns N' Roses borrowed Raphael. Here are 28 album covers that stole from the masters.
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Musicians have been appropriating classical paintings for album covers since the 1960s. Here’s a selection of notable covers that lifted directly from art history.
1 | Delacroix & Coldplay
Coldplay’s 2008 album “Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends” uses Eugène Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People” (1830) with the album title painted in white over the image. Delacroix painted this work after witnessing the July Revolution in Paris, which overthrew King Charles X. The painting hangs in the Louvre and depicts the personification of Liberty leading citizens over barricades.
2 | Titian & Crash Test Dummies
The 1993 album “God Shuffled His Feet” features Titian’s “Bacchus and Ariadne” (1520–1523), a Renaissance mythological scene showing the god Bacchus leaping from his chariot. The original painting is in London’s National Gallery.
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3 | Fantin-Latour & New Order
Peter Saville designed the 1983 cover for “Power, Corruption & Lies” using Henri Fantin-Latour’s “A Basket of Roses” (1890). Saville found the painting on a postcard at London’s National Gallery when his girlfriend jokingly suggested he use it. MoMA added Saville’s cover design to its permanent collection in 2014.
4 | Bosch & Deep Purple
