Going from a pink mural with the word “love” sprayed across it to filming your third album’s music video—yes, the album with the title so ridiculously long it’s embedded itself into our brain like a song we can’t shake, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love—inside The Palace of Versailles is quite the glow-up for pop-punk princess Olivia Rodrigo. Especially considering the last music video shot there was back in 2019 by French electronic artist Thylacine, meaning Versailles has been sitting dormant, waiting for someone worthy of its gilded halls. Enter: Rodrigo.
The song is called ‘drop dead’ (produced and co-written by Dan Nigro, with Amy Allen and Olivia also on the songwriting credits), and we’re refraining from doing exactly that so we can continue writing—and fangirling, obviously—about how cool this video is. Reuniting with director Petra Collins (the visionary behind ‘good 4 u’ and ‘brutal’), known for her dreamy, hazy aesthetic that makes heartbreak look like a Tumblr fever dream, Olivia essentially gives us a house tour of one of history’s most opulent estates. She waltzes through marble halls and manicured gardens, professing that she’s met a boy who’s the human embodiment of The Cure’s ‘Friday I’m in Love.’ Now, we can speculate as much as we want that it’s about her ex-boyfriend, Louis Partridge—Olivia has stated this song is “chapter one” of the album, presumably telling the story in chronological order, which means someone’s about to have their heart shattered in chapters two through 13.
Since we’re art history geeks ourselves, we’re going to steal Olivia’s pink headset and continue the tour, stopping by three paintings that give us major vibes of three of her songs, one for each era. Starting with, you guessed it, ‘drop dead.’
Clytie Transformed into a Sunflower
Ever wondered what fated love looked like circa 1688? Meet Clytie, the original “he’s just not that into you” poster child. French artist Charles de La Fosse captured her mythological spiral in all its golden-hued glory: a water nymph so catastrophically down bad for sun god Apollo (a.k.a. Phoebus) that even divine ghosting couldn’t shake her devotion. Apollo left her on read—supernaturally speaking—, but Clytie couldn’t stop doom-scrolling the sky, tracking his chariot like it had her location settings on. So the gods did what the gods do best: turned her obsession into a permanent physical state. She became a sunflower, cosmically frozen in her longing, forever craning her neck toward a love that would never look back. It’s giving “I can fix him” energy meets divine intervention. The painting lives in the Salon des Malachites at the Grand Trianon, a chamber whose entire decorative theme revolves around love—because where else would you house eternal romantic delusion?
With ‘drop dead’ capturing that gorgeously lush yet anxiety-riddled feeling when you’re doing multiple tarot spreads across your bedroom floor before a first date—convinced the universe has cosmically ordained this connection, that he’s the one—de La Fosse’s doomed nymph is the only choice.
The Coronation of Napoleon
Who said toxic power plays only stirred up in situationships? This painting—by Jacques-Louis David, with an assist from Georges Rouget because even artistic geniuses need backup—depicts Napoleon’s December 2, 1804, coronation at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Except like all good stories (or paintings, in this case), it gets a gentle historical glow-up. In reality, Napoleon famously crowned himself, snatching the crown from Pope Pius VII’s hands in the ultimate “I don’t need your validation” move. But the painting hits backspace on that chaos and rewrites history: here, Napoleon crowns Empress Josephine instead, casting himself as the magnanimous husband rather than the megalomaniac who literally decided he was too important for papal approval. A man rewriting the narrative to make himself look better while the Pope watches from the sidelines, powerless? That’s the “bloodsucker, fame-f*cker” thesis in oil paint.
So naturally, its blood supply would be GUTS’ lead single ‘vampire’—a rock-opera spin on a user who rewrites every story to star themselves as the hero. Napoleon would’ve loved streaming numbers.
Self-Portrait
Sure, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun painting herself on repeat sounds like the 18th-century equivalent of posting selfies until one hits—but what if it was less vanity, more survival? What if these self-portraits were a masterclass in image curation while being publicly scrutinized, slandered, and watched like a reality TV villain? Vigée Le Brun wasn’t just beautiful and successful; she was too beautiful, too successful, too close to Marie Antoinette. Rumors swirled. Gossip columns (yes, they had those) tore her apart. So she painted herself over and over—not out of narcissism, but as damage control, each brushstroke a rebuttal to the court whispers. Very, “all I see is what I should be.” And the kicker? Her most famous works—those iconic portraits of Marie Antoinette, including the 1783 Marie Antoinette with a Rose—hang at Versailles, constant reminders that her worth was perpetually tied to someone else’s image.
So yes, in case you caught our lyrical breadcrumb trail, this self-portrait (c. 1781–82) is very much giving ‘jealousy, jealousy,’ a haunting little pop ballad nested on Olivia’s debut album, SOUR. A song about how comparison is the thief of everything—joy, confidence, and especially the version of yourself you see in the mirror. Or, in Vigée Le Brun’s case, the canvas.
Is there another painting lurking in Versailles’ 60,000-piece collection that you think deserves the Olivia Rodrigo treatment? Or have you, like Clytie staring at the sun, been unable to look away from the ‘drop dead’ masterpiece ever since? Tell us your dream song-painting pairings on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook—we’ll be waiting with our art history degrees and our feelings.
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