Hamlet and Ophelia The View
Hugues Merle is a French painter that is most often compared with William-Adolphe Bouguereau. This is because, just like Bouguereau, he also focuses on sentimental and moral subjects. This led to him being referred to as a considerable rival of Bouguereau in subject and treatment. Few of his best artworks include Mother and Child, Bathsebee, and Hamlet and Ophelia.

The latter was obviously based off of William Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of Hamlet. The painting might be inspired by a tragedy, but the meme that Varkey created is far from being a tragedy. He never fails to put an amusing conversation between the subjects, and the sassiness he depicted of Ophelia is absolutely hysterical.