The long-running reality dating show The Bachelor visited Immersive Van Gogh, the popular digital art experience featuring animated projections of the Dutch artist’s work, on ABC this week.
Clayton Echard and Sarah Hamrick had a private meal in the Los Angeles Immersive Van Gogh exhibition for their one-on-one date.
Before he offered her a rose, the couple bonded in front of a Starry Night display. Presumably, the artist’s difficulties with mental illness and subsequent suicide were not discussed.
The two were then serenaded by a string quartet performing Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy, a nice diversion from the show’s normal sequence of interchangeably bland country singers.
Hamrick told the cameras, “Standing here in Clayton’s arms with the music playing, this is the most romantic moment of my life.” “I believe this may be the beginning of my relationship with Clayton.”
Over the years, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette have featured a variety of art-themed dates, some more romantic than others.
In 2015, Jimmy Kimmel, presenter of a late-night talk show, directed season 19 candidates in a farm-themed relay race, with the winner posing with Bachelor Chris Soules for a shot resembling Grant Wood’s American Gothic. (Obviously, the star of the show was an Iowa farmer.)
More recently, with the pandemic limiting opportunities for more daring activities, both Tayshia Adams and Katie Thurston in seasons 16 and 17 of The Bachelorette hosted group dates at an art class.
Justin Glaze, Thurston’s eventual runner-up, was an actual artist, but Blake Moyes, her final winner, made the largest impression on the art date.
Possibly influenced by the vaginal floral imagery deployed by class teacher Jacqueline Secor, Moynes created a picture titled Life that was deemed so offensive that it was completely censored.
He had already competed for Adams’s affections, and on the art date he sculpted a penis that was concealed by a black box. After a hot body painting date, Adams delivered her last rose to Zac Clark.
Both Thurston and Adams have since left their respective teams.