You can laugh at art

Millions of museum-goers each year just to be sensation within 10 metres of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, even if the small masterpiece is encased in a frame of steel and glass and harassed by admirers. On the new Art in Paradise museum in Pattaya in Thailand, you can even pretend to be right of Mona pose-Leonardo da Vinci, pencil in hand, touching up her eyebrows.

It is not the real Mona Lisa, of course, but the concept has its own sensation. The Pattaya museum lends an idea now popular in South Korea, where images of famous art works will be projected on the walls and floors in such a way that you can communicate with them-and get as crazy as you need.

Yes, photography is allowed, even expected.

The painting images are usually two-dimensional but appear to be three-dimensional thanks to the clever use of varying brightness, depth perception, shadows and colours. Through the camera lens, you look like you're part of the painting.

You'd Josephine her own Crown in Jacques-Louis David's "the coronation of Napoleon" received. You can walk through a waterfall scene, stroke a giraffe head and stem from a Mummy's tomb in terrible fashion.

Shin Jae Yeoul, one of 12 Korean co-owners, says "trick art museums" have caught on in his homeland. ' Thai love sanook, and here you yourself can become part of the painting, make some hilarious results. The art works are humorous, often a twist on the classic works of art to add. "

Shin and his partners spent two years renovating Bt50 million and a two-storey former night club, than the stocked with 140 mock artworks painted by a dozen Korean artists. The 5,800-square-foot building has 10 themed rooms, including Aquarium, Jura, classical art, Egyptian and even Ayutthaya.

Shin originally planned to open a second Jeju love Land in Pattaya. He used to manage that popular outdoor sculpture park in South Korea, where art and Eroticism in humorous style. Thailand's Ministry of culture fancy not the idea, though, so he switched to "amusement art" or a more modest kind.

Shin, who studied industrial design at the University, explains the approach. "First of all the paintings must be beautiful, appealing to the eye. The classic works of art must be well known. Than we think on the composition of the trick, how the works add interactivity and a surprising twist.

"Everyone loves from time to time let loose the child inside and a little naughty. When we look at great paintings and photos that we would want to play with them, do something foolish. So here there is no stereotype-you are viewing not quiet art from a distance – is it casual and fun. "

Michelangelo's depiction of God creating Adam in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican is distorted so that focus exclusively on the big man with the white beard, arm and finger stretched. Everything he needs is in turn an Adam reach. That's where you come in.

Go ahead and shake hands with God.

You can also a maid to the goddess of love in Botticelli's glorious ' the birth of Venus '. She comes from the sea on that Shell fully nude, so help her out. Give her a mantle.

In Jean-Francois Millet "The Gleaners" three women gathering wheat after harvest. In Pattaya takes one of them a break from her work outside the frame. Complete the work show some sympathy and pour the tea.

Jean-Honore Fragonard beautiful woman on "The Swing" playful flicks of a shoe on Cupid. Flies out of the frame-straight to the nearest Viewer in Pattaya, you duck if the shoe must be possible.

You're still to dipping gigantic panoramic grandeur of ancient Ayutthaya and Egypt and the ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru. They are depicted in paintings 10 meters high and 20 meters wide. Shin says this array ' was the toughest job, get the right composition for the huge paintings and, at the integration of the illusions '.

Elsewhere you can a shark fight, flee a dinosaur, sitting on an elephant trunk, sinking in quicksand and even hold up a whale.

Visitors and their designated photographers are always looking for the perfect angle and pose, and small framed photos beside each painting offer suggestions, but no particular approach suits everybody. It's best to just be creative and patient and find your own magical viewpoint.

"It's a real sensation," says a young woman making the rounds amid giggles. They immediately upload each new recording to Twitter. "I'm really enjoying cheated by the different tricks!"

Art in Paradise is on second road in North Pattaya, Chonburi. It is open daily from 9 to 9.