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Oil paintings can be perfectly reproduced using 3d printing, including the brushstrokes: https://shop.verusart.com/pages/vincent-van-gogh-collection https://sh

Oil paintings can be perfectly reproduced using 3d printing, including the brushstrokes: https://shop.verusart.com/pages/vincent-van-gogh-collection https://shop.verusart.com/pages/vincent-van-gogh-collection The only reason this is not more widely available is due to snobbery and elitism in the fine art world, IMO. Imagine a world in which there were only a single copy of every work of Beethoven.

noir-york 8y ago
Thanks for the link! Didn't know the technology existed. However, browsing the site it appears that only a few (250) repros are made available - such a pity. Hope the tech gets applied more widely.
cwmoore 8y ago
"Perfectly reproduced" is a reach. "Reproduced with relief texture" is more accurate. A key reason these are inferior to hand-painted originals has less to do with snobbery and more to do material qualities of eg. oil paint and hand-stretched canvas. The idea that it is only elites who can tell the difference is an unsupported statement about art appreciation among the general population.
- noir-york 8y ago
  I have considered getting an artist to reproduce a Van Gogh the old fashioned way - painting it. Never went ahead with the idea but I assume (I am not a painter) that modern high quality oils would allow a reasonably talented artist to repro a Van Gogh to a sufficiently accurate degree. I just need it to "fool" me, not an expert.
  - gnulinux 8y ago
    I considered doing this too. I wonder if there is a service doing this.
    - JackuB 8y ago
      Yup there are tons of them in all price points. Read this a while ago https://medium.com/message/uber-for-art-forgeries-2c9c8bf41608 https://medium.com/message/uber-for-art-forgeries-2c9c8bf416...
      - cwmoore 8y ago
        The interview with the reproductions company from the link was fascinating: Are the reproductions good enough to be mistaken for real masterpieces? No, it is impossible. No one can do it. Even the original artist can’t do it. Can’t do what? Can’t fake their own painting. That confuses me. Anyway, do you consider what you do forgery? Even the great art works, like those by Van Gogh, belong to humanity, not only the museum or rich people.
      - gnulinux 8y ago
        Huh, can't believe never came across one of these. Will order one now and see it for myself. Very excited, thank you! It's not grossly expensive too, seems like I can order one as low as $150 which is dirt cheap compared to how expensive furniture and decors usually are. Pretty amazing.
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    Funny enough, there are plenty of forgers out there that have no trouble fooling even the top experts. Many times, they have to resort to testing canvas and paint flecks and using special imaging technology to discern fake from original.
  - clouddrover 8y ago
    They had over 100 artists produce 65,000 frames on 1000 canvases in the style of Van Gogh to animate the movie Loving Vincent. It took them 4 years to develop the technique and 2 years to do it all: http://lovingvincent.com/ http://lovingvincent.com/ http://lovingvincent.com/technology,48,pl.html http://lovingvincent.com/technology,48,pl.html
  - rodgerd 8y ago
    https://www.nziff.co.nz/2017/archive-1/chinas-van-goghs/ https://www.nziff.co.nz/2017/archive-1/chinas-van-goghs/
- jjeaff 8y ago
  Is it just with relief texture? Sounds like they are 3d scanning and printing with the exact same texture. And if that's the case, it doesn't seem that hand stretched canvas would matter. Sufficient resolution and materials with identical color and refractive qualities should get you a visually identical result.
  - cwmoore 8y ago
    Consider 3D reproductions of plates of food in restaurant displays. Can they really look edible? What level of texture would be "sufficient" in that case?
    - CobrastanJorji 8y ago
      Food is made of many different elements, all of which have different reflective qualities. A 3D printed gravy-soaked chicken and salad, in far finer detail than is currently achievable, would still look fake, even from a distance. In many cases, oil paintings are made from paints with near-uniform reflective properties, which would work far better, assuming that such properties could be reproduced in some special-purpose 3D printing material.
- hyperbovine 8y ago
  > The idea that it is only elites who can tell the difference is an unsupported statement about art appreciation among the general population. Of course, I made no such statement -- you did. I wonder which of us has a lower opinion of the lay public's capacity to appreciate art. Back to the matter at hand, I'm fairly confident that a technology which faithfully reproduced artwork at the molecular level would be met with just as much contempt and hostility in the "art world". It has less to do with any sort of concern about the quality of the reproduction than it does with an aversion to seeing fine art placed in the hands of the masses.
- forapurpose 8y ago
  > "Perfectly reproduced" is a reach. Another challenge of reproducing art is that what makes the artwork so fantastic is the subtlest nuances. Those are not the 90% that many artists could do, but the .00001% that only Van Gogh could do. It's not just blue, or that shade of blue, or that precise shade ... but that unique color, in the context of all the other colors, on that spot on the canvas. Reproductions must have approximations and they must lose or weaken every nuance, unless the reproducer is another Van Gogh. > The idea that it is only elites who can tell the difference is an unsupported statement about art appreciation among the general population. Agreed and the argument often assumes that the impact of art is all conscious and explicit - 'people can't even tell you what the difference is' - when in fact artwork of any serious ambition aims far beyond what can be consciously noticed and enumerated (and again, those aims are achieved in the nuance). For my personal experience of it, museums are poorly set up, expecting me to engage with and grok dozens or more works in maybe an hour or two. Now I spend half an hour or more per work; that does mean skipping 95% them, but the experience is far more valuable, richer, and more gratifying. It's the difference between looking at vacation photos or visiting Italy.

noir-york 8y ago

Thanks for the link! Didn't know the technology existed. However, browsing the site it appears that only a few (250) repros are made available - such a pity. Hope the tech gets applied more widely.

cwmoore 8y ago

"Perfectly reproduced" is a reach. "Reproduced with relief texture" is more accurate. A key reason these are inferior to hand-painted originals has less to do with snobbery and more to do material qualities of eg. oil paint and hand-stretched canvas. The idea that it is only elites who can tell the difference is an unsupported statement about art appreciation among the general population.

noir-york 8y ago
I have considered getting an artist to reproduce a Van Gogh the old fashioned way - painting it. Never went ahead with the idea but I assume (I am not a painter) that modern high quality oils would allow a reasonably talented artist to repro a Van Gogh to a sufficiently accurate degree. I just need it to "fool" me, not an expert.
- gnulinux 8y ago
  I considered doing this too. I wonder if there is a service doing this.
  - JackuB 8y ago
    Yup there are tons of them in all price points. Read this a while ago https://medium.com/message/uber-for-art-forgeries-2c9c8bf41608 https://medium.com/message/uber-for-art-forgeries-2c9c8bf416...
    - cwmoore 8y ago
      The interview with the reproductions company from the link was fascinating: Are the reproductions good enough to be mistaken for real masterpieces? No, it is impossible. No one can do it. Even the original artist can’t do it. Can’t do what? Can’t fake their own painting. That confuses me. Anyway, do you consider what you do forgery? Even the great art works, like those by Van Gogh, belong to humanity, not only the museum or rich people.
    - gnulinux 8y ago
      Huh, can't believe never came across one of these. Will order one now and see it for myself. Very excited, thank you! It's not grossly expensive too, seems like I can order one as low as $150 which is dirt cheap compared to how expensive furniture and decors usually are. Pretty amazing.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  Funny enough, there are plenty of forgers out there that have no trouble fooling even the top experts. Many times, they have to resort to testing canvas and paint flecks and using special imaging technology to discern fake from original.
- clouddrover 8y ago
  They had over 100 artists produce 65,000 frames on 1000 canvases in the style of Van Gogh to animate the movie Loving Vincent. It took them 4 years to develop the technique and 2 years to do it all: http://lovingvincent.com/ http://lovingvincent.com/ http://lovingvincent.com/technology,48,pl.html http://lovingvincent.com/technology,48,pl.html
- rodgerd 8y ago
  https://www.nziff.co.nz/2017/archive-1/chinas-van-goghs/ https://www.nziff.co.nz/2017/archive-1/chinas-van-goghs/
jjeaff 8y ago
Is it just with relief texture? Sounds like they are 3d scanning and printing with the exact same texture. And if that's the case, it doesn't seem that hand stretched canvas would matter. Sufficient resolution and materials with identical color and refractive qualities should get you a visually identical result.
- cwmoore 8y ago
  Consider 3D reproductions of plates of food in restaurant displays. Can they really look edible? What level of texture would be "sufficient" in that case?
  - CobrastanJorji 8y ago
    Food is made of many different elements, all of which have different reflective qualities. A 3D printed gravy-soaked chicken and salad, in far finer detail than is currently achievable, would still look fake, even from a distance. In many cases, oil paintings are made from paints with near-uniform reflective properties, which would work far better, assuming that such properties could be reproduced in some special-purpose 3D printing material.
hyperbovine 8y ago
> The idea that it is only elites who can tell the difference is an unsupported statement about art appreciation among the general population. Of course, I made no such statement -- you did. I wonder which of us has a lower opinion of the lay public's capacity to appreciate art. Back to the matter at hand, I'm fairly confident that a technology which faithfully reproduced artwork at the molecular level would be met with just as much contempt and hostility in the "art world". It has less to do with any sort of concern about the quality of the reproduction than it does with an aversion to seeing fine art placed in the hands of the masses.
forapurpose 8y ago
> "Perfectly reproduced" is a reach. Another challenge of reproducing art is that what makes the artwork so fantastic is the subtlest nuances. Those are not the 90% that many artists could do, but the .00001% that only Van Gogh could do. It's not just blue, or that shade of blue, or that precise shade ... but that unique color, in the context of all the other colors, on that spot on the canvas. Reproductions must have approximations and they must lose or weaken every nuance, unless the reproducer is another Van Gogh. > The idea that it is only elites who can tell the difference is an unsupported statement about art appreciation among the general population. Agreed and the argument often assumes that the impact of art is all conscious and explicit - 'people can't even tell you what the difference is' - when in fact artwork of any serious ambition aims far beyond what can be consciously noticed and enumerated (and again, those aims are achieved in the nuance). For my personal experience of it, museums are poorly set up, expecting me to engage with and grok dozens or more works in maybe an hour or two. Now I spend half an hour or more per work; that does mean skipping 95% them, but the experience is far more valuable, richer, and more gratifying. It's the difference between looking at vacation photos or visiting Italy.