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Andy Warhol made a whole career questioning this assumption. Photography and other forms of reproduction changed people’s view of art. There are a LOT of tale

by gdubs 6y ago

Andy Warhol made a whole career questioning this assumption. Photography and other forms of reproduction changed people’s view of art. There are a LOT of talented painters in the world, with incredible skills. But there’s only one Picasso. Buying an original is owning a tangible piece of history — an object that he touched with his own hands, which maybe then went on to tour museums around the world (and maybe bears the freight stamps from those travels on the paintings backside). Otherwise you can just frame a perfect reproduction or poster.

apocalypstyx 6y ago
This gives the camera a little too much credit. A painting is really a three-dimensional object (texture, etc, can be critical). So a two-dimensional projection of that will by definition lose information.
- the_jeremy 6y ago
  Oh, but this is giving a painting too much credit. A sculpture, of course, is truly three-dimensional - a painting can hardly be called three-dimensional in comparison. And this gives the sculptor too much credit, since it's just a creation of a stationary, dead object. True art comes from real movement of bodies on the stage. But this isn't true art either, for it's ephemeral. Clearly, a movie would have the most encoded information, and is thus the most credible art. But this is laziness, for anyone can hit record, it must be the person who photographs, who chooses the exact moment to capture, rather than the person who says "capture everything" that can truly get at the essence of art. /s
- gdubs 6y ago
  It's definitely more subtle than that, for sure. Rembrandt is a great example. He created life-like illusions through a mastery of the medium – the way light reflects and refracts through different pigments, the role of varnishing, the thickness of paint, etc. Standing in front of one is an entirely different experience than looking at a photo reproduction. Doesn't compare. But broadly speaking, photography emerged at a time where the aim of most painters was still to create a window into a world. It's no accident that Impressionism emerged at the same time as the avant guard reaction to that. Which then led to abstract expressionism, etc – the idea that a painting is an object in and of itself. That the surface of the painting (the texture, the geometry of the composition) is what's interesting; rather than it being a vehicle for depicting some image.

by gdubs 6y ago

apocalypstyx 6y ago

This gives the camera a little too much credit. A painting is really a three-dimensional object (texture, etc, can be critical). So a two-dimensional projection of that will by definition lose information.

the_jeremy 6y ago
Oh, but this is giving a painting too much credit. A sculpture, of course, is truly three-dimensional - a painting can hardly be called three-dimensional in comparison. And this gives the sculptor too much credit, since it's just a creation of a stationary, dead object. True art comes from real movement of bodies on the stage. But this isn't true art either, for it's ephemeral. Clearly, a movie would have the most encoded information, and is thus the most credible art. But this is laziness, for anyone can hit record, it must be the person who photographs, who chooses the exact moment to capture, rather than the person who says "capture everything" that can truly get at the essence of art. /s
gdubs 6y ago
It's definitely more subtle than that, for sure. Rembrandt is a great example. He created life-like illusions through a mastery of the medium – the way light reflects and refracts through different pigments, the role of varnishing, the thickness of paint, etc. Standing in front of one is an entirely different experience than looking at a photo reproduction. Doesn't compare. But broadly speaking, photography emerged at a time where the aim of most painters was still to create a window into a world. It's no accident that Impressionism emerged at the same time as the avant guard reaction to that. Which then led to abstract expressionism, etc – the idea that a painting is an object in and of itself. That the surface of the painting (the texture, the geometry of the composition) is what's interesting; rather than it being a vehicle for depicting some image.