(no subject)
I find things like this fascinating. Because on one hand it's simple fact that time and conditions will change things no matter what. Everything has an expiration date, whither it's in a couple years or several millennia.
Paint is definitely no exception, although as an artist and as a viewer I don't tend to think of that. These paintings we stare at in galleries look different than they did when they first were created.
The obvious sign of this, at least the point made in my classes, were the cracking of the paint you can see in all the old paintings. (Comes from a certain ratio of medium to pigment. I think it's too much medium, but like hell I can remember.) But what probably happens just as often are changes to the color. In a couple hundred years will we be thinking that Van Gogh must have really liked brown, instead of yellow? Because no matter if there's a little footprint at the bottom saying that these used to be yellow, we will look at it and get brown imprinted in our minds first.
And I know I'm not the only artist to have their material choice dictated by expense. Or even simply not knowing. I have no clue what the fugitive rates for different pigments are. No am I probably going to care if you told me. I can't use chrome yellow because it'll fade sooner than cadmium? But I like chrome yellow better, so I'm going to keep using it.
Although I may not be the best person to talk about archival needs: I've purposefully used acrylic over oils. If that painting lasts another decade I'll be amazed. But it was exactly the effect I wanted to achieve and that's what was most important.
And I know the argument of "well this is why digital medium is better! It's exactly the same as when the artist created it" will get brought up at some point. And I say it's fucking bullshit. Yes, if I pull up one of my psd files on the same computer as I made it, and using the same screen as when I made it, and hoping that I haven't changed the brightness settings at some point due to yet another migraine, the piece will be exactly the same as when I created it. But that is the only case. Change computers, change monitors, change resolution or color setting or fucking anything- and it's not the exact same. And guess what: 1 million people have 1 million different computers and configurations. What I think is this rich velvet blue is bright fucking lilac to someone else. I own 4 different screens and it's hilarious to see the changes between each one.
And every print setting is different too. And I have yet to see a printer which can reproduce exactly what I saw when I first created the piece. Not a single one. So digital is not better, just has its different set of challenges.
And I know I just went off on a tangent arguing against my ex's ghost, but the whole point of this post was just mostly to say "yeah, what we see isn't what they saw." And just that thought is fascinating to me. What did it really look like when they were creating it? What did those frescoes really look like back in the day? Are we seeing anything of what the artist saw?
Paint is definitely no exception, although as an artist and as a viewer I don't tend to think of that. These paintings we stare at in galleries look different than they did when they first were created.
The obvious sign of this, at least the point made in my classes, were the cracking of the paint you can see in all the old paintings. (Comes from a certain ratio of medium to pigment. I think it's too much medium, but like hell I can remember.) But what probably happens just as often are changes to the color. In a couple hundred years will we be thinking that Van Gogh must have really liked brown, instead of yellow? Because no matter if there's a little footprint at the bottom saying that these used to be yellow, we will look at it and get brown imprinted in our minds first.
And I know I'm not the only artist to have their material choice dictated by expense. Or even simply not knowing. I have no clue what the fugitive rates for different pigments are. No am I probably going to care if you told me. I can't use chrome yellow because it'll fade sooner than cadmium? But I like chrome yellow better, so I'm going to keep using it.
Although I may not be the best person to talk about archival needs: I've purposefully used acrylic over oils. If that painting lasts another decade I'll be amazed. But it was exactly the effect I wanted to achieve and that's what was most important.
And I know the argument of "well this is why digital medium is better! It's exactly the same as when the artist created it" will get brought up at some point. And I say it's fucking bullshit. Yes, if I pull up one of my psd files on the same computer as I made it, and using the same screen as when I made it, and hoping that I haven't changed the brightness settings at some point due to yet another migraine, the piece will be exactly the same as when I created it. But that is the only case. Change computers, change monitors, change resolution or color setting or fucking anything- and it's not the exact same. And guess what: 1 million people have 1 million different computers and configurations. What I think is this rich velvet blue is bright fucking lilac to someone else. I own 4 different screens and it's hilarious to see the changes between each one.
And every print setting is different too. And I have yet to see a printer which can reproduce exactly what I saw when I first created the piece. Not a single one. So digital is not better, just has its different set of challenges.
And I know I just went off on a tangent arguing against my ex's ghost, but the whole point of this post was just mostly to say "yeah, what we see isn't what they saw." And just that thought is fascinating to me. What did it really look like when they were creating it? What did those frescoes really look like back in the day? Are we seeing anything of what the artist saw?