There is no conspiracy.
Okay, after a fair amount of interest in my "Improving Aphrodite" post from the other day, I made it public, and I'm happy to see so many people as piqued by the injustice to art and anatomy as I was
( Read more... )
But a little perspective reminds us that we do still have the originals, we still have the whole genre of "classic art" as well as the good quality reproductions. And that in this particular case, the statuettes aren't selling anything other than themselves...they're not advertising a cellulite cream, or anything. They're a late-model symptom of the bigger problem, they are not the problem themselves.
And I guess the bottom line is that I can look at images critically and reject them, and it has nothing to do with "floating" through life or some elixir I took from a bottle...it's from years and years of practice at looking at things like these and really seeing them, and calling them out for what they are. Which is why I posted that, and why I made it public, and why I'm having these conversations: because I don't think these images are going to go away from our outrage, even if we attack one single (easy and vulnerable) source, and many of them will continue to come from sources outside our control, but we can control a lot of things about this situation, and that's what I hope people can focus on.
Maybe I'm too idealistic in this, I dunno. I just know that years ago, after I figured out that every single Cosmo covergirl had the exact same cleavage line painted onto her chest, I never looked at another magazine cover the same way again, and never again mistook those images as representative of the model whose face was stuck on the artwork. It helped. Information helps, education helps. It helps to look at the situation with dispassion and give it less power over us in our own lives. I guess if anyone's going to take anything away from this, I'd hope it would be that.
Reply
Walter Benjamin, in "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," introduced the idea that the art copy affected our perceptions of the value of the original. He wrote, "For the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual" and that the reproducibility of the art can destroy its aura.
Anyone who's ever seen a "classic" piece of art that's much reproduced (like, say, Van Gogh's "Starry Night") in a museum has had the experience of feeling that the original is smaller, less impressive, different, and maybe even wrong in some way. We may expect it to be smooth when it's textured and layered with paint. We may think it looks darker and less lovely than we thought it would be. The very fact that it's such a big deal may raise our expectations to levels that can't be fulfilled. For the most part, we may come away with a sense of "eh" and then feel bad that we couldn't get caught up in the ritual worship of the original.
Reproductions change us and the way we see art just as our experience of it is changed by the way it's displayed in the museum. (And I know that, as you study it, none of these ideas are new so I don't mean to lecture to an expert but instead want to bring these ideas into the context and let the butt up against your claim and miera_c's post.
I cannot now see the Venus de Milo without thinking, "She's naked without her magnetic clothing." That's a silly example, of course.
How many of us, though, having seen these examples won't look at the thicker-waisted originals differently and see them as flawed in the way that we are likewise conditioned to see ourselves as flawed?
I stand with miera_c in thinking that it's not so simple to opt-out or not buy in or to just apply a media critical lens and remain unaffected.
Reply
I also get scornful of people who say "this poster is not the same as the original!" Sometime I even respond, "well, no. Unfortunately, you can't afford the original." I'm joking, but I'm also being kind of snide. It seems so obvious to me--I figured that out as a young teen, looking at an original painting: "OH. You CAN'T see it like this from the books!" Then I devoted a bunch of time and money traveling around and looking, just because of that realization. I think that's a key part of art education: the WHY of going to originals, even in a world where reproductions come so cheap and easily. It's why I take kids groups into museums, to instill that idea as early as possible: the reproductions will never be the same, never be as complex, as nuanced, as good as THIS.
The thought of accepting the exact inverse of that value, of admitting that in this particular culture, real art has somehow become so rare and inaccessible that some people WILL be satisfied by reproductions, that they will turn the measuring tape around, even, and hold the originals up to those, well, frankly, it challenges everything I work for.
Not to say it isn't true--just that it's going to be incredibly disappointing if it does turn out to be the case (to me and a lot of other people working in museums and fine art education).
I'm ordering the Walter Benjamin book online right now: thanks for that tip. I'm going to think on this...probably for quite some time.
Reply
I think art education is useful, but most don't get much of it in schools, and so artworks (especially via reproductions) have become just another commodity, often indistinguishable from advertisements (and in fact many pieces of art have been used in advertisements in one form or another). It doesn't help that the Metropolitan Museum charges $20 for adults and is beyond the reach of many people who might be interested (and yes, the fee is "suggested," but if you don't pay that or want to pay less, you have to deal with major scorn from the ticket sellers).
My own perspective is to see art from within that commodity culture, and so it's sad but not surprising to see that reproductions are being influenced by the same beauty standards in place right now.
I remember what happened when there was that attempt to colorize old, classic black and white films, and how there was a real break between historians and the masses (many of whom won't see a b&w film as a rule).
I can't help wondering if at some point we'll get to a point where people will suggest actually changing paintings--improving them in similar ways. I suspect reproductions are a step along that path, as reproductions are often the closest people ever get to seeing the original artpiece.
Art doesn't really have a fixed value (witness the resurgence in popularity of the Pre-Raphaelites). So we're definitely conditioned to view art through our current aesthetic.
Anyway, rambling on now. But I hope you enjoy the Benjamin! My husband, who got his BFA in film, introduced me to him, and then I read him again in grad school in literature.
Reply
I know what you're talking about with the "disappointment" when looking at art, I'd put the Mona Lisa up there as the obvious example of a widely "disappointing" painting. But I wonder (and wonder what you think) if that's really due to comparisons to reproductions, or just because the reputation is so large, the original can't live up to it? Like whenever you see movie stars, they inevitably seem so short--their presence on the big screen automatically, in my mind, makes them large, so large that a real person (who then turns famous) can never live up to it. What if it's the same with art--not that we've seen so many beautiful mugs and calendars with Mona Lisa on them, that the painting can't compare, but just that people wonder, looking at the actual oil, why there are so many mugs and calendars? That people disappointed by the Met (Oh! my heart!) are comparing to some ethereal "something" that they didn't notice in the reproductions, and that they didn't notice in the galleries, either?
And speaking of the Met, I am personally crushed to hear that you've gotten scorn from ticket-sellers there. It is one of my favorite features of that museum that the ticket price is, indeed, suggested, and all through college I could continually pay $1 a visit, and still to this day encourage all the students I know to do the same. I always felt that it was more of a *wink* *wink* *nudge* when I went to that window and said "I'd like to pay a dollar, please", and got, in return, that little metal clippy badge. Say it ain't so!
But you're right, art absolutely does not have a fixed value. I say almost every day, simply, "it's worth whatever anyone will pay for it." And then go back to work, making sure that certain art will continue to be appreciated so that someone will continue to pay for it, indeed, so that it can be preserved and remain relevant in our community.
Reply
Leave a comment