Reproduction of paintings
The discovery of a camera has distorted not only what we observe through our eyes when looking at an original painting, but how we see it. In an indispensable but quiet simple way, it has even transformed paintings, painted long before the camera was even invented. The painting on the wall, much like the human eye, can only be in one place at one time. The camera can replicate it, making it accessible in any size, anywhere, for any function.
Its image and characteristics of the painting, which has been duplicated, can now be seen in a million various places at the same time. You see them in the surroundings of your own life. Once all paintings belonged to their own place, some were even altarpiece in churches, used for religious and decorative purposes. Originally, paintings were an essential part of the building for which they were designed. Its individuality is part of the uniqueness of the single place where it is, which made it special. The image of the painting that travels in this day and age means the sense of a painting is no longer to be a feature of its irreplaceable painted surface. Which meant it was only possible to see it in one place, at one time.
It has become information of a type. Pieces of art turned into information to be used to even charm us to purchase more originals. Which reproductions have in many ways replaced the originals? But original paintings are still unique. They look different from how they look on the screen or printed. Reproductions twist, only a few copies don’t. They have genuineness. Nearly everything that we absorb or read about art reassures an assertiveness and segregation rather like that. Is in fact a substitute for what paintings lost when the camera made them reproducible.
The camera, by making the work of art transmittable, has multiplied it’s potential meanings and demolished its unique original meaning that it once had. Because paintings are silent and still, and because their meaning is no longer is attached to them but has become transmittable to people, paintings now lend themselves to easy manipulating public. They can be used to make influences, or opinions which may have been different, form their original meanings. The most recognizable way of manipulating a painting is by using movement and sound. A camera can move closer to a painting, to view only small bits of a painting not the image as a whole and with that the painting itself changes, a closer up of a once figurative character becomes a beautiful woman anywhere without seeing the original, to your eyes it could be just a portrait. The meaning of a painting shown on film, television, internet and so forth can be changed even more radically. If you look at the whole picture, the difficulty is that on a screen, you don’t see very much. You have to wait for the camera to zoom in for the extra detail you may have missed; you need to know what’s exactly going on in the image. Meaning as soon as this happens the broad effect of the painting can be altered. Therefore it is possible to isolate and show the details in a way that makes the painting look like a straightforward respectful picture; most easily it can be presented as a story frame. In a film order, the details have to be selected and re-arranged into a description, which depends on recounting time, much like a picture story book. Yet in a painting as a whole, all rudiments are happening simultaneously. In paintings there is no unfolding time.
When a painting is turned digital it has a big influence on what we conceive it as depending on music and words surrounding it. Words you notice deliberately telling you to feel a way, music is a lot more subtle. Adding a sad tune to a once happy painting will change your view of the Image. It works almost without you even noticing it. Yet music and rhythm will change the significance of the picture, this method is used today in movies all the time helping the viewer along with how they should be feeling. The meaning of an image can be changed according to what you see beside it or obstacle comes after it, also depending on other channels on television or websites on the computer depending where you see this image may modify your mood and Also what you think of the image then, say by seeing it on a blog you are always surrounded by images, you may have just seen a funny image above before scrolling down to see a priceless painting on your screen, which may change what you think of the image, but if you was placed in a room with original in silence, you’d probably make a better judgement of what’s going on in that painting, instead of scrolling past it, or zooming in.
Reproduction isn’t negative in my view it helps people see Image they may have never had the chance to before depending where they are in the world, people that can get to galleries or even places where famous art pieces remain, and even myself I would not have seen as many art pieces as I have without the help of reproduction. This should make it easier to connect our experience of art directly with other experiences. Used for unfolding and recreating an experience. Children, until they’re educated out of it and are forced to accept mystifications, look at images and interpret them very directly. They connect any image, whether from a comic or from a gallery, directly with their own familiarity and experience. Because they really look and really relate to what they see to their own experiences, they tend to recognise something that most adults wouldn’t, without knowing anything about an artist, just by an image and what they’re interpretation of what is happening. But not only children do this, without having knowledge behind the painting, you yourself may be way off the original meaning, you have to really look at the image, not just make up your mind at first glance, which people tend to do. I like to think that reproduction helps to educate us of the art around us, whether on a billboard, a television, or website.
