8/3/07 - History of Art - Reproduction

Nowadays we are bombarded with reproductions of art works on merchandise. In what way are original art works affected by reproduction? Remember that the intention of the artist is distorted by reproduction (and by hanging in galleries).

Printmaking and Photography

In the sixteenth century, copies of works of art could be engraved with wood blocks, to make a black and white version of the original. Manet copied some poses from a Raimondi engraving, rather than create original poses for his Dejeuner sur l'herbe. The problem with engraving is that they are too structured and so do not work well for subtle, flowing styles of art, e.g. Rubens' Samson and Delilah. As a result of the laborious process of wood engraving, a more subtle form of engraving was introduced: the mezzotint. A copy of Reynolds' Portrait of Joseph Banks was done in this way.

In the nineteenth century there was even further dissemination of work of art by dealers, who dealt mainly in copies: etchings, drawings, prints and engravings.

Degas effectively invented the monotype. For this, only one run was possible. This technique could be used to show glowing light, e.g. in Degas's Song of the Dog. Notice how the light distorts the singer's face to good effect.

Photogravure produces prints with subtlety of photo and quality of lithograph. It uses gelatin pressed onto the wet ink of a photograph. It is a messy and complicated procedure.

Daguerrotype takes its name from its inventor, Louis Daguer. The technique is fragile; it requires the sitter to be absolutely still for a long time. Colour was sometimes infused afterwards.

Sepia photographs came next. Artists painted landscapes from the reflection in an oval mirror, hence their oval shape. Kodak allowed this photography to really take off, to the extent that artists began to question the value of copying nature, and there was consequently a move towards Symbolism.

James Clerk Maxwell developed tricolour photography by using different coloured lenses.

The Lumière brothers developed the autochrome process which used less artificial colours than tricolour.

Finally the modern colour film, Kodachrome, was developed in 1935. Now there was a real possibility of recreating art. Walter Benjamin once said in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, 1936: "...nothing is more revealing than the nature of the repercussions that these two manifestations - the reproduction of works of art and the art of the film - have had on art in its traditional form."

But surely reproductions do not compare to the original work of art? In reproductions we have no conception of the scale of the work. The context in which reproductions are seen affects the overall perception of the work of art. Benjamin also said: "The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity."

So how important is the original?

Authenticity: Replicas, Copies and Versions

The statue of the Borghese Gladiator is held up as the perfect human figure. Yet it is not the original; it is a copy of another work.

Apprentices copied the work of their masters, for example, the apprentices in the workshop of Sandro Botticelli.

Famous paintings in galleries were copied and emulated by scholars and admiring artists.

There are variations of the same painting by the same artist, e.g. Poussin's Finding of Moses, of which he painted three.

Jack Vettriano traced figures from a book in the production of his most famous work, The Singing Butler.

In all these cases, replicas, copies and versions are not held in any lower esteem than the original.

A famous forgerer, Hans van Meegeren (1889-1947) began to forge paintings which he said were by Vermeer. Vermeer's work was not very well known at the time because of a low number of surviving works and a lack of artistic appreciation. Meegeren perfected aging techniques that helped to make his forges look authentic, even though he was a poor artist and his style was actually very different to Vermeer's. People were easily taken in.

So the original work of art is still important, even in today's world of so many reproductions.