Gillian - Originality + Ant

All of the "advantages" that copies or mass-produced art have are pretty negligible to me: yes, a wider audience can access it, and yes, it's cheaper. But a wide audience doesn't necessarily mean something good for art - yes, a lot of people know of the Mona Lisa and Monet's Waterliles and Starry Night, but does the hanging of cheap prints in their homes and classrooms really further any understanding or discussion? Isn't that really the whole point of art - or at least a substantial part of it? If anything, I think the mass-production of masterpieces desensitizes audiences to their power - I don't look twice at Starry Night, because I've seen it 1000 times now.

For me, I really dislike the idea of physical copies being made of art - for one, I think it really devalues it for the owner of the original. Why own it if any old person could purchase a copy for himself? But there's a much more physical connection that I look for in an original, too - the artist's intent is there in front of you; he thought of something, he put brush to canvas, and there it is: ideas manifested physically. A print, on the other hand, was not created with any such sense of intention; it's all about profit, because---let's be real---no one is producing Starry Night prints just so that a wider audience can appreciate art.

I feel the same way about even photographic prints - if an image is showing in hundreds of galleries over the world, it doesn't feel SPECIAL to look at it, it doesn't feel like I am connecting to the artist in any way, because its meaning has been watered down. I was extremely bummed out when I found out at a Rodin exhibit that I was seeing one of MANY copies of "The Thinker." At that point, I thought, I might as well have been looking at a picture of it.

On the other hand, I have no problem with photographs of art pieces so that they can be seen in books or on the Internet, because I think in those cases, it doesn't devalue the original, and really is intended to be educational or informative or horizon-expanding because there's no money to be made in it; it serves only as a starting point for admiration or discussion.

PS, as Ian wanted me to post this: