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Comment by elorant | Hacker News Reader

Unless you have a really big monitor, like 40" or so, nothing compares to the real thing. I once saw a Rothko and my jaw dropped to the floor. The thing was so imposing, not only the theme was captivating but the sheer size of the picture made it look grandiose in every sense. The same goes for Pollock's artworks, some Picassos and so on.

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I have a friend that works at the Met, and (with management's permission of course) was able to get me into the modern wing during a time it was being renovated. It was just incredible, being able to sit in front of such giant paintings in peace.

If you stand as close as you can to a Rothko (with your knees practically touching the velvet rope barrier), and stare for a while it just completely envelopes your eyes. The colors take over your entire field of vision and you can really get lost in them, and just "feel" the painting. You can't really do that otherwise without someone asking you to please move. The Pollocks were my favorite, but it's all incredible. It definitely became my favorite type of visual art after that and I will always visit the Met and MoMa when in town.

Edit: Unfortunately, seems like none of those are public domain, so only low resolution images are available.

It's more noteworthy that very small works can be easier to study on screen, and then there's obviously the advantage of a total absence of contention for the physical space directly in front of the print/painting.

Rothko's works are often installed in "environments" like at Tate Modern or in Houston. Many people can experience them at the same time and there's not much to be gained from closing in to six inch viewing distance. They're works of the movie age.

On the other hand, the situation with a Durer print or some other delicate miniature image is really helped by digital distribution. For 3D artifacts, being able to orbit them in a viewer is another good thing that we'll probably see more of. Lightfields, even.

Rothko is an interesting case for digital reproduction because his work is all about aura and atmosphere but, technically, his work is not exactly impossible to fake. Is his work really spiritual or maybe a bit bogus, for that reason of being grandiose and imposing yet also "easy"?

Best argument, I think, in favour of Rothko and the like is the idea that "what's difficult is not to make something, but to put oneself in a state conducive to making." (Brancusi)

How different complex, technical software engineering is to the simplicity of even the most elaborate painting/sculpture...

> Unless you have a really big monitor, like 40" or so, nothing compares to the real thing

I disagree; simply, "nothing compares to the real thing". But I can't have the real thing right here, so a large hi-def monitor is better than nothing.

EDIT: If I sell a 40" monitor displaying a high-res Van Gogh - will the price compare to the real thing? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Well, there was a guy selling other people's Instagram pictures at $15k a pop...

That would be Richard Prince. But he made $90k a pop. http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/27/living/richard-prince-instagra...

I should probably pursuit a career in copy.

Also hard to see the depth of some of those brush strokes in the flat scan. Some of them are quite thick.

This. No 2D image of most of van Gogh's paintings can match the real thing because the 3D texture of the paint is such an integral part of the experience. I discovered this when I visited the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. The 2D representations look lifeless to me now that I know how much more visceral the paintings are when viewed in real life.

I really hope someone would get a high-def 3d camera on those paintings and convert then to a web-gl format

Somebody at TU Delft did some work on making 3d scans / reproductions of paintings, and one of the artists they were scanning was van Gogh.

I think the reproductions were for sale, but they were pretty expensive (~$25K???).

Hackaday did a story on it in 2013: http://hackaday.com/2013/09/24/priceless-paintings-scanned-a...

Finally, a reason to buy an MS Surface Hub (https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-surface-hub/en-us). Or at least a Surface Studio (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-stud...).

What is it about Rothkos that are so impressive? Its's big bars of solid color painted on the wall. I just don't get it...

I think his talent was he was great at selling

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