Van Gogh Museum's High-Quality Reproductions
vangoghmuseum.nl
vangoghmuseum.nl
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/arts/statue-of-liberty-st...
My opinion is that, if a work is public domain, then any such format-shifting should also be public domain. I don't really see anything transformative in the Museum's usage of Van Gogh's work that would entitle them to protection.
I posit that within the next century, we will see the total death of the public domain. There are already those pushing for truly perpetual copyright out there, I ran into one such guy on (of all places) a C64 retro forum.
Having said all that, I cannot afford an original Van Gogh so occasional visits to the Musee D'Orsay and Amsterdam will have to do :/
https://shop.verusart.com/pages/vincent-van-gogh-collection
The only reason this is not more widely available is due to snobbery and elitism in the fine art world, IMO. Imagine a world in which there were only a single copy of every work of Beethoven.
Sufficient resolution and materials with identical color and refractive qualities should get you a visually identical result.
Another challenge of reproducing art is that what makes the artwork so fantastic is the subtlest nuances. Those are not the 90% that many artists could do, but the .00001% that only Van Gogh could do. It's not just blue, or that shade of blue, or that precise shade ... but that unique color, in the context of all the other colors, on that spot on the canvas. Reproductions must have approximations and they must lose or weaken every nuance, unless the reproducer is another Van Gogh.
> The idea that it is only elites who can tell the difference is an unsupported statement about art appreciation among the general population.
Agreed and the argument often assumes that the impact of art is all conscious and explicit - 'people can't even tell you what the difference is' - when in fact artwork of any serious ambition aims far beyond what can be consciously noticed and enumerated (and again, those aims are achieved in the nuance). For my personal experience of it, museums are poorly set up, expecting me to engage with and grok dozens or more works in maybe an hour or two. Now I spend half an hour or more per work; that does mean skipping 95% them, but the experience is far more valuable, richer, and more gratifying. It's the difference between looking at vacation photos or visiting Italy.
Never went ahead with the idea but I assume (I am not a painter) that modern high quality oils would allow a reasonably talented artist to repro a Van Gogh to a sufficiently accurate degree. I just need it to "fool" me, not an expert.
Are the reproductions good enough to be mistaken for real masterpieces?
No, it is impossible. No one can do it. Even the original artist can’t do it.
Can’t do what?
Can’t fake their own painting.
That confuses me. Anyway, do you consider what you do forgery?
Even the great art works, like those by Van Gogh, belong to humanity, not only the museum or rich people.
Of course, I made no such statement -- you did. I wonder which of us has a lower opinion of the lay public's capacity to appreciate art.
Back to the matter at hand, I'm fairly confident that a technology which faithfully reproduced artwork at the molecular level would be met with just as much contempt and hostility in the "art world". It has less to do with any sort of concern about the quality of the reproduction than it does with an aversion to seeing fine art placed in the hands of the masses.
I have seen some Van Gogh paintings in person and I definitely wouldn't have known they were originals unless someone told me.
It kind of reminds me of people who claim you will never really have truly good sushi unless you get it from an old master in Tokyo. Or how people tend to like wine better if they are told it was very expensive.
Not OP, but I doubt it. The originals I've seen have a thick layer of paint on the surface which adds visible texture to the work. Van Gogh paintings are really a 3D experience, which just happen to also look great in 2D.
Van Gogh was exceptionally good at using the texture and layers too, making them even more special when you see them AFK.
Speaking just for myself- I had a similar experience as the parent comment, and at the time, I was kind of 'meh' about even going to the museum in the first place. But my girlfriend at the time was majoring in art history, and she always had fascinating things to tell me to help fill in the missing context of whatever we saw together. So I thought that with her, the trip would be worth it.
And it was! But, and I can't stress this enough- Irises utterly captivated me (both of us, actually), before she had even uttered a word. the gap between the real thing and a flat reproduction is that wide.
I recall seeing a brilliant red pointillist painting by some artist I had never heard of and the impact it had on me as I got close and each little red dot 'dancing' was surreal.
For what it's worth, I had exactly the same type of experience. It was Irises, in the Getty in Los Angeles back in the early 90's. Something I had 'seen' hundreds of times before, but only 'felt' once perceived taking the full structure of the shape of the oils and their interplay with light in to account. And in no way does someone need to be an art expert to appreciate the difference- it is not subtle. I feel lucky for being able to have done so.
Licensing for fine art reproductions in museum retail can work in very strange ways, even if the work is out of copyright. For example, if a work is not part of the gallery’s collection, permission may be sought from the owner who may or may not own the high res, as well as the estate of the artist. I many cases this is not required as the work is not in copyright, but nobody wants to step out of line.
They've also a no-photographs-policy and overly aggressive attendants who are just plain annoying.
Including Rembrandt's Night Watch: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-C-5
There are also various scripts around to re-create the image locally, but the first I tried was broken.
I have a few of those (and the Dutch museum) loaded cycling up on my Electric Objects display.
Also, note the rights:
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/organisation/conditions-use-...
Edit: removed irrelevant anecdata