1 - Consequences of Photographing Original Art

Source: fc04.deviantart.net

Ways of Seeing


John Berger makes a point in chapter one of his book "Ways of Seeing" that there is a value in artwork which is  lost by the use of photography to replicate the piece, claiming that there is a strength in the both the rarity and the experience of witnessing a piece of artwork first hand that cannot be appreciated after the piece has been mass-reproduced. His argument states that

"When the camera reproduces a painting, it destroys the uniqueness of its image" (Ways of Seeing, 19)

There is certainly some truth in Berger's words. Once something has ceased to be unique and becomes 'mainstream', it is often times considered to be of lesser value. To make a comparison to a more contemporary artistic medium, a similar effect is often seen in the music industry. Often, as a band is emerging, a style that attracts a large audience will pull them into the limelight. Assuming they have a good first impression, their "breakthrough" album will often be accepted to great acclaim (see certification positions for Alien Ant Farm, Linkin Park, and Three Days Grace for examples), but as time goes on (regardless of continued artistic quality - see top of charts for previous examples) they are considered 'old hat' and their following tapers off.

I believe that in both examples - the paintings that John Berger refers to as well as the decline in support for a musical artist - what we are actually witnessing is a culture over-saturated with a piece of media, and Berger seems to in some part agree when he states that

"What the modern means of reproduction have done is to destroy the authority of art and to remove it - or, rather, to remove its images which they reproduce - from any preserve." (Ways of Seeing, 32)

However, I do not think that it the photography is what has removed the preserve on these images. It is, of course, photography that has allowed the images of famous works of art to be spread over unfathomable distances instantly, but it is the media that shoves these works of art onto a public which has created the saturation of them in the minds of the public.