Art and design | The Observer: A poster of one of Van Gogh's sunflowers is one of the traditional adornments to a student bedroom. The rest of us hang our reproductions in the knowledge that even the good ones are far from faithful to the originals – for which the going rate is £24m.
But not any more. The Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam has developed high-quality 3D reproductions of some of its finest paintings, with what it describes as the most advanced copying technique ever seen. Axel Rüger, the museum's director, said: "It really is the next generation of reproductions because they go into the third dimension. If you're a layman, they are pretty indistinguishable [from the originals]. Of course, if you're a connoisseur and you look more closely, you can see the difference."
4 comments:
3D printing is great. Living in the future has given us so many new and efficient ways of manufacturing things at a level we never dreamed possible. What I like most about this article is that they admit that if you are an expert of art, you could notice the differences between a 3D replica and the original Van Gogh. That is what makes art so amazing. Not even the most sophisticated printer can replicate Van Gogh's masterpiece perfectly. But that is because the masterpiece is not perfect. It is full of emotion and human flaws and sentiment and so much of the artist went into it that to imagine a machine replicating it is unfathomable. Personally, I don't know if there will ever be a 3D printer that creates work indistinguishable from he original, and frankly that's ok with me.
Although they address the concern of people trying to pass off the painting as a real one, the thought that occurs to me is that with this technology existing, what is to stop someone from just creating these paintings using a similar machine and then selling them as if they were the real thing. I also would be concerned about theft of the real artwork. With technology on the market that makes it possible to create an almost identical 3D reproduction, I wonder if anyone could then create a Van Gogh for example and then steal the one in the museum, leaving the fake in its place, since it would be hard to tell.
While it's really cool that they have the technology available to re-create such famous, textured paintings, it does not compare in the slightest to the original. It's just a replica, and though it may appear as the original does, it has no greater value (aside from the cost it takes to print) than does a two-dimensional copy. While the technology itself is amazing in its detail work, I see no purpose in replicating artwork aside from profit. I see that nothing good can come from such an endeavor.
The price of these reproductions sort of leads me to wonder if the type of people purchasing these have more money than taste. I certainly see the value in being able to purchase reproductions so that one can enjoy the image of piece without actually owning the original. I think it is better for orignal pieces of museum quality to be out of people's homes and in museums where the public can enjoy them. And of course, most people can't afford to own this type of work. But these high-end reproductions just sort of seem like their for the sake of bragging. The better quality I guess is some justification for the price, but a reproduction is a reproduction and that can never be changed. No matter how close these are to the real thing, Van Gogh didn't paint them. The only value I can see in these is that they will allow museums to make more money. As far as having one in your home, it just doesn't seem worth the price.
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