←back to thread

106 points colinprince | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.269s | source
Show context
sharkjacobs ◴[] No.44506614[source]
What's the advantage of seeing an original piece of art over a serviceable replica? Especially in the case where the "original" is a print, one of dozens.

Obviously "serviceable" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, a replica might simply not be very good, might not capture some vital characteristic of the thing which makes it a great work.

But otherwise, it's basically that the knowledge of how important and significant this work is puts the viewer in a more receptive frame of mind, right?

To be clear, that's not nothing. I of course know firsthand how much that affects the impact of a painting, museums and galleries care a lot about how they display their collection. But is that it?

replies(11): >>44506633 #>>44506680 #>>44506682 #>>44506707 #>>44506729 #>>44506750 #>>44506787 #>>44507016 #>>44507110 #>>44507613 #>>44510823 #
1. msephton ◴[] No.44507613[source]
It's the whole experience for me. It's a bit like asking why you would go to see a movie at the cinema when you can watch it on your smart phone—it's possible but when the opportunity to see it as its meant to be seen presents itself why wouldn't you? So it's the fact that it is "an original" (though there's no such thing with woodblocks)—in this case unique in many ways compared to any other imprint of The Great Wave. Plus the curation: when I saw one at Bristol they had other Hokusai works such as manga and his other waves and fuji that were kind of precursor to The Great Wave. ps: I made the site in the OP.