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At work, I was flipping through catalogs of fine-art reproductions, admiring the good ones, and groaning over the poor ones, when I noticed a trend that stopped me and sent me furiously turning pages back, saying "oh my god! Look what they're doing!"
Here, let me show you.
This is a resin model one can buy of the "Venus with Apple" in the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen:
Look familiar? Not quite?
Here's another, from Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" (one of my personal pet peeves is when companies take paintings--2 dimensional art--and turn them into models, 3D, as if the painter really was trying to express themselves in sculpture, he just didn't have the right materials, or something....but I'll try to put that aside for the moment.)
Okay, these are hideous reproductions any way you look at it, I admit. But WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO VENUS, the !@#$&! Goddess of BEAUTY, for crying out loud?
See this? It's not just the supermodels on the cover of Cosmo, it's not just Oprah, it's not just Kira Knightly or whatever her name is, being stretched and elongated on her movie posters. Oh, no! Even Botticelli's Venus and the Thorvaldsen Aphrodite are "too fat" and not bobble-headed enough to sell in today's market. They've been Slim-fasted and Photoshopped (or had ribs removed) because in someone's opinion, even neo-classic art lovers who would be looking to decorate their homes with reproductions of their favorite pieces would not want to look at such chubby women as artists like Botticelli chose, as models.
Can you BELIEVE this? The catalog is full of these, the "Three Graces", Rodin's women, and a poor "Hebe, Cupbearer of the Gods" who looks like she's been given silicon breast implants.
This is hilarious: it's revisionist art history, as done by the Photoshop-happy editors of Vogue.
[EDITED: If you're coming here linked from another post, I would ask you to please take a moment to read my follow-up post, here: http://daphnep.livejournal.com/420538.html]
[EDITED one more time to add: before you dash off an impassioned email to the manufacturer, ask yourself this question: IF the company were to refigure the statuettes to fix the problems, would you be willing to make a commitment to support their business by placing an order, and enlisting your friends and family to support their business as well?* By all means, use these images for educational purposes, and to help increase our cultural "visual literacy". But remember that outrage comes cheap on the internet--finding constructive solutions to problems is harder. Are you a part of the solution, or merely venting personal frustrations?
*Keep in mind that it's a manufacturer, with quantity wholesale requirements.]
Here, let me show you.
This is a resin model one can buy of the "Venus with Apple" in the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen:
Look familiar? Not quite?
Here's another, from Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" (one of my personal pet peeves is when companies take paintings--2 dimensional art--and turn them into models, 3D, as if the painter really was trying to express themselves in sculpture, he just didn't have the right materials, or something....but I'll try to put that aside for the moment.)
Okay, these are hideous reproductions any way you look at it, I admit. But WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO VENUS, the !@#$&! Goddess of BEAUTY, for crying out loud?
See this? It's not just the supermodels on the cover of Cosmo, it's not just Oprah, it's not just Kira Knightly or whatever her name is, being stretched and elongated on her movie posters. Oh, no! Even Botticelli's Venus and the Thorvaldsen Aphrodite are "too fat" and not bobble-headed enough to sell in today's market. They've been Slim-fasted and Photoshopped (or had ribs removed) because in someone's opinion, even neo-classic art lovers who would be looking to decorate their homes with reproductions of their favorite pieces would not want to look at such chubby women as artists like Botticelli chose, as models.
Can you BELIEVE this? The catalog is full of these, the "Three Graces", Rodin's women, and a poor "Hebe, Cupbearer of the Gods" who looks like she's been given silicon breast implants.
This is hilarious: it's revisionist art history, as done by the Photoshop-happy editors of Vogue.
[EDITED: If you're coming here linked from another post, I would ask you to please take a moment to read my follow-up post, here: http://daphnep.livejournal.com/420538.html]
[EDITED one more time to add: before you dash off an impassioned email to the manufacturer, ask yourself this question: IF the company were to refigure the statuettes to fix the problems, would you be willing to make a commitment to support their business by placing an order, and enlisting your friends and family to support their business as well?* By all means, use these images for educational purposes, and to help increase our cultural "visual literacy". But remember that outrage comes cheap on the internet--finding constructive solutions to problems is harder. Are you a part of the solution, or merely venting personal frustrations?
*Keep in mind that it's a manufacturer, with quantity wholesale requirements.]
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What the heck, why not? A huge part of the art world is based in commercialism, and this is such a blatant example of pandering to the masses. Unfortunately museums can't work exclusively off private donations and government funding - thus shit like this exists. This is the least amount of harm (arguable, I'm sure) for the greatest amount of good.
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I mean, I hope we can, it's what I work full-time to try to do. I try to follow a bit of a standard, though. "If Monet saw this, would he recognize it as his? Would he be flattered, or horrified?" (Believe me, I throw out a lot of things that don't pass the Monet test. And I certainly hope Van Gogh had a really great sense of humor, cuz, you know, it's far too easy to play off that ear thing.)
I dunno...the pics with both original and new just make me giggle, they're so absurd.
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Fuckers...
D.
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I also share your disdain for taking paintings and making them into "sculpture". WTF?
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But as for your suggestion for coloring them in: do you work for this company or something? Because they did that, on some of these hideous resin things...on some Rafael and da Vinci frescos and things. They turn them into reliefs, and then paint them hideous colors.
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It's a beauty=sex thinking. Like beauty can't exist apart from sexual desire, with a little bit of male domination ("can I fuck it? can I? can I?") layered over.
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You've discussed this thing about equating beauty with sexuality before. I'd be interested in having a conversation about that sometime - it's not something I've really thought about before.
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Seriously. That's awful for a whole lot of reasons.
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