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Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis. Jaargang 22 (2015)

Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis. Jaargang 22

(2015)– [tijdschrift] Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

Vorige Volgende

Robert Verhoogt
New Reproductions: Aged and Cracked!
Art Reproduction and the Digital Turn

On February 1, 2011 the Google Art Project was launched, an online platform to present reproductions of artworks housed in the partner museums.1 The project was started in cooperation with seventeen international museums, including the Tate Gallery, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; and the Uffizi, Florence (figure 1). One year later, Google signed partnership agreements with 150 museums from 40 countries around the globe. Today, in 2014, museum partnerships have already doubled again. The project offers more than 45,000 artworks reproduced in high resolution, sometimes even using super high resolution or ‘gigapixel’ photo-capturing technology. This enables the viewer to study details of the brushwork and patina beyond what is visible with the naked eye. The viewer can easily browse the Google Art Project by artist name, title of the artwork, by museum, country, city and collection. Finally the interactive viewer can build a personalised gallery, add personal comments to each painting and share it with friends and family.

The introduction of digital media is the biggest change in the history of information technology since the invention of the printing press in the 1450s. The Google Art Project is an innovative product of our digital times. Google's initiative reminds me of Adolphe Braun's ambition to photograph the collections of all the best of European museum collections during the last decades of the nineteenth century.2 At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1867 the photographer Adolphe Braun (1812-1877) presented his first photographic reproductions of drawings from the Louvre collection and the Kunstmuseum in Basel. From the late 1860s onwards he photographed various European museum collections. In 1883 the Braun firm was contracted as the official photographer of the Louvre Museum, monopolising its reproductions for three decades (figure 2). In the meantime, in 1885, the Braun firm visited the Netherlands to photograph old Dutch masters in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Mauritshuis in The Hague and the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem. It resulted in impressive books with high quality art reproductions, like Le Musee de l'Etat à Amsterdam (Braun & Cie Paris Dornach 1887-1894). Braun's art reproductions were highly valued by critics, acade-

mies, museums and artists like Odilon Redon and Vincent van Gogh.3 Since Adolphe Braun the technological innovation of art reproduction has continued moving forward all the time, with digital media moving forward even faster, resulting in a fascinating culture of art reproduction including Google's Art Project.



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Figure 1. Google Art Project


For many years, ideas on art reproduction were shaped by the ideas of Walter Benjamin.4 More than anyone else he introduced the phenomenon of art reproduction into the sphere of reflection on art theory.5 In his Kleine Geschichte der Photographie (1931) Benjamin at length discussed photography and its significance as a reproductive technique, subsequently developing his ideas in Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit (1936).6 He focussed on the question of how technological reproduction affected the character of the ‘unique’ work of art and concluded that reproduction stripped an original artwork of its uniqueness and authenticity, which he described as its ‘aura’.7 In his

famous essay he proposed that reproductive technology had taken the reproduced beyond the reach of tradition.8 He mainly analysed the effects of reproduction to the aura of the original work, and showed less interest in the ‘aura’ of a reproduction and the specific cultural qualities in the history of art reproduction.



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Figure 2. Adolphe Braun, Venus de Milo, 1871, Photo Tractatus


My objective is to consider art reproduction within an historical context as an interesting part of visual culture.9 I want to explore the technique, presentation and reception of current art reproduction from an historical point of view, or as the cultural historian Robert Darnton recently stated in The Case for Books. Past, Present, and Future (New York 2009): ‘Any attempt to see into the future while struggling with problems in the present should be informed by studying the past’.10 The recent introduction of digital reproduction technology, exhibitions of high resolution art reproductions, and current digital practices of collecting and sharing reproductions, offer fascinating opportunities for the future, but also create feelings of déjà vu in relation to the past. Based on my research for my book Art in Reproduction. Nineteenth Century prints after Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Jozef Israëls and Ary Scheffer (Amsterdam 2007), I now want to reflect on art reproduction in our digital age. Works of visual art have been replicated on a large scale in new paintings, drawings, prints and photographs by the original artist, his pupils, and by specialist printmakers and photographers since the beginning of art. Copies of original works executed in another (graphic) medium such as prints and photographs, offered the potential to multiply an image. In terms of volume this is by far the largest category, for the application of graphic and (digital) photographic techniques allowed many works of art to be translated into numerous prints and photographs. It is this final category, comprising prints and (digital) photographs after works of visual art, which is central to this article. I want to reflect on the introduction of new reproduction techniques, like digital photography and current exhibitions of reproductions. Finally I want to consider the

modern consumption of reproductions: how do visitors of museums and websites experience the original works of art and the reproductions of it after the digital turn?

As an art historian my main focus is the visual culture of art and images: paintings, prints and (digital) photographs. Of course there are differences between works of visual art and books considering the issue reproduction. Whereas reproduction is an integral part of the production of any book, that is not always the case in the field of the visual arts. In this context books are closer to graphic prints and photographs than to original paintings or drawings. Nevertheless there are noteworthy parallels between art and images, and books and text. Robert Darnton's instructive concept of the ‘life of the book’ proved to be an inspiring concept that could be translated into the ‘life of the reproduction’ in order to understand the complexities of the production, distribution and consumption of art reproduction in the visual culture.11 Especially after the invention of the wood engraving in the late eighteenth century the publishing of words and images became more and more closely intermingled in all kinds of printed matter. Reproductions used to be published in illustrated books and magazines or as separate prints in all kinds of sizes and prices. After the introduction of digital technology the barriers between the categories of text, images (and sounds) seem to disappear to end up in one category of information. Today, the publication opportunities for art reproductions expand further in quality and quantity. Reproductions can be printed in expensive three-dimensional prints, but mostly they are never printed at all. What is the difference anyway between a digital born original work and the reproduction of it, or is it just another file of information? Nonetheless, in the world of culture it is never just a matter of content but always a matter of form as well. Design, size and weight are important qualities for experiencing cultural artefacts, whether they are paintings, prints, books, magazines, digital images or e-books. In the current digital age one can recognise technological, cultural and conceptual trends across different media; Google Art reminds of course of Google Books. Modern technological innovation, social practices and cultural appropriation show interesting parallels that seem to reflect ideas and traditions from long ago. It is important to keep an eye on the breaks and continuities in modern art reproduction. Modern art reproduction presents an interesting mix of old graphic traditions and practices together with cutting edge reproduction technology. Browsing the Google Art Project on your iPhone, you can come across beautiful prints made by Adolphe Braun in the late nineteenth century, ready to be liked and shared with everyone.

Art Reproduction and the Digital Turn

In January 2012 the famous Eastman Kodak Company was close to bankruptcy.12 The legendary photography firm started its business in the 1880s and brought photography to the millions. Its famous slogan ‘You push the button, we do the rest’, dates from the end of the nineteenth century and still speaks for itself.13 During the twentieth century the firm dominated the international market of photographic films used by the masses to photograph their holidays, weddings, and anniversaries. Interestingly the company was one of

the frontrunners to experiment with digital techniques in the 1970s. However, the Kodak company ended this experiment because they made more money with the traditional analogue Kodak films. Unfortunately, at the end of the 1990s the company suffered more and more after the introduction and the popularity of digital photography and cheap digital cameras. They were beaten on their own ground. Soon, Kodak and its analogue photographic films were outdated and taken over by digital photography. Kodak just survived in the end thanks to selling their hundreds of patents to a consortium of companies including Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, and Adobe. Ironically, the classic analogue photography firm was saved from bankruptcy by the digital technology companies.

The end of Kodak was considered as the end of an era, symbolising the end of analogue photography. Its potential loss represented a loss of the cultural heritage of analogue photography. People regretted this in the same way as it was regretted in the nineteenth century that the traditional line engraving technique was being replaced by modern photography.14 Line engraving used to be the traditional manner of art reproduction ever since Marcantonio Raimondi's engravings after Raphael from the 1500s, culminating in the rich culture of the great engravers of the seventeenth century (figure 3). Losing the line engraving was losing this famous graphic tradition. On February 1, 1859, the leading printmakers Henriquel-Dupont, Adolphe Mouilleron and Léon Noël, together with the publisher Goupil, submitted a petition to Napoleon iii, in which they requested protection of traditional reproduction techniques from the threat of technical innovations such as photography.15 The well-known art critic Philippe Burty asserted it too: line engraving had been murdered by photography.16 Indeed, analogue photography did start a radical change in the graphic landscape of the nineteenth century.17 From the 1860s photography dominated the international market of art reproduction. Parallel to the invention of photographic prints, the photographic hardware was improved by new cameras: better, cheaper and easier to handle for everyone, like Kodak's cameras introduced in 1883. From now on everyone could make pictures of anything, landscapes, portraits and all the happy moments in family life. During the twentieth century photography was steadily developed: higher quality, lower prices and sustainable images in beautiful colours. Even the complex problem of printing photographs was solved thanks to the well-known Polaroid firm and their instant film photographic camera's for the masses. Polaroid instant photos made a huge impact on the modern visual culture of the baby boom generation in Europe and the United States. But like Kodak, the Polaroid firm too faced the challenge at the end of the twentieth century: how to respond to the introduction of the new digital media? And like Kodak, this icon of analogue photography was brought close to bankruptcy as a result of digital photography.18 In 2009 the Polaroid firm ended the production of its instant film

cameras. Comparable to the end of Kodak, the bankruptcy of Polaroid was regretted as a symbol of the end of the analogue times.



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Figure 3. Marcantonio Raimondi (1480-1534). Galatea, after the fresco by Raphael, Rome, Villa Farnesina, circa 1515. Engraving, private collection


The firms of Polaroid and Kodak are just two examples of large companies challenged by the introduction of digital technology. In the field of publishers and booksellers we come across the same trends and sentiments. Innovation in digitisation, e-publishing and e-books created the same regrets of losing the traditional book, the traditional publisher, and the traditional bookstore. The ‘end of photography’ seems to be considered in the same terms as the ‘end of books’. In both cases we see technological innovation creating new possibilities for the future, but at the same time feelings of regret and despair of losing traditional institutions and products. Of course, this paradox is nothing new. At the end of the nineteenth century traditional engraving was lost, but Kodak presented the promising future of photography for everyone. One century later, the traditional analogue photography of Kodak and Polaroid was considered to be history, but digital photography opened new horizons for future generations.

Digital photography

The introduction of digital photography in the 1990s is considered to be an important change in visual culture. Limitless numbers of pictures could be viewed, adapted, stored, and deleted without being printed. In a digital photographic image the ‘photo’ dominates the ‘graphic’ printing process. The first generation digital cameras were usually ‘stand alone’ computers mainly functioning off line during the days of digital photography 1.0. Digital photography particularly changed during the first years of the new millennium with the introduction of mobile phones with a camera function. The first versions were introduced in 2001 but generally the year 2004 is considered as the tipping point in the history of digital photography.19 In that year, 68 million digital cameras and 246 million camera phones were sold worldwide. The photographic qualities improved but more importantly, they offered the opportunity to stay online all the time and to share pictures on the Worldwide Web. Significantly, in 2004 also the Flickr site was presented for sharing pictures of holidays, special moments, landscapes and animals, especially cats. In the same year The Facebook was founded, later simply known as Facebook. The combination of the invention of the mobile and camera phone, the network facilities of 2G, 3G, 4G, and the social media platforms like Google, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest opened new horizons to share pictures on a global scale. The boundless scale of Google's success is impressive but also creates mixed feelings concerning the monopolisation of information, political partiality or acceptance of censorship. The digital media offer new ways to provide new access to art, and reproductions, books and magazines, but can also monopolise or even block this in a serious way. It is an open question whether digital access to art and reproductions will be affected by the same fear of Google's monopolisation of books and maps.20

Although digital photography offered new ways to view pictures without being printed, there was also a revolution in digital printing. Books, posters and postcards can all be printed on demand by anyone at any time. Reproductions can be printed on demand at your local museum, books can be printed on demand on another continent or at your local bookstore. You push the button and they do the rest. Reproductions to decorate your home, holiday pictures to show your friends, or your wedding album to save your memories to last; they can all be printed at your command and in your personal design. Printing and publishing seems no longer the exclusive domain of the professional printing and publishing industry. The possibilities of printing for personal use are endless, although in practice the options are still mainly used for limited editions.

The current revolution in printing was the subject of a remarkable exhibition in 2013 at the London Science Museum. 3D: Printing the Future showed all kinds of 3d printed products. The first patents were awarded in the 1980s for the invention of three-dimensional printing, better known as ‘3d printing’. Today, 3d printing is used in architecture, industrial design, dental and medical technology, fashion, footwear, jewellery, eyewear, and even food. The possibilities of 3d printing seem endless and have even resulted in heated debates about the printing of guns. 3d printing can (re-)produce the smallest parts for high-tech design, and can even be used for printing huge (parts of) cars, ships,

aeroplanes, rockets and buildings. And, of course, works of art and cultural artefacts are reproduced this way. 3d printing offers new ways to replicate the original works of art; not only its image, but also the object itself can be printed with remarkable exactness. Special techniques are developed to print paintings that resemble the original works of art as closely as possible, for example by the Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam and the Fujifilm company. Based on sophisticated scanning techniques the relief of the original painted surface can be printed accurately, and this is not limited to the well-known front of the painting; the far less known reverse, including marks and stamps of former owners and dealers reflecting the history and provenance of the original object can be scanned as well.

Interestingly, the digital turn even seems to start a renaissance of the traditional manual painted copies of works of art. Surfing the internet opens a rich culture of copies of well-known masterpieces painted on demand by anonymous painters from all over the world. Initiatives like the Kunstfabriek in Amsterdam offer real painted reproductions made by skilled craftsmen, mainly from China. Of course, the history of the copy is as long as the history of art itself. The sixteenth century Brueghel family was famous for the ‘Brueghel firm’ producing numerous copies of their well-known paintings. The workshops of Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens and Joshua Reynolds produced numerous copies of their masterpieces. Later, this training by copying strongly influenced the education at the art academies for generations. This history of the copy is still a fascinating aspect of the history of art, too long dominated by the romantic love for original works of art. Today, this old tradition of art reproduction flourishes in Asia, mainly China. The capital of copies is the village of Dafen in the Shenzhen region, housing hundreds of painters specialised in copying masterpieces.21 Based on posters or postcards they recreate masterpieces that they have never seen before. The copies are sold worldwide to dealers and collectors. Thanks to the internet, one can easily buy a Van Gogh painted on demand in a small Chinese studio to be delivered in time at your home, no matter where you live.

As good as it gets: the facsimile

The website Artsheaven.com offers reproductions that recreate the look and feel of the old masterpieces:

We specialise in a unique Aged & Cracked (Craquelure) process to make your painting look old just like the original. Most of our paintings can be ordered with the Aged & Cracked look. The painting is painted on a specially prepared canvas along with special oils and techniques, resulting in a unique cracked (craquelure) effect which gives the painting a genuine aged appearance. Our Aged & Cracked (Craquelure) reproductions look so authentic you will be amazed.

The reproductions not only reproduce the visual image of the selected masterpiece, but also recreate the traces of its aging, its history.22 The reproductions of Artsheaven are just one illustrative example of contemporary art reproduction and the challenge to reach for the impression of the original object.

This challenge to reach for the ultimate

reproduction is part of a long history of art reproduction that goes back to analogue photography and even further back to earlier times. In his study Faksimile und Mimesis. Studiën zur Deutschen Reproduktionsgrafik des 18.Jahrhunderts the historian Ernst Rebel shows that this attempt to create the most accurate reproduction possible is closely related to the introduction of the concept of ‘facsimile’, described as the ‘technische Reproduktion einer Bild- oder Schriftvorlage mit Anspruch auf gröϐtmögliche Nachbildungstreue’.23 This facsimile concept set a new standard of fidelity to the original, for the ultimate facsimile is ‘identical’ to the original. This new vision also entails another approach to reproduction techniques, or, as the print expert William Ivins saliently put it: ‘Up to this time engravings had looked like engravings and nothing else, but now, thanks to the discovery of new techniques, the test of their success began to be the extent to which they looked like something else’.24

The introduction of the facsimile correlates with the invention of new graphic techniques in the eighteenth century: the crayon manner, the stipple engraving and the aquatint.25 Characteristically these new methods were chiefly used to reproduce chalk drawings, pastels, and watercolours.26 The crayon manner method, developed in 1757 by the French printmaker J.C. Francois (1717-1769), was used particularly to produce fine reproductions of popular pastels by Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard.27 As with the crayon manner, the stipple-based character of stipple engraving made the method extremely suitable for reproducing chalk drawings, whose characteristic grainy structure it could imitate exactly, for example in Imitations of Original Drawings by Hans Holbein in the Collection of His Majesty (1792-1800).28 Paul Sandby and Thomas Rowlandson popularised the aquatint technique for the reproduction of watercolours through publications such as Imitations of Modern Drawings.29 These techniques offered more than simply a method for reproducing the original composition, for they also allowed printmakers to approximate the appearance of the original technique, whether the characteristic grainy structure of chalk or the ‘fluid’ character of a watercolour. They created prints that looked like drawings.

We can trace this ideal of the facsimile also in relation to lithography and photography. According to Alois Senefelder (1771-1834), the inventor of lithography, the reproduction of drawings was one of the chief merits of the new technique.30 The earliest example of this use of lithography is probably the publication of Albrecht Dürer's Christlich-Mythologische Handzeichnungen in 1808. From circa 1840 onwards lithography became the most commonly used reproduction technique for artworks on paper.31 Especially the invention of

colour lithography offered new ways to reach for the ideal reproduction of watercolours.32 In 1854 a critic at The Art Journal was prompted by several colour lithographs to write admiringly regarding their imitation of the original work:

Every part of the picture is imitated with wonderful fidelity; the manipulation of the artist is most carefully rendered, the colouring is brilliant as if laid on by the hand from the palette; while there is a ‘body’ in the surface which might be mistaken for actual painting in oil. A few more such examples as this, and other of a similar nature that have recently passed under our notice, and we may decorate our walls with works of art scarcely inferior to the originals, at fifty or a hundred per cent less than the cost of the latter.33

This reference to the ‘body in the surface’ is noteworthy. It refers to the debate amongst printmakers regarding the extent to which they should endeavour to render the paint's texture of the original work. Precise imitation of this texture allowed a reproduction to suggest the hand of the original master, as Van Gogh noted in connection with etched reproductions by William Unger and Felix Braquemond after old Dutch masters: ‘Unger, Bracquemond etched it well - as it was done, and one can see the manner of painting in their etchings’.34 Meticulous imitation of the original texture produced the illusion of the original medium.

Photography too offered new ways of reproduction and better facsimiles than ever before. In 1872 the Dutch journal De Kunstkronijk reviewed enthusiastically the fine heliogravures by the firm of Armand-Durand: ‘Seldom or never has the art of imitating old prints gone as far as in the heliography of Amand-Durand of Paris [...]. The fidelity of the reproduction has been carried to an astonishing height: the lined and brownish or subtly tinted paper perfectly imitates that of old prints’.35 A photographic reproduction appeared to have been made by an ‘invisible’ hand, for the photographer's personal contribution mainly lay in the preparations for capturing and multiplying the image. Nevertheless, photographic reproductions were often also retouched, a fact that the influential art critic Bremmer strongly lamented ‘Retouching is a cancer in mechanical reproduction, it should not be used at all, then one has the objective image that one can judge oneself’.36 He preferred photographs that had not been retouched: ‘With the unretouched reproduction I know what is what, with the retouched work it is extremely hard to identify the limit of retouching’.37 This retouching is an integral part of the history of photography and today an essential part of digital photography of professionals and amateurs using Photoshop or Instagram software. In the meantime, the reproduction of colours and tints got better and better producing beautiful stable images of increasing quality for decreasing prizes. Looking back on the final decades of the nineteenth century, the etcher Carel Dake declared in 1913:

And now in the last thirty years the industry, which reproduces artists' work, has developed so incredibly through the dazzling techniques of photogravure, and phototype, that within a short time graphic drawing work can be reproduced in thousands of facsimile copies and distributed throughout the world. In books, in portfolios, on circulars, in newspapers and journals, as illustrations to advertisements, etc. The world is being inundated, by graphic art.38

The facsimile approach to reproduce the original work of art as close as possible, can be traced in art reproductions in crayon, aquatint, lithography or (digital) photography forming an interesting tradition in visual culture. According to Rebel, the concept of the facsimile was introduced in the 1760s thanks to new graphic techniques of crayon, aquatint and stipple engraving. Since then, this tradition of facsimiles can be traced throughout the history of art reproduction with striking examples of prints that can easily be mistaken for the originals.39 The facsimile concept can be regarded as the driving force behind graphic innovation whose aim was to reproduce the original, whether this was a drawing, a painting or a medieval manuscript, as accurately as possible. Nowadays iconic publications of the history of books are all available in facsimile editions: the Très riches heures of the Duke de Berry, The Book of Kells, Dante's Divine Comedy, Luther's Bible, and Diderot's Encyclopedie. Some famous publications, like the Utrecht Psalter, have a long history of facsimiles on their own.40 Today's facsimile editions hardly show any limitations in imitating the original publications. The famous Atlas Blaeu - Van der Hem, containing nearly 500 maps, views and drawings, was published in 2011 bound in eight volumes.41 Even one of the most impressive publications ever, John James Audubon's giant Birds of America is now available in at least ten facsimile editions.42 Recently, a famous Dutch book of birds was published in facsimile too: Cornelis Nozeman and Christiaan Sepp's Nederlandsche Vogelen, originally published between 1770-1829. The facsimiles of prints, drawings and books can be considered as a specific conceptual frame of perception that could be easily transferred to newly invented techniques of reproduction. This tradition to recreate cultural artefacts as closely as possible started in the days of the industrial revolution and is still going on during the current digital revolution that presents new digital applications for art reproduction every day.

Reproductions exhibited

In 2013 an exhibition was organised in Amsterdam showing reproductions of all the paintings by Rembrandt (figure 4). Three hundred and twenty-five paintings were shown in real size reproductions, instead of the miniature ones we are used to seeing in books and magazines. The reproductions only show the paintings, the frames were not included, and were hang close to each other

like a full-size photo book. Some reproductions even ‘restored’ the original impression of now lost or damaged paintings. For example, Rembrandt's famous Danae was reproduced from an image captured before the acid attack in 1985. Danae showed her beauty that she had lost since the attack. The famous Nightwatch had even regained its original size thanks to Gerrit Lundens' (1622-1683) copy of it. Using Rembrandt's painting and Lundens' copy the reproduction shows a digitally remastered impression of the Nightwatch.



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Figure 4. Rembrandt exhibition of reproductions, see: www.cultuurbewust.nl/kunst-recensie-rembrandt-all-his-paintings


In the same year 2013, one could enjoy 200 paintings by Van Gogh in full size reproductions. Here too, the images were adapted to ‘restore’ the impression of the original colours of Van Gogh's paintings.43 In order to attract the visitors, the website showed an animation changing the colours of the painting to the original impressions. The exhibition showed some paintings in three dimensions, turning the two dimensional paintings into 3d impressions of reality. Unfortunately, the reproduction of the painting A wind-beaten tree from 1883 was stolen from the exhibition. Curiously, in 1997 the original painting had also been stolen. In that sense, the act of theft of the reproduction seemed in itself a reproduction. Unlike the theft of the original, the theft of the reproduction was not reported to the police. A new reproduction was printed and reinstalled at the exhibition within a week.44



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Figure 5. Louis-Pierre Henriquel Dupont, Central panel of ‘L'Hémicycle des Beaux-arts’ by Louis-Pierre Henriquel-Dupont after Paul Delaroche (1797-1856), engraving 1853, Museé Goupil Bordeaux


Reproductions on show

After the reproduction shows devoted to Rembrandt and Van Gogh, there was an exhibition of 200 real size reproductions of well-known paintings that presented an overview of the history of art in reproduction. There seems to be more and more exhibitions of art reproductions. The exhibition of reproductions is however not a new phenomenon. Apart from reproductions published in books and magazines, there is a long - but less known - tradition of exhibiting reproductions at various presentations.45 In addition to paintings and drawings, art lovers had ample opportunity to view a wealth of prints and photographs; in other words originals and reproductions.46 Reproductions could be seen in all kinds of exhibitions. World Exhibitions organised during the second half of the nineteenth century regularly showed prints and photographs of works of art.47 The famous Paris Salons also presented a wide range of reproductions, mainly after works of

contemporary art.48 One of the highlights of the 1853 Salon was Louis Pierre Henriquel-Dupont's reproduction after L'Hemicycle by Paul Délaroche, described by The Art Journal as ‘a splendid monument of Art’.49 (figure 5) Alongside these general exhibitions, the public could also see reproductions at special exhibitions, like the ‘Black-and-White’ exhibitions organised in Great Britain that showed prints and drawings in black-and-white media, including reproductions.50

Occasionally, exhibitions focussed on the work of a single master and also included reproductions. A survey of Délaroche's work held in London in 1857 exhibited both original paintings and reproductions.51 Sometimes exhibitions were even focussing on just one work like a ‘single-picture exhibition’.52 In 1820 Théodore Géricault presented his painting The Raft of the Medusa, along with a lithographic reproduction of his work, at the Egyptian Hall in London over a six-month period, drawing 30,000 visitors.53 Once curious art lovers had purchased a ticket and admired an original work at a single-picture exhibition, they were generally able to buy a range of reproductions to take home. In 1862 as many as 60,000 people visited the exhibition of William Powell Frith's painting The Railway Station, where they could subscribe to the forthcoming engraving.54 These single picture exhibitions appear to have been a fairly common aspect of nineteenth-century visual culture.55 At some exhibitions, various states of printed reproductions were also hung alongside the original work.56

Such exhibitions brought visitors into contact with an original work and its adaptation, as The Art Journal explained in 1858:

This practice of introducing an engraving by exhibiting the picture of which it is the popular translation is becoming general, as well in our provincial cities and towns as in the metropolis; and we readily understand upon what principles such a practice should secure the public favour. People like to see the pictures which live again in engravings; they like to compare the engraving with the original, and thus the engraving attains to a peculiar interest through the power of association. Besides, in London, it is always a boon to be able to study a good picture without the glare, and crowding, and excitement of a regular exhibition; and in the provinces good pictures, which have achieved a metropolitan reputation, are sure to command the welcome that is ever afforded to strangers of distinction.57

Finally, in 1883 a unique international exhibition of reproductions was organised in Vienna by the Society for the Reproduction of Works of Art. This exhibition displayed works which ranged from prints in traditional techniques to products of the very latest photographic processes. Given the range and quality of the works displayed at the Vienna exhibition, this event was probably the finest exhibition of reproductions to be held in the nineteenth century.58

Today's exhibited reproductions can be considered a continuation of this nineteenth century culture of exhibitions. Of course, current reproductions differ in technique, quality and size. A wide range of reproductions can today be enjoyed at the beautiful Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens. This museum exhibits an interesting collection of artefacts of Byzantine and early Christian culture: ceramics, paintings, textiles, icons and mosaics. The museum also shows a collection of copies and reproductions dating from the nineteenth and twentieth century, made in various techniques, painted on canvas or paper, using watercolour or charcoal, and produced by either anonymous artists or well-known Greek painters. Here I want to point out the high quality modern reproductions that are also shown on display: holograms.59 In order to develop this intriguing technique, the museum worked closely with the Hellenic Institute of Holography. The holograms reproduce a unique three-dimensional image of the object in its true scale with details rarely seen in museums.60 It produces a remarkable result, a reproduction in two dimensions, but with the impression of three dimensions that no photograph can provide.

Like the cultural artefacts they represent, this exhibition of reproductions is also part of a interesting visual culture. The digital turn presents a new chapter in the history of exhibited reproductions. Today, reproductions show up in special exhibitions devoted to reproductions or integrated in permanent displays of museums in combination with the original artefacts. Sometimes reproductions are the only alternative for the missing or inaccessible original work. Modern means of reproduction are endless and create a fascinating culture of reproductions. Thanks to modern technology the concept of a facsimile can be transposed to any kind of historical artefacts. Paintings by Rembrandt and Van Gogh are reproduced in full size. Books reproduced in facsimile are also regularly part of modern exhibitions. In the elegant exhibition Vogels van formaat. Het meesterwerk van John James Audubon at Teylers Museum in 2007/2008 a copy of Audubon's masterpiece was presented next to a digital version of it. Recently the Tate Modern exhibited the sketch books of Sigmar Polke together with digitised versions to scroll the pages without touching them.61 There are no limits to the size of facsimile reproductions when we look at recent full-size reproductions of the Elgin marbles in the Acropolis Museum in Athens, the facsimile of Egyptian King Tutankhamun's grave in Luxor, or the pyramid of Giza at the foot of the Taihang Mountains in China.62 Visitors today have access to more works of arts and reproductions than ever before. Reproductions

provide new opportunities and practices for the modern visitor to enjoy and appropriate art and culture.

Reception of reproductions

In 2013 the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum opened its doors again after the reconstruction of the main building. A few months earlier the museum had presented it's new website hosting an attractive new digital feature: Rijksstudio.63 (figure 6) This facility offers visitors the opportunity to browse 200,000 reproductions in high resolution of items from the Rijksmuseum's collections. The reproductions can be viewed on screen and details can be zoomed in at a high quality. You can easily select a favourite work or a detail of it and order a reproduction of it, printed on paper, canvas or aluminium as posters, or as a set of postcards. Details of old master paintings can be selected and (3d-) printed on all kinds of fashion products, like clothes, iPhones, scooters or even your car. A Rijksmuseum popup store at the Bijenkorf department stores in Amsterdam and Eindhoven stimulated people to design and make their own creations. The Rijksstudio site offers a wide range of remarkable examples. Reading Madonna's from the sixteenth century are recreated, animals are added to seventeenth century paintings, and old master paintings are transformed in an Andy Warhol kind of style. For centuries the reproduction of works of art used to be the work of specialists skilled in reproduction techniques like engraving or photography. Artists that reproduced their own paintings in engravings are rare, and artists that photographed their own paintings even more so. Thanks to the digital turn this all seems to change. In the digital times any consumer can easily act like a producer re-creating what he wants. And thanks to the 200,000 free-from-copyright works he is allowed to use what he or she wants. Collections of modern digital reproductions are liked and shared immediately on a global scale thanks to social media like Twitter and Facebook. In that respect the Rijksstudio seems to echo the Google Art Project mentioned above. The digital Rijksstudio is a virtual platform, but it is designed with a specific device in mind. In our online landscape the traditional desktop computer is dominated by mobile devices like iPhones, laptops and iPads. Interestingly, the Rijksstudio was designed with the iPad format in mind, easily used by anyone in the living room of every modern home.64 More than desktop computers or iPhones, the iPad reflects the size, use and experience of a regular book, that is easy to handle and read by everyone. Scrolling the Rijksstudio site feels in a way like swiping the pages of a magazine or a book.

Visitors of the digital art collections on the internet are all invited to start their personal collections.65 But where to start? Ever since the eighteenth century amateur art lovers were instructed by print collector's handbooks. A characteristic of this new print-loving public was that their interests, ambitions and financial resources were not matched by experience and expertise. It was

for this public that special collector's handbooks were published, to introduce new amateurs into the world of art. An early specimen, Erste Grundlage zu einer ausgesuchten Sammlung neuer Kupferstiche (1776), was written by Carl Ludwig Junker, who listed print collectors' various motives for collecting: one hoped to gain a reputation as a true connoisseur, another collected purely for pleasure while a third wanted to develop his taste.66 In The Print-Collector's Handbook (1903), the author Alfred Whitman maintained that it was essential for a print collector to have a specific aim in mind, instead of simply buying prints at random: ‘Shall he take a school or a period; a class of prints, such as portraits; a method of engraving, as stipple [...] shall he take a painter and collect engravings after his pictures?’67 The Rijksstudio website does not give you advice on what to select, but it does provide the best practices of other visitors to stimulate your creativity. Popular topics are animals, especially birds and cats, portraits, flowers, landscapes, Rembrandt, Vermeer and Impressionism, but also subjects like sports, death, piano playing, or details like hats and warm hands.



illustratie
Figure 6. Rijksstudio website


Enjoying reproductions

The modern culture of reproductions makes one wonder how people enjoy seeing reproductions in relation to the original works of art.68 Viewing reproductions is a complex process of looking at and comparing the orig-

inal and its adaptation, or, as The Art Journal observed in 1858: ‘People like to see the pictures which live again in engravings; they like to compare the engraving with the original, and thus the engraving attains to a peculiar interest through the power of association [italics rv]’.69 What are the effects of the digital turn in art reproduction for the experience of art and reproductions? It is instructive to keep an eye on the relation between experiencing the original artefact and/or the reproduction of it. Often, people see the reproductions before they happen to see the original work. Practically all Japanese tourists probably know Van Gogh's Sunflowers, thanks to reproductions, before they are standing in line for the original painted version. Therefore I want to reflect on these particular situations in experiencing art and reproductions: firstly, seeing the reproduction before the original, secondly: seeing the reproduction simultaneously with the original, thirdly: seeing the reproduction after seeing the original. Finally, I want to consider the experience of reproductions without the original. In other words, in what way can a reproduction be an alternative or substitution for the original artefact?

Firstly, it is important to realise that people in the overload of modern visual culture mostly experience the reproduction before the original. Characteristically, the visit of the museum starts with a visit of the website of the museum. Modern museum are well aware of this practice and present catchy selections of the highlights of the collections on their websites. YouTube even offers a wide range of flashy movies produced by museums to present their masterpieces to the audience that is planning their visit. Of course, these reproductions already ‘colour’ the impression of the potential visitor. As early as 1859 Baudelaire observed: ‘There exists in this world, even in the world of artists, people who go to the Louvre,... and settle down dreamily in front of one of the paintings most widely popularised in print, a Titian or a Raphael; later, they leave, satisfied, often murmuring to themselves: I know my museum’.70 Thanks to the reproductions the visitor will not leave out the key works of the collection during his visit. We can also turn this observation around: works that are not reproduced do not have this advantage and can easily be neglected. Of course people can see all the highlights in the museum, but generally they probably particularly enjoy the works that they have already seen in reproduction in advance. Seeing the original work, seems to be in reality recognising the original thanks to the reproductions seen before.

Secondly, visitors visit galleries of the museum and will hold their pace at the highlights of the collection. Obviously, many visitors are happy to see the masterpieces that they have wanted to see for years and travelled thousands of miles to experience. Thanks to modern devices one has reproductions at hand to compare with the original, but as mentioned before, as early as the nineteenth century exhibition practices existed to show original paintings together with reproductions of it. Today, many visitors like to freeze the moment they saw their favourite painting with their own eyes and share this with friends and family far away. Thanks to your iPhone it is quite easy to make a selfie in front of your favourite work of art. Currently, there is a fascinating culture of selfies that goes beyond the scope of this article. Here I want to point only at the culture of selfies in museums by visitors reproducing their favourite work and sharing it in real time

with friends. In a way, it seems to be the most direct appropriation of works of art. This direct reproduction and distribution of art reproduction can be considered as the quintessence of modern art reproduction.

Thirdly, after enjoying the museum presentation and its masterpieces, people like to buy reproductions of their favourite work in the form of postcards, posters, or illustrated catalogues. This social practice of buying reproductions after visiting a museum is as old as museums themselves. The Rijksmuseum for example offered several kinds of (illustrated) catalogues of the collection as early as the nineteenth century. Interestingly, the first ones offered information on the masterpieces and were mainly used during the visit. After the introduction of text cards on the museum walls, the illustrated catalogues were transformed to glossy publications to be enjoyed at home after the visit. Today, museum shops are offering more and more reproductions, books and gadgets as remembrances of the original experience. This function of the reproduction as a memory of the original is stressed from Giorgio Vasari onwards. Goethe admired Raphael while looking at the prints by Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael's paintings.71 In the words of Roger de Pilles, reproductions can function as an aide-memoire, as a souvenir of the original. The art historian E.H. Gombrich, too, stressed this in his book The Use of Images: ‘It is intended to serve as a reminder, a souvenir and to rival the book as a source of knowledge’.72

Finally, I want to reflect on the situation of experiencing a reproduction without the original on show. Can a reproduction be a useful substitute for the original work of art? A reproduction can by definition not reproduce the authenticity of the original work of art. However, it is important to specify this quality of authenticity. We can recognise the authenticity of the original image in a way a restored painting can provide an impression of the original image. Compositions can be meaningfully restored in colour or size thanks to digital reproductions. Reproductions can also provide an instructive overall view of a complete oeuvre, as Vincent van Gogh already stated with regard to Jean-Francois Millet and the prints after his work, as he wrote to his brother Theo:

It always pleases me that the Millets are holding their own. But how I would like to see more good reproductions of Millet. So that it can reach the common folk. The body of work is above all sublime considered as a whole, and it will become more and more difficult to form an idea of it when the paintings are dispersed.73

In the same way the high resolution Van Gogh reproductions provided an interesting overview of Van Gogh's oeuvre. At the same time it is of course important to realise that we are looking at the image of the work, not at the original unique, fragile work of art.

Therefore, we can also recognise the authenticity of the original object like a seventeenth-century painting on panel. Furthermore, we can describe the authenticity of the original function of the painting as a former altarpiece with a religious function. Finally, we can recognise the authenticity of the original context of the painting in its original chapel and church. Looking at an authentic cultural artefact it shows you the real thing, but usually not in its authentic function and context as a result of its fragile condition. Looking at Caravaggio's Calling of St Matthew above the altar in its original chapel of the San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome provides a different experience of authenticity compared to all the beautiful altarpieces in the National Gallery or the Louvre.

Why does the original object and its authentic quality still matter with so much beautiful reproductions at hand? I want to ponder briefly on the special relation between the author and his work. This is a slippery subject in the history of art where conceptual artists ironically reacted to this special bond between the ‘original’ artist and his ‘original’ work of art. This special relation between the author and his work can be traced back in the history of art in the eighteenth century with the awakening of the Romantic genius. This Romantic concept of the artist is also reflected by the protection of this special relation between the author and his work by the development of intellectual property. The history of copyright is an intriguing topic that attracted my interest before.74 Intellectual property is based on the conceptual bond between the author and his work, but thanks to modern digital technology that special relation between the author and his work can be transformed or even completely deleted. However, as intellectual property is influenced by technology, it is also based on concepts of legal property developed along the same lines, historically and morally, as human rights. Although we can break the bond between the author and his work from a technological point of view, this leaves open the question whether we are willing to deny this relationship from a moral-legal point of view. Even the most avant-garde artist in the digital era who gives away his work for free to everyone inspired by ideas of creative commons, will probably protest when his contribution is denied and signed by someone else. I return to my question of why we care about the original, authentic object. I think we care about the original object, because we care about the person who created it, no matter what kind a technique he or she has used. In a culture more and more dominated by virtual reality, the unique quality and attractiveness of authenticity seems to be more - instead of less - articulated and appreciated. Reproductions, published in books, on the internet, or as independent objects, stimulate to appreciate the original work even more, rather than to depreciate it.

Answering the question about how we experience reproduction in relation to the original work depends on our approach and focus. If you want to enjoy the image of the picture, a reproduction will perfectly do as a postcard or as an expensive relievo reproduction above the couch in your living room. When you want to have an overview of the oeuvre of an artist, a collection of real size reproductions can be useful to have a glimpse of all the works of art, whether Van Goghs or Rembrandts. When you want to experience ‘the real thing’, you have to be aware that the

original work is often shown out of its authentic context. The modern visitor has to be constantly aware of what he sees, and what he wants to see considering the different aspects of authenticity. Especially when reproductions are integrated in the presentation with the originals you have to stay alert. Sometimes a reproduction can do perfectly, sometimes the original is not original enough. Anytime, anyhow, it is interesting to be aware of the ‘aura’ of the original and the reproduction we are facing with its specific quality, quantity and place in the history of visual culture.

The reproduction turns original

Remarkably, reproductions can sometimes offer a unique experience that the original cannot present turning the reproductions into originals.75 Thanks to new 3d printing technology the original texture of the work can be reproduced, more than just the image of it. More than just to see the work, these reconstructions make it possible to even touch and feel it. Recently, the Van Gogh Museum exhibited a 3d reproduction of works by Vincent van Gogh for visitors to feel the texture of the painted originals. During recent years there has been an increasing tendency to present works of visual art for visually handicapped visitors. Museums around the globe organise ‘touch tours’ for blind and partially sighted people. For example the Victoria & Albert Museum in London tries to improve the accessibility of the museum and its collections. ‘The museum considers how it can improve the visitor experience by removing the physical barriers, staff training, providing touch objects and tactile books, as well as looking to the future to see how technology can play a part in improving access’.76 The British Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art too present touch tours that include specially made 3d tactile representations of works of art.77

To conclude, a reproduction can even turn into an original work of art. The recently reopened Mauritshuis started an interesting project with Vermeer's Girl with a pearl earring. This masterpiece is the most reproduced work of the Mauritshuis' collection and admired all over the world. Thousands of people enjoy a poster of Vermeer's beautiful painting in their homes. The museum invited everyone to take a picture of their interior with the reproduction of the Girl with the pearl earring and share it on Facebook and the special Facebook App of the museum. A lucky winner was selected by the museum, whose interior was reproduced full-size in a special gallery, except for the reproduction of Vermeer's painting, which was replaced by the original for one day. The winner could, for one day, enjoy the masterpiece in the context of his interior. That provided a fascinating selfie of the original Vermeer in the reproduction of the interior in the museum. Anyway, in the past and the present, people like to compare originals with reproductions. And, like the art critic Hendrik Bremmer stressed in 1906, if you look well at your reproductions, you can see more.78


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