Reproduction is art

In this modern day reproduction is everywhere you look. Whether it be paintings made into magnets, or celebrities faces on a t-shirt you’re wearing. It’s everywhere.

In chapter one of “Ways of Seeing” the author, John Berger, discusses the potential harms of replication. He describes how seeing a replication before seeing the original work can take away from the artist and their intentions behind it. Even showing the art work and having someone else’s description next to it can take away from it and what your initial thought would be if you saw the piece without any sort of description.

While I do agree there can be some potential harms with replication, especially in this day and age with social media where someone can replicate your whole social media page, I believe overall replicating art is a good thing. To me reproduction is a form of art. If you think about it everything is reproduced in some way or another. When you look at a landscape photograph that is a reproduction of the land. A portrait painting of someone is a reproduction of the person through the painters eyes. Even an abstract painting is a reproduction of what’s originally in the painters head. Describing the art piece with words could even be considered a reproduction of it. Now you might say that reproducing something like classic art is different but it’s not. When people reproduce classic art they put their ever so slight artistic influence over it however they reproduce it. Whether it be on a magnet, a shirt, or a smaller painting of the original painting. I’d like to think classical painters would look at these reproductions as a compliment. After all, imitation is the greatest form of flattery there is.

Another way reproduction is a good thing is accessibility. Accessibility is a big deal to me considering that I grew up with disabilities that made it hard for me to leave the house sometimes. There are a lot of individuals with disabilities that leave them bedridden who enjoy art but can’t travel to see the actual artworks. Without reproducing art there’s a whole audience that might never be able to experience it otherwise. That also applies to reproducing artwork by describing it with words. While I do believe Berger has a point in saying that when you add a description next to an artwork it can take away from your initial thoughts on the piece of art, without it the blind community would have no way to experience it. Some people rely on those words as their only form exposure to the artwork.

There are pros and cons to reproducing artwork as there are pros and cons to everything in this world, but I believe the pros outweigh the cons in this case.