This replicated image of Vincent Van Gogh’s famous painting Starry Night was created with the use today’s technology. At first glance it is unmistakably recognized as Starry Night, but with closer analysis you can see that this replicated image is a lot less detailed. It looks as if this image was created on a tablet with a stylus rather than painted on a canvas with a brush. This image was actually created on an iPhone/ iPad app called the brushes app by artist Jorge Colombo. In Van Gogh’s painting you can see all of the brush strokes and the flecks of multiple different colors integrated throughout the entire piece. This replicated image is smooth compared to the original. It also seems to lack dimensions when compared to the original. The original piece has more noticeable lines and the colors are layered not blended but that is what gives Starry Night character. I choose this image because Starry Night along with many other older painting is often replicated either for personal use or commercial use. Today you can order a canvas, a blanket, a phone case etc. with this image printed on it. The more popular this image becomes and the more it is used the more authentic the original will be. Since this painting is so old copyright laws have expired allowing for the wide commercial use of this famous piece.
This picture shows a eyeball that was made look as if his colored multiple colors. This image has clearly been tampered with and did not originally look like this when the picture was taken. This is an example of image reproduction when an image is taken and can be changed then reproduced several times. This image is also copyrighted. The artist who did this has the rights to this image. Therefore other people are not allowed to reproduce it or use this image without the consent of the artist. This is a great picture with a good representation of modern day art. It is more technology based and not more by hand. This is very interesting picture to me I enjoy the fact how art has changed form over the years.
(Left) Art Rogers, “Puppies” 1985 (Right) Jeff Koons, “String of Puppies” 1988
Art Rogers was a photographer who took the photograph Puppies in 1985 and used it for greeting cards. The image shows a man and a woman each happily holding four puppies in their arms and it delivers a sense of joy to the viewer. About three years later in 1988, artist Jeff Koons used Rogers photograph to create a statue of the image. He brought the image to life with color and human sized figures and made a decent profit off of the statue. Rogers wasn’t too pleased and sued Koons for copyright issues. The court found that the pieces of artwork were too similar and thus, Koons lost and had to pay Rogers for copyrighting his photograph.
I chose these pieces of artwork because it is an important case in terms of appropriation and copyright issues. The artwork took a political turn when Koons was profiting a lot off of Rogers work because it was so similar that it needed to be settled in court. It brings up a lot of questions in terms of appropriation and it made me mainly think, by what means can you really build up upon on someone else’s work? Rogers photography is also significant because it displays more than just a documentation of life, but it reveals photography being used for creative expression. Creative expression that was so powerful that it drove Koons to bring it to life size. In terms of how to settle copyright and appropriation, I found myself leaning with the textbook approach. The textbook mentioned the idea of paying a fee to the artist if you are going to use their art for inspiration and this inspiration of the original piece is clearly shown in the new artists work.
While searching for images, I came across this one by Susie Ray, who has been a copyist for more than 25 years. Her work is so similar to the original even experts can’t tell the difference all the time. What is interesting about the copying of images in her case, is that there are a demand for them, mostly by museums who use them when the original work is being cleaned, restored, or loaned. Susie profits off the copies and her paintings have hung in galleries when the real painting was on loan. What makes copying interest for her, is that she asserts that its important to not have a style of her own but must look like the original artist. She doesn’t sell her paintings to buyers who are not aware that it is a copy before purchasing. She adhere’s to strict copyright laws which permit copying 70 years after the original artist has died. According to this information, I believe the copying of paintings increase the value of the originals and at the same time doesn’t decrease the value of the copy.
This is the famous painting called “The Last Supper” by Leonardo Da Vinci. This picture represents the reaction of the Apostles when Jesus told them all that one of them would betray him and also represents Jesus’ last meal, hence the title, “The Last Supper”. I chose this painting because a lot of people know what it is and how popular this painting is. This painting is not protected under copyright laws in the US or in Italy, where it is now. It was produced before the copyright laws were introduced, so therefore, it is not protected under them. Due to the lack of a copyright, this painting has been changed and manipulated many times into things such as advertisements for movies, greeting cards and funny images to give people a good laugh. This painting has been mass reproduced and is one of the most well known images in the world. Some of the reproductions are just clarified and almost high definition versions of the original, as well as pain replicas of the original. while others have almost nothing to do with the original image. I have never seen any political use of this painting, and I do not think that it could really relate to politics very much due to the fact that the painting is a symbol of religion and not anything government or politics related.
Andy Warhol’s 32 Soup Cans was the image my group was designated to discuss during class on Wednesday. I wanted to take a deeper look at the image as I was intrigued by some of the facts we discovered during class.
The fact that Warhol painted basically the same image for each individual canvas seems highly tedious but stresses the elegance in the simplicity of the image itself. Very easily repeated, a Campbell’s soup does not seem like much at all. The image has no complex differences other than the writing explaining the type of soup. These paintings caused serious commotion in art culture as it represented the commercial subject. A Campbell’s soup can was something that everyone of that time could recognize. It was a common, household image that would not take much interpretation to understand. Everyone could relate in their own personal way but with basically the same image.
This image was obviously a great advertisement for Campbell’s soups. People already knew them as a household item, after this they were solidified in art history. The item itself now has a meaning more than a possible choice for dinner. The soup cans were immortalized by these images and as a result, multiple appropriations have been created since.
During the group activity in class, I was assigned the image of Hopper’s Nighthawks, which depicts three lone diners and a waiter in an anonymous all night diner. I thought that the appropriations I saw while doing the group activity were really interesting, so I wanted to revisit this one… http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l2op8aleri1qzt4xvo1_500.jpg
This image appropriates Hopper’s original Nighthawks, but as I learned in class, this specific painting is in the public domain, so there are no copyright issues in the reproduction and adaptation of the more modern image. I do find this image interesting because it expands on Hopper’s themes of isolation in a large city to the more modern era of technology. In the modern reproduction, the diners are not only anonymous and isolated from one another because of the large city, but also because of the internet and computer technology (as seen because all of the diners are on laptops). This shows that we are become even more isolated from one another in the wake of technological advances because we no longer interact with others, only with our technology.