Van Gogh Prints In 3D: Almost the Real Thing For $34,000

dryriver writes "The Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam has developed high-quality 3D reproductions of some of its finest paintings, with what it describes as the most advanced copying technique ever seen. Axel Rüger, the museum's director, said: "It really is the next generation of reproductions because they go into the third dimension. If you're a layman, they are pretty indistinguishable [from the originals]. Of course, if you're a connoisseur and you look more closely, you can see the difference. Each reproduction is priced £22,000 – somewhat more than the cost of a postcard or poster. But the museum is hoping to increase access to pictures which, if they were sold, would go for tens of millions of pounds to Russian oligarchs or American billionaires. The replicas, called Relievos, are being created by the museum in partnership with Fujifilm, with which it has had an exclusive deal for three years. Such is the complexity of the technology, known as Reliefography, that it has taken more than seven years to develop and only three a day can be made. It combines a 3D scan of the painting with a high-resolution print. The "super-accurate" reproduction even extends to the frame and the back of the painting. Every Relievo is numbered and approved by a museum curator. There is a limited edition of 260 copies per painting."

Comments

Re:Before you discount Pollock out of hand...

[girlintraining]

Often imitated never equaled. Abstract expressionism was, and often remains, a high-brow art con game. That much is obvious. But many critics who were otherwise unimpressed by the 'abstract movement' felt that its founder...

Okay, look. I did a term paper on him. I'm not dismissing him out of hand, I'm dismissing him after a detailed analysis of his work. 25% of my grade for Art History depended on me being able to offer a detailed analysis of his work. Ignoring the fact that of all the artists that we drew straws for (well, strips of paper), and I got the short one... I think I can speak authoritatively on Pollock's work.

Anyway, I don't feel what Pollock was doing constituted high art. While you're right in that the process itself introduces design elements, intended or not, I consider the will of the artists and the technical proficiency by which he (or she) goes about realizing that vision to be the primary elements of artistic merit. Pollock was "on to something", sure, but he never developed it to a usable and proficient level... and neither has anyone else.

I'll tell you the same thing I told my professor (who begrudgingly gave me a 'B' on the paper, and asked me and only me to defend my essay in front of the whole class!), which is that if I were to show Pollock's work side by side with the paint drizzlings of a 5 year old with a brush asked to run back and forth across the canvas... how many laypeople could tell the difference? I argued that everyone has an innate sense of design, and while people's tastes may differ, almost all pieces of art display some level of consideration -- that is, the will of the artist. It isn't just a random hodge-podge of work. Even the Dadaists were very deliberate in their choice of "anti art", and it is this will, this force of personality, which I feel Pollock lacked. He was engaging in method without vision, and that, I feel, isn't art. Several of my classmates agreed. For something to truly meet the standard of artistic expression and to have artistic merit, academically or otherwise, there needs to be a clear expression of the artist's desire in the work. Other than perhaps the choice of color for the paint, I do not feel the layperson could find this expression in any of Pollock's exhaulted works.

As I concluded at the end of my Q&A with the professor (did I mention how unhappy he was with me?), one does not necessarily have to be a success in the art world to be famous... the Titanic is a very famous ship precisely because it sank. And if you ask me, Pollock is that era of American art's Titanic. There is perhaps merit in his work, but only in how miserably it failed; If you ask me, his work should be used as a warning to other artists not to get so lost in the abstract that your work becomes a random jumble of design elements.

Re:If you haven't seen the paintings in person...

[wbr1]

I paint some as a hobby, and Van Gogh is one of my favorites, as is Dali. The thick paint technique you are referring to is called impasto. When done well it adds depth, texture and -real- shadow/shading (that changes with the light) to a painting. It is a very difficult thing to do well IMHO. In addition it adds quite a bit of weight to the canvas, and the different layers of paint can separate, making the entire painting much more fragile.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impasto