Is Google bringing us too close to art?
April 3 2013
Picture: Google Art Project/Albertina/detail from Durer's 1503, 'The Lare Piece of Turf'
There's an interesting, if slightly loopy article in The Daily Dot by art historian Professor James Elkins, about the effect of Google on art history:
[...] we are now seeing things more closely than we should, than we were ever meant to. That is particularly true in the case of artworks that are uploaded at very high resolutions—so high that we see them more closely than the artists ever intended.
No evidence is produced to back up the claim that 'artists' never intended us to look at their work close up, or under magnification. And no wonder, because it's mainly nonsense. True, Godfrey Kneller once upbraided someone for looking at his paintings too closely, by saying, 'my pictures are not for smelling of'. But I suspect that the likes of Holbein and Durer, not to mention miniaturists like Nicholas Hilliard, would have delighted in viewers admiring the intricate detail of their work. In any case, as an empiricist I always take as my starting point the artist Jonathan Richardson's maxim, in his treatise on connoisseurship:
In making our Remarks upon a Picture of a Drawing, we are only to consider what we Find, without any Regard to what, perhaps, the Master Intended. 'Tis commonly said of Commentators, that they discover more Beauties than the Author ever thought of.
In other words, beware of anyone who speaks of 'what the artist intended'. Professor Elkins' remarks strike a chord here on AHN, because regular readers will know that I place great emphasis on the art of close-looking. It's an essential part of learning to be a connoisseur, which in turn is an essential skill that all art historians and art lovers should aspire to practice. By only looking at pictures from afar, or as Professor Elkins assumes, 'as the artist intended', not only we can never learn the trademark techniques that make up an artist's technique, but we also lose part of our knowledge of how they worked. Understanding the craft of painting is vital, and enjoyable. Reducing artists to simple conjurors of composition, mere storytellers, is foolish.
Update - a reader writes:
Your comments in AHN on James Elkins' article about the Google Art Project are (as always) full of sense. I have in the past much enjoyed your reports of braving the disfavour of custodians at public galleries by your practice of close-looking, and I don't doubt its value.
It strikes me that Elkins may be making the wrong objection, as it were, and that Google's inadequacy as a tool for the connoisseur is not the short distance, but the lack of depth. One of the (many) reasons why Pointillist works (for example) are so much more striking in reality than in reproduction is that they aren't at all flat, and their colours leap and flash as the viewer moves round them.
However, this would not necessarily rule out the use of reproductions as a scholarly tool, if we could recover a sense of depth using raking light. I'm aware that this is already done by art and archaeology photographers, but it is now possible to take the practice beyond creating a series of photos taken at different times of day.
Perhaps I could direct your readers' attention to this web page, illustrating Hewlett Packard's use of 'reflectance imaging' for the ancient Antikythera mechanism.
If one clicks on these images, and uses the mouse to click-and-drag across the image, one can direct the raking light at will, to bring out particular details. You will see that it's very easy to control, and effective in bringing out detail. The technique has been extensively used by the different Antikythera teams to examine the artefact via the internet.
I would suppose that the same technique could also be used as a scholarly tool for the art historian, and would also enhance the experience of viewing a reproduction for all art-lovers. I'd be very interested in hearing your expert view on this.
There is, inevitably, a technical drawback: the camera-and-lighting rig used for the Antikythera mechanism is large and heavy and expensive, and too unwieldy to be brought into most galleries. Perhaps Google could be persuaded to help develop a smaller version. Or perhaps such a thing is already under way? That would be wonderful, though I'm not of course arguing that a photographic reproduction can be anything like a replacement for the object itself.
Fascinating. Google should clearly invest in one of these machines. And imagine sculpture too...
