digital lies -- seeing what’s real

At this point there’s no photograph I’d believe, either by content or graphic quality. Is the flower really that color, is the waterfall really that tall, is there anywhere a human so perfect -- maybe, but you sure can’t be sure by looking at a digital image. This is an interesting point for art because there’s always been, since the advent of the camera and even before, a question of where does the value lie in a work of art? Is it in the quaint antiquity in a misty landscape, the milkmaid’s shy smile, the grandeur of snow-peaks, or is it something about the way it’s painted, whatever it is?

The abstract expressionists sought to answer the question with brutal finality. They removed content entirely so that painting itself was all there was left, and it did make the point but didn’t change the facts. It’s always been the case that quality in a work of art is in its execution and that subject is only the vehicle and not the destination. Once established and accepted all around this makes the original work of art the only visual image you’ll ever see with any claim to individual integrity and inherent value. This can be a tricky, almost esoteric notion in these days of perfect facsimiles, since the original art has value and it’s identical clone won’t ever -- there’s a reason.

So what, these days, has in itself inherent value, and just around the corner from the 3-D printed living room it’s a legitimate question. The answer, since the beginning of time, has been ‘what’s rare, hard to get, only possessed by a few,’ and in the end that will turn out to be anything made by a human hand. The better it’s made the better, because that will make it more rare still. It’s a simple equation. Original art, oddly enough, does not depreciate over time but only becomes more valuable as it becomes more rare, as notoriously in the case of the artist’s death.

It should be possible to bring the same criteria to the judging of any work of art, how well it’s made and its final impact, without considering subject at all, and what an interesting faculty to develop as the value of almost everything else dissolves in an ocean of digital open-accessibility. Knowing about art is about to become the new life-jacket in rising tides.