Pascal wrote to me:
Mentioned the Garden of Earthly Delights (below) to my Mom yesterday.
She said "What's the point?"
I think she's a bit old-fashioned about everything internetty and "virtual"...
I explained that not everyone can take the plane to travel all the way to a museum to see this in equivalent quality. She still wasn't convinced.
A writer wrote about this around maybe 1997, Dave Sim who made the Cerebus comic. He said he couldn’t see the point of viewing art on a small bad monitor ("postage-stamp-sized", the standard derogatory). I told him it was just a matter of time, and resolution (in two definitions).
I think Dave still doesn’t even have a computer, he never seemed at all interested, so he may not know this (and probably doesn't care), but viewing color art on a good 27-inch monitor beats the hell out of viewing his comics, which for economic forces are smaller, and have no color. (I'm talking about visually here. Artistically, his works beats most everything.)
Anybody who cares about getting art to people, and has seen a big and good monitor, has a quite limited horizon if they can’t see the blessing of the net.
I’ll bet many of these people have reproduction posters of art on their walls. And I’ll bet the color is far from as good as a good scan on a good monitor (in part simple because it's lit).
In fact I didn’t even realize it, even though I’d been an advocate for many years, even written an article about art on screens in 1999. When I first got a 30-inch monitor, my viewpoint on photos and art totally changed, the monitor was suddenly a viewing gallery as well as a work studio. This was a surprise for me, I just got the bigger one for productivity reasons, the aesthetics gain was a bonus.
We are only in the infancy of this, of course. In due course, cheap, flat, flexible, colorful, pin-sharp monitors will be everywhere. They may even get so cheap they are virtually disposable. One may for example have all the walls papered with screen material, and one can distribute one's current favorite art in the sizes and places of the moment, or have the collection rotate. (Or of course one may choose virtual picture windows on some of them.) Or less may do it.
I'll bet some museums will make services available, some free some not, of their current exhibition, so you can have it on your own wall. This could be good business for them, since it would cost them very little, but they could stream to many more people than they physically have space for. And of course it won't be limited, like physical museums, to the current exhibition. Museums can finally start making money on the large collections they have in dead space in the basements.
8 comments:
Planck length is the resolution of time.
I can't see myself ever getting a monitor that big. 30 inches? I'd have to sit across the room. Otherwise it would give me a headache.
Agree completely. I had a large reproduction of the Bosch over my mantelpiece. The big scan (on a mere 23" monitor) is significantly more of a pleasure to look at.
I finally have a 27 inch monitor. Funny thing is now when I share images I share really large ones that look good to me on my monitor\, even though I realize many people are using cell phones and ipads to look at them.
I think one of the ideas is to *not* keep the brightness at 100%. 70% is more like it.
For me it's just like a Sunday newspaper: you rarely try to take it all in a once, you just use sections at a time. But you don't have to shift apps all the time to see other things when you want.
I have two 30-inchers. The handful of apps I use the most have their usual spaces over those two, and their different windows too. For example in my web editing app I have the four most-used pages open and fully visible all the time.
John,
Yes, it's funny how one's personal situation changes one's view. It was only after I got the the 30-incher (about 8 years ago) that I felt I had to add larger images to my commercial girlie-pic sites. Before that, the 900-pixel images had seen adequate, but suddenly they drowned in the big display. And I'm very glad I did that, because for many customer as well as for myself, the larger images (which I've made larger in two steps since) are a great thing.
Thanks, David, good to hear of an apples-to-apples comparison.
One may for example have all the walls papered with screen material, and one can distribute one's current favorite art in the sizes and places of the moment, or have the collection rotate.
Sounds like Fahrenheit 451. Then there's the advertising industry.
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