#15 Charles Appel 'Landscape' - 25 Days of Tonalism
Hello and welcome to Tonalist painting with M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is a study after Charles Appel 'Landscape'.
Our video features the progression of this painting from its early underpainting stages on up through the final finishing brushwork. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check it out.
Today, I would like to talk about art reproductions. While I am not an expert in art reproductions nor the art print market, this does not preclude me from having some strong opinions about reproductions.
I was around art reproductions quite a lot in the time that I worked as a picture framer, when I younger. I saw the poster and limited-edition print market explode in the 80s and early 90s first hand. Back then, it used to cost quite a lot of money to make a good quality art reproduction. These days, that is no longer the case.
The advent of computers and high-quality color inkjet printers has made it possible for just about anybody to create a good quality reproduction on their desktop. For this reason and several others, I feel that selling investment art reproductions are now somewhat of a boondoggle.
There are several reasons I do not care for art reproductions:
I'm sure there's a few others that I am not remembering.
Reproductions to have some good qualities as well. They are generally more affordable than originals and give people on a limited income a way to purchase imagery to decorate their home. Other than that, I think they are a waste of time, especially as an investment.
I should clarify here that by reproductions, I am not referring to hand pulled prints like etchings, wood blocks or lithographs. These types of prints were created specifically handmade and the print is a final part of the artistic process.
I was quite surprised when I first started becoming involved with landscape painting while still living in California. I went to several galleries near where I lived and saw lots of reproductions printed on canvas and stretched over the typical 1 inch stretcher bar, being sold for big bucks. Maybe it's because I was involved with graphic art and illustration for so many years as a commercial artist that I saw this practice as essentially bankrupt, at least as far as an investment in art goes.
This leads me to my biggest issue with reproductions and that is the fact that no reproduction captures all of the qualities of the original. This includes not just the two-dimensional color information but the overall texture and luminosity of the original painting.
There is some new technology now available that will actually reproduce the three-dimensional qualities of a painting and I expect this technology to become cheaper and cheaper, to the point where it is possible to reproduce more realistic copies of original paintings. Still, I've never seen a reproduction that equaled or bettered the original and I don't expect to anytime soon.
There is one other very important factor to consider about the art reproduction market. It keeps people from buying more original art and thus from supporting the work of artists creating original paintings. Because there is so many cheap or not so cheap reproductions available, it muddies the water of the art market. Let's face it, there is a limited amount of buyers for artwork in the first place.
I would like to see a lot more support of original art by galleries and other venues where artwork is being sold. In a world full of visual images the original painting is still something special that deserves to be treated like the valuable commodity that it is.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
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| Painted after - ' 'Landscape' by Charles Appel Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood panel |
Our video features the progression of this painting from its early underpainting stages on up through the final finishing brushwork. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check it out.
Today, I would like to talk about art reproductions. While I am not an expert in art reproductions nor the art print market, this does not preclude me from having some strong opinions about reproductions.
I was around art reproductions quite a lot in the time that I worked as a picture framer, when I younger. I saw the poster and limited-edition print market explode in the 80s and early 90s first hand. Back then, it used to cost quite a lot of money to make a good quality art reproduction. These days, that is no longer the case.
The advent of computers and high-quality color inkjet printers has made it possible for just about anybody to create a good quality reproduction on their desktop. For this reason and several others, I feel that selling investment art reproductions are now somewhat of a boondoggle.
There are several reasons I do not care for art reproductions:
- Anybody can do it now.
- You never have any real way of knowing if a supposedly limited-edition is indeed limited due to modern-day technology.
- A reproduction is just a facsimile of the original. It does not contain anything more than the two-dimensional visual information of the original.
- The plethora of cheaply made reproductions on the market diminishes the value of original artwork in general.
I'm sure there's a few others that I am not remembering.
Reproductions to have some good qualities as well. They are generally more affordable than originals and give people on a limited income a way to purchase imagery to decorate their home. Other than that, I think they are a waste of time, especially as an investment.
I should clarify here that by reproductions, I am not referring to hand pulled prints like etchings, wood blocks or lithographs. These types of prints were created specifically handmade and the print is a final part of the artistic process.
I was quite surprised when I first started becoming involved with landscape painting while still living in California. I went to several galleries near where I lived and saw lots of reproductions printed on canvas and stretched over the typical 1 inch stretcher bar, being sold for big bucks. Maybe it's because I was involved with graphic art and illustration for so many years as a commercial artist that I saw this practice as essentially bankrupt, at least as far as an investment in art goes.
This leads me to my biggest issue with reproductions and that is the fact that no reproduction captures all of the qualities of the original. This includes not just the two-dimensional color information but the overall texture and luminosity of the original painting.
There is some new technology now available that will actually reproduce the three-dimensional qualities of a painting and I expect this technology to become cheaper and cheaper, to the point where it is possible to reproduce more realistic copies of original paintings. Still, I've never seen a reproduction that equaled or bettered the original and I don't expect to anytime soon.
There is one other very important factor to consider about the art reproduction market. It keeps people from buying more original art and thus from supporting the work of artists creating original paintings. Because there is so many cheap or not so cheap reproductions available, it muddies the water of the art market. Let's face it, there is a limited amount of buyers for artwork in the first place.
I would like to see a lot more support of original art by galleries and other venues where artwork is being sold. In a world full of visual images the original painting is still something special that deserves to be treated like the valuable commodity that it is.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about my study after Charles Appel - 'Landscape'; The thing I was attracted to in Charles's painting was the sky. I feel that his approach to color can be very similar to my own and I enjoy making studies after his paintings.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
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| Original painting' 'Landscape' by Charles Appel |
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| Study by M Francis McCarthy of ' Landscape' by Charles Appel (Detail) |
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| Study by M Francis McCarthy of ' Landscape' by Charles Appel (Detail 2) |