LOOKING AT ART THROUGH REPRODUCTIONS.

LOOKING AT ART THROUGH REPRODUCTIONS. I realize that even though I have lived near a number of museums, most of my experience of art has been through reproductions. There was a lot of comment that Sister Wendy’s insights into art necessarily came primarily through reproductions because of her religious vocation, and that is when I realized that that is also my situation and that of most people. For that reason, this Google art project site is very important. (The link is at googleartproject.com.) Some of the paintings are reproduced in a detail that could not be approximated at the actual museum without bringing guards running at you. Consider the magnification that is possible at Van Gogh’s painting of his bedroom shown here. (You get magnification by manipulating the little box that appears in the lower right hand corner of the screen.) The weak point of reproductions 25 years ago was the accuracy of the color. There is great improvement in the colors here and at other internet sites. Are the reproductions better than the museum experience? Well, certainly for the museums that I can’t visit regularly, which means any of the museums outside New York.