Museum International

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The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction

Werner Schweibenz

To cite this article: Werner Schweibenz (2018) The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction,
Museum International, 70:1-2, 8-21, DOI: 10.1111/muse.12189

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1111/muse.12189

Published online: 11 Jan 2019.

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 The Work of Art
in the Age
of Digital
Reproduction
by Werner Schweibenz
8 | MUSEUM international
W
erner Schweibenz studied Information Science
at the University of Saarland, Germany,
and the University of Missouri-Columbia, U.S.
From 2004 to 2007, he coordinated a digitisation project
of the photo library at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in
Florenz-Max-Planck-Institut. Since 2007, he has been
working for MusIS (MuseumsInformationsSystem),
a service centre that coordinates the documentation
and online exhibitions of the State Museums of
Baden‑Wuerttemberg in Germany. He is a member
of the Competence Network of the German Digital
Library (Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek), the country’s
portal for cultural heritage.

© Factum Arte
MUSEUM international | 9
 T
he present article describes how digital reproductions affect museum ob-
jects in general, and specifically, works of art. Following Walter Benjamin’s
well-known 1936 essay, entitled ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction’, I will describe the influencing characteristics of ubiquitous
digital images by considering the states of aggregation for cultural heritage:
‘material’, ‘immaterial’, and ‘digital’ (Schweibenz 2015, p.131). The complex re-
lationship between original and reproduction is illustrated in specific exam-
ples of artworks, with the aim to elicit current developments that also apply to
museum objects in general. Furthermore, I will argue that this complexity is height-
ened because of the omnipresence of digital images.
The case of the ‘Yellow Milkmaid effect’ illustrates how museum visitors react to mu-
seum objects they have seen many times as online digital reproductions rather than
in a museum context.1 I will look at common reactions visitors have before being
Digital reproduction in the presence of the original, as exemplified in the case of Jan Vermeer’s painting
is only the technical The Milkmaid. My primary argument here is that, from a technical perspective, it is
realisation of a process a logical step from the digital image to the digital facsimile, insofar as the latter is
that has already started produced by three-dimensional print-outs of museum objects. The example of the
in the analogue world. reproduction of Paolo Veronese’s The Wedding at Cana shows how the perfect copy
draws upon the ‘aura’ of the original.2 From the digital facsimile, it is only a short step
to a perfect stylistic copy of an original, which is illustrated with the case of The Next
Rembrandt, a portrait in the style of Rembrandt created by an algorithm.
However, this is only the technical realisation of a process that has already started in
the analogue world. This trend is characterised by creating almost perfect doubles
of originals, and finds a typical expression in the Chinese artist village of Dafen. In
addition to manual reproduction, there are also algorithms that produce images in
certain artistic styles such as DeepArt.io or new creations of artworks by artificial
intelligence. The rapidly growing availability of digital reproductions and digital cre-
ations might also have an impact on the western cultural canon.

The museum object—tangible, intangible and e-tangible

Tby the objects it acquires, conserves,
raditionally, the museum is defined
researches, communicates and exhibits.
In the 1980s, the object-oriented museo-
logical perspective was widened by the
Dfluence the way museum visitors
collectable to accommodate also objects igital images, in particular, will in-
that are grasped through the intervention
of a computer. These are museums’ new perceive physical objects in the mu­seum
‘e-tangibles’ (Parry 2007, p.68). context, insofar as these images can have
a conditioning effect on the visitors’

Hseum objects to the physical objects

discussion on the relationship between
tangible and intangible heritage that
culminated in the UNESCO Convention
for the Safeguarding of the Intangible
Cultural Heritage (2006). Consequently,
in 2007, Ross Parry suggested to add the
digital aspect of collecting to the key
concepts of the museum:
Just as, a quarter of a century ago,
museums grew formally to recognize
‘intangibles’ as valid material to collect
and document, alongside their ‘tangibles’,
so, in the past decade, museums have
extended their conception of the
owever, the relation of digital mu-
is complex and characterised by specif-
ic interdependencies between the object
and the digital reproduction, the medi-
ated and the unmediated experience, the
real and the virtual (Schweibenz 2013,
pp.40-42). As mentioned earlier, this
suggests that the museum has to deal
with three different states of aggregation
for cultural heritage: material, immate-
rial, digital. These states are not opposi-
tions but a realignment of complex con-
ditions (Schröter 2004, p.30).
memory and therefore influence their
experience in the museum. The reason
is that, given their sheer number, perti-
nence, and omnipresence, digital images
exceed by far the effectualness of photo-
graphs.3 Arguably, just as photograph-
ical reproduction changed the relation
of the ‘masses’ to the arts, as Walter
Benjamin postulated in his essay ‘The
Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction’, so too will digital repro-
duction have an even stronger impact
and large-scale consequences (1936, p.7).

Digital images and their likely consequences

Trequisite
he digitisation of images is a pre-
for their dissemination
and availability on the Internet. Digital
images are ubiquitous and available at
any time and in any context. However,
their derivates have powerful effects
that—due to their sheer number and
pertinence—even exceed the impact of
photo­graphy in its heyday.
single-frame video, just as the automo-
bile was initially seen as a horseless car-
riage and radio as wireless telegraphy’
(Mitchell 1992, p.4). Mitchell further
argues that the digital image may look

within the museum context, this might
have consequences for both the digi-
tal image and the museum object, i.e.
the ‘real’ thing the image represents.
Indeed, ubiqui­tous digital images and
I
n a book entitled The Reconfigured Eye, just like a photograph, but that it actu-
William Mitchell cautioned, ‘to re- ally differs as profoundly from a tradi-
gard the digitally encoded, computer-­ tional photograph as does a photograph
processable image as simply a new, from a painting and that the difference
nonchemical form of photograph or as is grounded in fundamental physical

10 | MUSEUM international

characteristics that have cultural conse-
quences (Mitchel 1992, p.4). However,
there is hardly any empirical research
available to support or reject this claim.
Therefore, it is for the moment simply a
construct of ideas that future research
must examine.
Adigital images might in fact recon-
possible cultural consequence is that
figure the eyes of the beholders by form-
ing the memory they have of objects out
of images they saw previously, whether
in a museum context or on a quotidian
basis. Educational theories such as con-
structivism have posited that a visitor’s
prior experience and knowledge both
play a major role in how they experience
objects in the museum context (Hein
1998). Simon Knell explains the psy-
chological aspects in the interaction of
museum object and visitors’ memories,
stressing that the tangible object has an
intangible counterpart in the beholder’s
recollection:
When we stand before the material
object, its intangible qualities seem a part
of it; we cannot isolate them. In a similar
way, the material reality of the object
seems implicitly present whenever
we think about or discuss the object
even though our conversation only ever
invoke its intangible and mutable form.
In both cases, we perceive only one object
(Knell 2012, p.326).
The Last Supper or the complex relationship
between original and reproductions
La prototypical example of the com- App.230 and 252), we know of no Icondition that, from the 1890s until the
eonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper is
plex relationship between the original
and its reproductions. Created between
1495 and 1498 in the refectory of the
Milan cloister Santa Maria delle Grazie,
the wall painting soon deteriorated, not
only because of the untested oil painting
technique Leonardo had used (instead
of the traditional fresco technique), but
also because of the humidity inside the
wall. In the late 1560s, contemporary
artists reported an advanced degrada-
tion of the painting (Marani 1999, p.37).
However, before it withered, the master-
piece had been frequently reproduced in
the form of painted copies and engrav-
ings (Steinberg 2001, pp.19, 230 and 252;
Marani 1999, p.37).
Kject actually consists of the real and Tnor linked to digital images in par-
nell further argues that this one ob-
intangible one, because it is a mental
construction and, as such, ever present
and inescapable. This means that visi-
tors’ perception and memories of what
they saw on digital images prior to en-
countering the museum object might be
influenced by those images. As early as
1987, long before digital images became
omnipresent, Howard Besser formed the
following hypothesis:
Increased access to these images may
lead people to confuse the image with
the artefact that it represents. Eventually,
the image may no longer be viewed as
merely a temporary substitute for the
original, but rather as a permanent
replacement (Besser 1987, p.18).
Oion in pointing out the effect of the
livia Frost expressed a similar opin-
widespread, easily accessible digital im-
ages on the viewers as follows:
As more and more material becomes
available in digital form across the
Internet, the digital surrogate may well
become an increasingly common form
of our experience of objects. To some
extent, and particularly when users
are more accustomed to seeing digital
representations than originals in
museums, users may view the images
as artifacts having their own intrinsic
value rather than as imperfect surrogates
to be compared against the original
(Frost 2002, p.84).
ccording to Leo Steinberg (2001,
earlier instance where the design of a
monumental painting was almost im-
mediately disseminated as prints on pa-
per. Steinberg rightfully emphasises that
Leonardo’s The Last Supper had a crucial
role in promoting the art of reproductive
engraving. As centuries went by, more
and more copies of Leonardo’s The Last
Supper were made out of the many avail-
able copies rather than the deteriorated
original. In this way, a chain of repro-
ductions was formed, in which individ-
ual reproductions became less and less
dependent on an almost faded original.
his line of reasoning is neither new
ticular. In fact, these arguments can be
traced back to the discussion on tradi-
tional photography. With regard to pho-
tographical images, Siegfried Kracauer
observed in 1927 that the multiplied
original tends to vanish behind the mul-
tiplicity of the reproductions, and lives
on as art photography (Kracauer 1927,
p.34). Barbara Savedoff (1993) describes
the relation between objects and photo-
graphic reproductions in further detail.
She states that photography has changed,
perhaps irrevocably, the way we see art
as ‘we have come to identify art with its
photographically reproducible image’
(Savedoff 1993, p.456). However, unlike
Benjamin who claims that reproduction
destroys the aura of the original work of
art, Savedoff argues that its unique value
has not been destroyed by the photog-
raphy.4 Instead, the multitude of repro-
ductions make it difficult for beholders
to discover and appreciate the unique
value of the original. Therefore, Savedoff
concludes that there is a ‘primacy of the
reproduction’ and that ‘our experience
with looking at photographs actually
conditions how we look at art’ and also
on museum objects in general (Savedoff
1993, p.456). In what follows, the possi-
bility that such a contingent effect can
actually occur is illustrated through
the examples of two famous artworks,
Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper and
Jan Vermeer’s The Milkmaid.
n fact, the painting was in such poor
1920s, a frescoed copy of The Last Supper
attributed to one of Leonardo’s chief pu-
pils, Marco d’Oggione, was presented in
the refectory where it ‘helped visitors to
orient themselves as they looked at the
much decayed and over-painted ruin
of Leonardo’s original’ (Fehl 1995, p.7).
Over time, the reproductions of The Last
Supper conserved and shaped the mem-
ory of the ruined original and contribut-
ed to its visibility and dissemination. As
Susan Lambert (1987, p.195) points out,
Leonardo’s Last Supper is an exempla-
ry case to study the effect of reproduc-
tion on our perception of a masterpiece,
which was preserved thanks to its con-
tinuous reproduction in a great range of
media.
MUSEUM international | 11
 Iteresting example of how science and art
n addition, The Last Supper offers an in-
education used reproductions. Instead
of the original, Johann Wolfgang Goethe
consulted a reproduction to write his re-
nowned essay Observations on Leonardo
da Vinci’s celebrated picture of the Last
Supper (1821). As Philipp Fehl points out,
Goethe saw the withered Last Supper
during his Italian journey in 1787 (Fehl
1995, p.10). To be more specific, Goethe
used the popular engraving by Raphael
Morghen, which was based on a drawing
by Teodoro Matteini, itself reproduced
from a copied painting of Leonardo’s The
Last Supper, created for the refectory in
the Hieronymite Convent at Castellazzo
near Milan and attributed to Leonardo’s
pupil Marco d’Oggione (1995, p.10). Fehl
concludes that ‘copy thus leans upon
copy, in various media’, thus forming a
chain of reproductions that preserve the
memory of the withered original. This
example, then, illustrates what Barbara
Savedoff calls ‘the primacy of the repro-
duction’ and supports her thesis that re-
productions define our knowledge of the
original:
Reproductions not only determine how
we know distant and inaccessible works
of art, to a large extent they condition
our knowledge of all art. This is
because viewing the reproduction has
become the paradigmatic art experience
(Savedoff 1993, p.456).
Tbeholders can have an even stronger
he impact of reproductions on the
effect if the photographic image gained a
high degree of familiarity before the first
contact with the original, as Savedoff
continues to argue:
The Yellow Milkmaid effect at the Rijksmuseum
Fig. 1. The Yellow Milkmaid Syndrome. CC0 1.0 Universal Public
Domain Dedication / © Romaine – Wikimedia Commons
12 | MUSEUM international
Photography even conditions our first
hand encounters. When we know
the photographic image first, it can
determine what we see when
we look at the original. Afterwards,
the photograph can determine
what we will remember. The poster,
the post card, the colour plate eventually
replace the painting.
There are several ways in which
our familiarity with photographic
reproductions may determine what
we see when we stand before the original.
We may see only what photographs have
led us to expect, or less blindly, we may
look for what photographs have led
us to expect (Savedoff 1993, p.456).
Tkept in mind when reflecting upon
his is an important aspect to be
the relationship of original and repro-
ductions: photographs and digital im-
ages of famous objects proliferate and
are used in a variety of contexts. At the
same time, the object itself is only ac-
cessible to a comparatively small num-
ber of visitors, as Klaus Müller explains
for The Last Supper. Today, Leonardo’s
work is restored and accessible to visi-
tors. However, due to the restrictive con-
servative and organisational conditions
of the visit, Müller described it as a vir-
tual painting because only a very limit-
ed number of visitors have access to the
original:
Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper is one
of the great paintings of European art.
Housed in Santa Maria delle Grazie
church in Milan, visitors can see it only
in small groups, under tightly controlled
conditions, which include a limited time-
slot and prior reservations. At least,
that’s the theory. In today’s world,
the Last Supper has become a virtual
painting, because few people ever really
get to view it. You can visit the charming
church of Santa Maria (and I did just
that), but then the staff will tell you
that you can make a reservation only
by phone. If you call, the line is always
busy. So there you are, in the middle
of Milan, but da Vinci is as far away
as ever (Müller 2002, p.21).
Wsible, its reproductions, both an-
hile the original is hardly acces-
alogue and digital, are available at all
times, anywhere in the world. Because
of this continuous availability, the re-
productions contribute to the visibility
of the original and increase its fame and
reputation. This indicates that reproduc-
tions do not diminish the worth of the
original, rather to the contrary: ‘as digital
copies multiplied, it would be the origi-
nal objects that would gain value’ (Parry
2007, p.62). This is because there is no
original without a copy and the process
of making a copy indicates the esteem in
which the original is held (Latour and
Lowe 2011, p.278). This means that ‘a
work of art grows in originality in pro-
portion to the quality and abundance of
its copies’ (Latour and Lowe 2011, p.279).
The reason is that, as Mensger argues,
original and reproduction correspond
to each other like the two sides of a coin.
Original and reproduction define each
other ex negativo, and in contrast to the
other (Mensger 2012, p.31). This holds
also true for the digital copies of an orig-
inal as the next section will show.
TSupper evidences that reproductions
he example of Leonardo’s The Last
take on a life of their own, independent-
ly from a withered original. However, an
abundance of digital copies can also in-
fluence what kind of mental image visi-
tors create of a distant original after en-
countering these copies on the Internet.
Although the following example is only
anecdotal evidence, it offers interesting
insights that could initiate empirical re-
search in the direction of how reproduc-
tion changes the relation of the masses
to the arts and to the museum objects
in general (Benjamin 1936, p.37). This
would be an interesting experiment to
verify Walter Benjamin’s claim.
Fig. 2. The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer, c. 1660. © Source: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Tdence is related to Jan Vermeer’s fa-
he aforementioned anecdotal evi-
mous painting The Milkmaid, which is
part of the renowned collection of the
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and a bea-
con for visitors from all over the world.
Most of its reproductions are consult-
ed on the Internet, prior to a visit to the
museum to see the original in all like-
liness. Despite the poor quality of the
yellow-tinted digital reproductions, it
seemed to have a conditioning effect on
the visitors, who retain an image from
a first impression rather than a detailed
inspection. The Rijksmuseum reported
that many visitors in the museum’s shop
did not believe that the postcards on sale
truthfully represented the original paint-
ing by Vermeer, so familiar were they
with the low quality, massively available
yellow-tinted Internet reproductions
(Fig. 1). According to the Rijksmuseum’s
research, there were more than 10,000
copies of Vermeer’s Milkmaid avail-
able online (Verwayen, Arnoldus and
Kaufman 2011, p.2).
Wthe inferior quality of these repro-
hile any expert would easily detect
ductions, an ordinary viewer would be-
lieve they are authentic. In addition, it
has been observed that their perception
of the original is subject to the precon-
ditioning effect of the reproductions. In
response, the Rijksmuseum decided to
take countermeasures against the poor,
yellowish copies by producing a high
resolution image with corresponding
metadata available on the Internet for
free (Verwayen, Arnoldus and Kaufman
2011, p.2; Rijksmuseum n.d.) (Fig. 2).
Tteresting, but it is not representa-
he Rijksmuseum’s reaction is in-
tive. However, it illustrates Martina
Dlugaiczyk’s claim that in the medium
of the digital reproduction, copies in-
form the audience about the originals
even as they serve as their deputies or
surrogates. In this way, a superposition
can take place and the copy superimpos-
es the original stealthily, a consequence
that Siegfried Kracauer had brought
to light in his reflections on tradition-
al photography (Dlugaiczyk 2015, p.98;
Kracauer 1927, p.34).
MUSEUM international | 13
 From the digital image to the digital facsimile
Tavailability online have a consid- Areproductions may be of poorer Hcomes irrelevant when the digital
he digitisation of images and their
erable impact on the perception of
works of art. In this respect, Mark Wolf
rightly states that ‘digital media have
changed art as much as did the process
of mechanical reproduction’ (Wolf 2000,
pp.51-52). However, Wolf ’s statement is
based on the assumption that the recep-
tion of a digital artwork is only possible
by means of a mediating technical de-
vice like a computer screen. Therefore,
digital images cannot replace physical
objects because they lack materiality,
and because ‘digital artworks are depen-
dent on interpretation, and as digitally
abstracted ones, their interpretation is
almost wholly dependent on machines’
(Wolf 2000, p.60).
The digital Veronese
Pat Cana (Nozze di Cana) (1563) Tvertical lines were used, to divide Tby the fact that the flawless reproduc-
aolo Veronese created The Wedding
for the refectory of the San Giorgio
Maggiore cloister in Venice. In 1797, the
large-sized painting (67.29 sq. metres
6.77 m × 9.94 m; 267 in × 391 in) was
added to the Louvre’s collection as a part
of Napoleon’s loot of Italian art. In 2006,
the Fondazione Giorgio Cini instructed
Factum Arte, a firm specialised in the
production of high quality reproduc-
tions, to produce a facsimile of the orig-
inal for the installation in the refectory.
Fnology: it used a non-contact colour
actum Arte applied a specific tech-
scanning system with integrated LED
lights (Latour and Lowe 2011, pp.288-
297). The system recorded at a scale of
1:1 at a maximum resolution of 1,200
dots per inch (dpi). To realise the photo-
graphic rendering, the painting was di-
vided into 450 sections consisting of 18
columns and 25 rows. Each section was
recorded by a scanning unit mounted on
a telescopic mast, and an ultrasonic dis-
tance sensor ensured that the scanning
head was parallel to and in a uniform
distance of eight centimetres from the
surface. The recording was done at 600
dpi with a 16-bit colour depth. Each cap-
ture was 22 by 30.5 centimetres with an
overlap of four centimetres on the hori-
zontal dimension and seven centimetres
on the vertical dimension, the overlap
served for stitching the images together.
14 | MUSEUM international
nother element that surfaces is that
quality, for reasons that Harald Krämer
describes as follows: the computer re-
duces the digital picture to the moni-
tor’s dimensions, blurs the image and
provides only a shallow depth of field,
and the impact of material and spatial
impression are lost (Krämer 1994, p.99).
Consequently, the perception on a com-
puter screen is reduced and impaired
compared to the perception of the orig-
inal object. Despite the progress in dis-
play technology, computer or mobile
device screens still constitute the limita-
tions of such mediated experience.
o avoid distortions, horizontal and
the painting into 1 by 2 metre blocks. In
addition, colour photographs were tak-
en for colour corrections. The painting
was printed on a purpose-built flatbed
printer using pigment inks in seven co-
lours that were applied to a gesso-coated
canvas. The canvas was glued to panels
made of 20-millimeter-thick aluminium
panels. Each panel was printed twice to
achieve an accurate matching of colour
and surface. The panels were spliced to-
gether with irregular cuts following the
features in the painting; the joins were
retouched by trained conservators.
Finally, the facsimile was retouched us-
ing golden varnish. This final step and
the ultimate surface control were done
when the facsimile was in its final posi-
tion and with the lighting that exists in
the refectory (Fig. 3).
Ilarge side windows and interacting
nstalled at the original site, lit by two
with Palladio’s architecture, the digital
facsimile had a vivid impact on the au-
dience, although the visitors were aware
that Veronese’s original was located in
the Louvre in Paris and that they were in
the presence of a facsimile. In a thought
experiment, Bruno Latour and Adam
Lowe describe this effect on the mind of
fictitious viewers as a ‘terrible cognitive
dissonance’ (2011, pp. 277 and 285).
owever, ‘mediated’ experience be-
copy takes on a physical form again,
for example, by printing it in three di-
mensions as a digital facsimile. Three-
dimensional reprints of artworks based
on high-resolution images of originals
has reached a new quality in recent years.
This is exemplified in the next section
by a digital facsimile of Paolo Veronese’s
painting The Wedding at Cana.
his disruption, they argued, is caused
tion the visitors saw in the original loca-
tion, the refectory, seemed more original
to them than the distant painting in the
Louvre. Visitors to the refectory seemed
to consider the facsimile in San Giorgio
Maggiore to be equivalent to the absent
original. This signifies that the aura sep-
arates from the original object, and is
transferred to the reproduction. Latour
and Lowe thus suggest that ‘the aura of
the original had migrated from Paris to
Venice’, moving from the original paint-
ing to an otherwise perfect reproduction
with only one shortcoming: being a fac-
simile (Latour and Lowe 2011, pp.277f).
So, in spite of the knee-jerk reaction—
‘But this is just a facsimile’—we should
refuse to decide too quickly when
considering the value of either the
original or its reproduction. The real
phenomenon to be accounted for is not
the punctual delineation of one version
from all others but the whole assemblage
made up of one—or several—original(s)
together with its continually re-written
biography (Latour and Lowe 2011,
p.278).
Fig. 3. Adam Lowe studying the finished facsimile in Palladio’s refectory on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. The exact copy
of Veronese’s masterpiece has been put back into its original position on the end wall of the refectory making it possible to understand
the relationship between the painting, the building and the light. © Factum Arte

Fand its high-quality reproduction Tinal and the perfect reproduction Ipoint of departure of a career, which is
rom this point of view, the original he equivalence between the orig- n other words, the original forms the

depend on each other and form a series
of versions, a ‘trajectory’ as Latour and
Lowe call it (2011, pp.282f). Therefore,
the reproduction is not inferior to the
original, but a delineated version of the
trajectory made, following a specific
technique.
is an argument supported by Martina manifested by copies—ideally endlessly.
Dlugaiczyk (2015, p.105), who also ob- The aim is to achieve a perfect copy of
serves that the aura of the original mi- the original.
grates to the copies as soon as the
memories related to the original are
recreated by the reproduction. This re-
inforces Latour and Lowe’s concept of
‘trajectory’: an original necessarily is the

Iof ‘mechanical reproduction’ with the

n effect, Benjamin confused the notion
inequality in the techniques employed
along a trajectory. No matter how me-
chanical a reproduction is, once there is
no huge gap in the process of production
between version n and version n+1, the
clear cut distinction between the origi-
nal and its reproduction becomes less
crucial—and the aura begins to hesitate
and is uncertain where it should land
(Latour and Lowe 2011, p.283).
origin of a lineage.
To say that a work of art grows in
originality in proportion to the quality
and abundance of its copies, is nothing
odd: this is true of the trajectory of any
set of interpretations (Latour and Lowe
2011, p.279).
No matter how mechanical
a reproduction is, once there
is no huge gap in the process
of production between version
n and version n+1, the clear cut
distinction between the original
and its reproduction becomes
less crucial—and the aura begins
to hesitate and is uncertain where
it should land.

MUSEUM international | 15

 The ‘perfect’ copy and its consequences
Iplays an essential role: if the material
n this respect, the quality of the copy
differences between the original and the
copy have disappeared, which is the case
for the digital facsimile of Veronese’s
The Wedding at Cana, the reproduction
can be considered as a perfect copy as
defined by Werner Pommerehne and
Martin Granica:
A perfect reproduction should be
understood as a copy that is totally true
to the original, but not made by an artist
(1995, p.238).
However, the maker does no longer
have to be an artist, ‘as modern
computer-based production
methods have made it possible to
create perfect reproductions of
original (novel, unique) art objects.
These reproductions are no longer
discernible from the original by mere
observation’ (Pommerehne and Granica
1995, p.247).
Bthetic perception is another criteria
esides the status of ‘original’, aes-
that determines the quality of a copy.
According to Maria Reicher, a copy is
perfect if it is indistinguishable from the
original under ideal conditions for aes-
thetic perception (2011, p.64). This leads
Reicher to envisage the question whether
an original should necessarily be consid-
ered to have a higher aesthetic value than
a copy or forgery (Reicher 2011, pp.63f).
Reicher’s response is negative because
the aesthetic properties of a perfect copy
correspond exactly to those of an orig-
inal work of art (Reicher 2011, p.66).
A digital Rembrandt
Ialso new possibilities of reproduction,
n addition to the exact copy, there are
for example, the opportunity to copy
the style of an artist by producing a new
work, in the manner of said artist. This
case illustrates the project ‘The Next
Rembrandt’.
O
n 5 April 2016, a new Rembrandt-
style portrait was presented to
the public in Amsterdam (The Next
Rembrandt Newsroom 2016 online).
Although this portrait resembled a typi-
cal Rembrandt from the 1630s, it was not
created by Rembrandt himself but by a
software project. The objective was not
to create an exact copy, but to recreate a
typical Rembrandt-style portrait. Based
on 346 Rembrandt paintings, which had
been digitised beforehand, facial recog-
nition software analysed 168,263 frag-
ments of the scans in order to identify
16 | MUSEUM international
Likewise, Ariane Mensger observes that
the greater the resemblance between the
original and the copy, the more striking
the differences between the two catego-
ries, both aesthetically and ideational-
ly (Mensger 2012, p.30).5 According to
Mensger, the crucial questions that re-
main are what makes a painting an orig-
inal or a copy, and how the traditional-
ly higher regard for the original can be
justified when the copy is perfect. In the
case of digitally produced and printed
facsimiles that, without question, are
perfect copies, there is no easy answer.
Iand affordability of reproduction tech-
n addition, the increasing availability
nology makes the distribution of perfect
copies to a wider audience only a ques-
tion of time. Nowadays, an important
market for large-scale reproductions
already exists in dedicated places, such
as the Chinese artist village of Dafen
near Shenzhen in Guangdong prov-
ince, China, where reproductions are
human-made. Indeed, in Dafen paint-
ers specialise in the production of large
numbers of replicas of oil paintings of
public domain artworks, i.e. artworks
created over 70 years ago. The high qual-
ity reproductions are sold in many coun-
tries for a relatively low price.
the typical style of Rembrandt. Using 150
gigabytes of graphic data, a deep learn-
ing algorithm learned how Rembrandt
typically painted eyes, nose, mouth, col-
lar and hat; how he handled proportions
and the layering of colours.
Fartificial intelligence created a typ-
rom the sum of this information, the
ical portrait in the style of Rembrandt.
The software was programmed by a team
consisting of experts from Microsoft,
scientists of the Delft University of
Technology and art historians from
the Mauritshuis in The Hague and
the Rembrandt House Museum in
Amsterdam, sponsored by the Dutch
bank ING (Brown 2016 online). The
result was a new Rembrandt showing
a bearded man, aged 30 to 40, wearing
a hat and dark clothes, a white collar,
and looking to the right. A printout was
ASunflowers, painted with exactly 400
reproduction of Vincent van Gogh’s
brush strokes, costs only 40 EUR; and
Dafen Village produces some five mil-
lion hand-crafted paintings a year, which
is supposed to equal 60 per cent of the
world market and a volume of sales of
30 million EUR (Dlugaiczyk 2015, p.98f).
These figures enable us to anticipate that
there will also be a substantial market for
digitally produced high quality three-di-
mensional reproductions of artworks,
especially with future prices for facsimi-
les going down due to the growing avail-
ability of high-tech printers.
Aincreasing distribution to a wider
s a consequence of the ever-­
audience, there can be no doubt that
a precise three-dimensional copy will
definitely influence the perception and
appreciation of artworks and museum
objects. The potential impact cannot be
overrated, insofar as the dissemination
of this specific form of digital reproduc-
tions will not be limited to museums,
but made into a cultural commodity.
However, the production of digital fac-
similes will not be the latest technologi-
cal development. Additionally, there will
be digitally created new artworks in the
style of long-gone artists as the example
of The Next Rembrandt indicates.
made with a special 3d printer and ink
in 13 layers on a plastic backing. After
18 months of work, the digitally-created
portrait was presented to the public un-
der the title The Next Rembrandt (Fig. 4).
There can be no
doubt that a precise
three‑dimensional copy
will definitely influence
the perception and
appreciation of artworks
and museum objects.
Fig. 4. The Next Rembrandt, a computer-generated portrait. © ING, Microsoft
Iof this digitally created object was am-
n the world of art history, the reception
bivalent. Art historian and Rembrandt
expert Gary Schwartz praised the repro-
duction thus:
‘The Next Rembrandt’ is a fascinating
exercise in connoisseurship. The
developers deserve credit for setting
themselves to identify the features
that make a Rembrandt a Rembrandt.
That the application of computer
technology allows the results of their
research to be digitized, printed in 3d
and further refined adds a new tool
to the instruments of the connoisseur.
While no one will claim that Rembrandt
can be reduced to an algorithm, this
technique offers an opportunity to test
your own ideas about his paintings
in concrete, visual form (The Next
Rembrandt Newsroom 2016 online).
Bcolleague of his, discovered a num-
y contrast, Ernst van de Wetering, a
ber of shortcomings and errors in the
digitally created portrait, and vehement-
ly decried the project, saying that it was
‘Total BS’ (Enge 2016 online). Likewise,
the art critic Jonathan Jones called the
digitally created Rembrandt in his art
blog for The Guardian ‘a new way to
mock art, made by fools’ and named it ‘a
horrible, tasteless, insensitive and soul-
less travesty of all that is creative in hu-
man nature’ and added that Rembrandt’s
‘art is not a set of algorithms or stylistic
tics that can be recreated by a human or
mechanical imitator’ (Jones 2016).
MUSEUM international | 17
 The original and its double—analogue and digital
Ithe Rembrandt software may not yet Tnearly 45 times its high estimate Tvide a novel artistic painting tool that
ndeed, the deep learning algorithm of
be able to produce a perfect work of art,
but it will be constantly evolving and
will, in the near future certainly deliv-
er an even better result. Much more im-
portant than the level of perfection is the
fact that the software is doing something
that is a particular skill of artists such as
Andy Warhol. According to Hartmut
Engelhardt, the devaluation of the in-
dividual style of a famous artist and the
creation of a template that bundles the
particularities of his or her style; the con-
genial act is to create such a template and
apply it again and again (1978, p.263).
T W
his is exactly what the deep learn-
ing software of The Next Rembrandt
project does. It identified ‘the features
that make a Rembrandt a Rembrandt’, as
Gary Schwartz puts it, and uses a tem-
plate to create new motives in the style
of Rembrandt (The Next Rembrandt
Newsroom 2016 online; Brown 2016
online).
Tcial intelligence algorithm to be an
he next step is to consider an artifi-
artist. In October 2018, Christie’s New
York auctioned off a portrait of Edmond
Belamy, which was created by an algo-
rithm feed out of all manner of por-
traits from the 14th century onwards.
The result of this project, conducted by
the French artist group Obvious, is de-
scribed as follows:
The portrait in its gilt frame depicts a
portly gentleman, possibly French and—
to judge by his dark frockcoat and plain
white collar—a man of the church. The
work appears unfinished: the facial
features are somewhat indistinct and
there are blank areas of canvas. Oddly,
the whole composition is displaced
slightly to the north-west. A label on the
wall states that the sitter is a man named
Edmond Belamy, but the giveaway clue
as to the origins of the work is the artist’s
signature at the bottom right. In cursive
Gallic script it reads: “min G max D
Ex[log(D(x))]+Ez[log(1-D(G(z)))]”
(Christie’s 2018 online).
18 | MUSEUM international
he painting was sold for $432,500,
(Christie’s 2018 online). While the fun-
damental question of whether images
produced by algorithms can be called art
at all is still being addressed, others think
about a future in which art will become a
field of artificial intelligence. Irrespective
of the outcome of this discussion, there
seems to be a market for paintings creat-
ed by algorithms. Considering how the
art scene and art market influence ac-
quisition policies of museums, it might
merely be a matter of time until the first
artwork created by an algorithm is put
on show in a museum.
hat used to be a creative act of
artists such as the master-crafts-
man and former art forger Wolfgang
Beltracchi, who created portraits of the
actor Christoph Waltz in the style of Max
Beckmann or princess Gloria of Thurn
and Taxis in the style of Lucas Cranach,
is now taken over by an algorithm.
Artificial intelligence software such as
DeepArt.io, which was developed by the
Bethge Lab at the University of Tübingen
(Germany), CHILI Lab at the École
Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
(Switzerland) and the Université
Catholique de Louvain (Belgium).
Fig. 5. Examples of image conversion by DeepArt.io. © Bethge Lab
he idea behind DeepArt.io is to pro-
allows customers to create and share pic-
tures in the style of a famous artist with
just a few clicks. Customers upload a
photo and choose a template in their fa-
vourite style. The online service renders
the artwork according to the customer’s
choice. If the user is satisfied with the re-
sult, he or she can order it in different
formats such as a poster, a gallery print
on acrylic glass or as a high-resolution
image file to print on canvas (Fig. 5).
Ttic digital creations in the form of
here is reason to believe that artis-
high quality 3d print-outs could reach
a high demand, in particular as the cost
of production is decreasing, and there-
fore the price. In this way, the prediction
of Walter Benjamin that reproductions
change the relation of the masses to the
arts can be actualised for digital media
and 3d print-outs that provide perfect
copies for a mass market (1936, p.37).
Thus, digital reproductions might have
an effect on the cultural canon formed
by museums. This is especially because
‘investors, art historians and other insid-
ers of the art scene have literally made a
cult out of the original, despite the fact
that good reproductions are just as well
able to offer what is essential for art:
the possibility of aesthetic experience’
(Pommerehne and Granica 1995, p.37).
Digital reproduction and the western cultural canon
Tto the western cultural canon by Ssiderable impact on museums and Blar culture channels of discourse that
raditionally, museums contrib­
uted uch a perspective would have a con- y contrast, social media offer popu-

collecting and presenting objects (Hein
1993, p. 556). Using Internet applications,
they now also reach out to audiences
outside the museum. Therefore, the cru-
cial question is what will happen ‘in the
future, when both images and their audi-
ences increasingly migrate from the mu-
seum collection to the Internet and back
again?’ (Sluis, Stallabrass and Paul 2013,
p.41). Will this increased permeability
between the museum and the Internet
affect the traditional western cultural
canon? At the moment, it is difficult to
answer this question. What might affect
the outcome would be the evaluation
of the effects of original and reproduc-
tion from an aesthetic and educational
perspective:
If—for one thing—in the evaluation of
the originals as well as in the evaluation
of reproductions the aesthetic benefits
prevail, implications for museum
policy could be deduced, at least
concerning educational aspects such
as the formation and development
of aesthetic appreciation. Besides
existing museums, which can be seen
as a ‘refuge for originals’, additional
museums could conceivably function
as ‘cultural multipliers’ by exhibiting
perfect reproductions. This could
lead to a more widespread base for
the evaluation process of art and culture
in society. Due to the relatively low costs,
there would be a chance of offering
aesthetic experience on a wider scale
(Pommerehne and Granica 1995, p.238).
collections—more so than the impact
digitisation and participation currently
have on museums. While museums of-
fer digital collections online and encour-
age users to create personal digital col-
lections out of these works or even new
works, such personal digital collections
systems have not been particularly suc-
cessful in terms of their overall use as re-
search shows. The number of people cre-
ating personal digital collections is less
than one percent of the total number of
online visitors to museum websites and
the majority of those who do create per-
sonal collections never return to look at
them again (Marty 2011, pp.211 and 213).
develop independently from the institu-
tional channels proposed by museums.
At the same time, the attention a work
gains beyond museum walls does not
guarantee that institutional discourse
will adopt it in turn (Sluis, Stallabrass
and Paul 2013, p.37). Institutional and
popular cultures do not necessarily have
to develop independently. The Internet
could serve as a contact zone between
originals and reproductions, as it does
between physical and digital objects as
described by Carl Hogsden and Emma
Poulter (2012, p.266). The concept of the
contact zone is based on a model devel-
oped by James Clifford (1997, pp.188-
219). According to Clifford, the museum
becomes more than a place of consul-
tation and research: it becomes a space
where people who are geographically
and historically separated come togeth-
er. The issue of such a relationship can
also be the cultural canon they want to
share.

T
he work of art has definitely arrived in the age of its digital reproducibility.
Therefore, it is time to reassess the relationship between the original and its
digitally created reproduction, whether a digital image or 3d reproduction.
Museums face a challenge that is not completely new but is actualised
and reinforced by the impact of digital technology.
As opposed to print or photographic reproductions, digital and 3d reproductions
and newly created 3d objects will have a considerably higher impact due to their
increased dissemination and accessibility. Therefore, the effect on museums and their
collections will be faster and stronger. This requires museums to reopen the discussion
on the consequences of perfect copies and reproductions. While the outcome of this
discussion cannot be predicted, my aim in the present article was to provide some
input so as to stimulate the debate, which promises to be very interesting.
According to Susan Lambert, it will also inform us about the relationship between
reproductions and our contemporary culture; as ‘reproductions can provide more
than comment on the subject matter under treatment, and may tell us as much about
the preoccupations of the period of their manufacture as they do about the often
distant, in more senses than time and space, originals’ (Lambert 1987, p.197).

MUSEUM international | 19

 Notes
1 The Museums and Galleries of Scotland
offer the following piece of advice on
‘Re-thinking Digital’: ‘consider the fact that
most people will have seen innumerable
reproductions of the Mona Lisa throughout
their lives, on TV, film, billboards, posters
and digitally. This does not mean they’d be
less likely to want to see the painting “in
person”’ (Museums and Galleries Scotland
online).
2 Benjamin writes: ‘that which withers
in the age of mechanical reproduction
is the aura of the work of art’ because
‘the technique of reproduction detaches
the reproduced object from the domain
of tradition. By making reproductions
it substitutes a plurality of copies for
a unique existence’ (Benjamin 1936, p.221).
Thus, the original work of art loses its
authority. It should also be pointed out that
Benjamin’s is a Marxist perspective, which
argues for the democratisation of culture
for ‘masses’. Technical reproduction,
accordingly, enables the reproduction
‘to meet the beholder halfway’ and thus
being more accessible than the original
itself (Benjamin 1936, p.220).
3 In the present article, ‘effectualness’
means the capability of producing a desired
effect or result.
4 Benjamin argues that the massive
reproduction by photography destroys
the aura of the original work of art,
because mass reproduction replaces its
unique existence by a multitude of copies.
By contrast, Benjamin’s detractors claim
that only by reproduction can originals
acquire fame and that reproduction
augments the aura of an original, instead
of destroying it.
5 Here, ‘ideational’ means ‘consisting of
or referring to ideas or thoughts of objects
not immediately present to the senses’.
20 | MUSEUM international
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