Having already started to look into the mechanical art world through type, this weeks lecture followed on from that, addressing the emergence of print in an increasingly industrial society.
Working Class Industry
It is undeniable that fine art paintings and sculpture have a certain aura surrounding them through their tradition, creativity and autonomy and so a process that produces outcomes on a mass scale is surely in no competition of hierarchy. I am interested in how the connection the masses had with print as an industrial process might challenge this. Fine Arts have always operated a high status, inaccessible to the working class, and only associated with those who can afford them. The industrial revolution evidently broke down these barriers by introducing art and design to the masses. Since mechanical processes were at the forefront of jobs during the industrial revolution, the working class came into contact with these production methods and could share the status of this mechanical produce. The very nature of print as a mechanical, mass process, brings it to an almost universal audience, it's maker could be anyone, challenging the need to elevate oneself to the level of a painting, as suggested by the common architectural decision to use steps to lead up to an art gallery, instead, being readily available in working class society.
John Martin Belshazzar's Feast, 1820
Aura and Reproduction
Similarly, the lecture made me question the aura of the fine arts, and the so-called 'culture' of art and design. While print as a mass process does not share the aura of a one-off, handmade painting, it is unpredictable and captures unique curiosities in a very similar way. I learnt that the capabilities of mechanical print to produce large scale outputs was frowned upon as being art for the masses, for those who could not afford 'real' art, yet I question this approach with consideration of reproduction.
John Martin's Belshazzar's Feast, 1820, initiated this idea of reproduction, a secondary market that almost exploits the fame of high art, exploiting its aura and bringing it to the masses. Comparing the reproduction of a fine art painting with the mass production of a print seems challenging. Recreating a famous painting for the sake of consumerism seems to strip any aura that work had by removing its autonomy and hierarchy. Alternatively, the conscious decision to carry out a 100 unit print run may work for a consumerist purpose, yet the marks and alignment errors made in the process allow these prints to maintain a degree of autonomy, and indeed support the power of the working class.
Hand blocking at William Morris workshop
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