In the comments to the previous "Fun Facts" posts, Moose wrote:
It's easy to trivialize what the colorist [of Nadar's Liszt portrait] has done. I too find the color overdone. Or perhaps just odd in a photo of that obvious vintage? Would an oil painted portrait with the same colors seem overdone?
Also, there's a reason so many old B&Ws with people in them were toned. I wonder if the original of this image might have been. Pure B&W, as this is on screen, is unkind to our faces.
The colorist has also done something quite good, correcting the unpleasant highlights in the eyes. Nadar was one of the first to experiment with electric lighting—and it wasn't quite right here.
Herewith some alternative amounts of color, and the nicer eyes dropped in so you can see the effect.
Here's Moose's link—take a look. A very nice job.
Of course, I can see the point of discussing this—it's an interesting question aesthetically, and discussing just this sort of thing can help people calibrate their own feelings and tastes towards color in general, not just "colorization."
Personally, whether fortunately or unfortunately, I have an ethical reaction to such issues that tends to supersede further discussion—it's that the creator of a work of art retains "moral ownership" of his or her artwork, and for other people to modify it is, on an ethical level, disrespectful.
It doesn't even matter if Nadar had wanted the image to be in color but didn't have the means to make it so. He controls the version he releases, and the "real" image is the one that respects the work he saw and put his stamp of approval on.
I was interested to learn that this is one of the reasons Josef Koudelka is releasing so many publications now. He is reportedly appalled by what's being done with Cartier-Bresson's archive and doesn't want the same thing done to his work after his death. That is, he considers the work to be his (moral ownership) and not for other people to sully or change or confuse—or exploit—after he's gone.
The opposite argument can be made in many ways, and I'm sensible to that. Copyright law allows for "transformative" uses that extends in rare cases up to straight copies (Richard Prince, who I don't approve of) and mere selection (Michael Wolf, Jon Rafman, and Doug Rickard et al., whose work I do approve of), and of course "sampling" is common in music (I can see the reasons why, but I've always been uneasy with it—cf. the latter chapters of Perfecting Sound Forever ).
In my world, you can't colorize any B&W original respectfully. Or rather, no one but the original creator can do so. Of course, there's a whole 'nuther level to the argument, namely the degree to which an original is art. Is an old film noire "B" movie really "art"? Did its makers have sufficient intentionality that the original should be respected? I'd err on the side of "yes." I realize counterarguments could indeed have persuasiveness.
I'm not saying my position is "correct" or that you should agree with it, but I like coming down on the side of the artist, as his or her ally in seeing that his or her intentions are respected. It's part and parcel of who I am, and what I do. I'm aware that other people swing to the other side of the spectrum.
Still, shunting ethical "ownership" objections aside entirely—that is, assuming for the sake of discussion that you were the creator of the picture or were advising the creator, as in a crit—Moose's colorizations can be discussed on an entirely aesthetic level, and it would indeed be interesting to do so. Which do you prefer?
I think you can guess my choice. :-)
Mike
(Thanks to Moose)
Moose replies: Without taking a position on what Mike calls 'moral ownership' that should be protected—because I'm not certain what my position may be after more thought—a few data points:
I have casually collected various versions of "The Birth of Venus." One could easily see them as falling under the category of inappropriate revisions of Botticelli's original.
And yet, it's clear that Botticelli was riffing on other antecedents. The Wikipedia entry on this painting spends some time talking about various known and speculated sources that inspired this work.
...Such a deliberately re-creative act as Botticelli may have performed with his Birth of Venus would go a long way towards explaining the curious flatness and linearity of the painting, which seem so very out of keeping with the direction of Renaissance art and with Botticelli's own approach to painting.
In music, things get even trickier. We will never hear Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and so on as they performed their own compositions. Nor will we ever know what they might think of later performances. Would Beethoven prefer Toscannini or Furtwängler for his Ninth? (To pick opposites.)
Imitation with variation is at the heart of much of one of Mike's favorite forms of music. I personally prefer much of Mark Isham's Miles Davis Remembered: The Silent Way Project to the Davis originals.
Here, as in painting, there is also a long tradition of "Variations on a theme of ..." Again with layers, as with Rachmaninoff's 20 variations and coda on a theme composed by Corelli, which is in turn an homage to Fritz Kreisler's set of variations on the same Corelli theme.
St. Ansel famously compared negative and individual print to musical score and performance. As a concert quality pianist, he would surely be aware of this tradition of musical variations, and almost certainly of the artistic tradition of paintings that draw on antecedants. What would he think of prints made after his death?* Especially if, eventually, they strayed from his own approach?
Just some ideas to broaden the discussion. It's not a simple issue.
Aside from the issue of intellectual property rights in law, is it possible that the release of creative work into the world might not properly end the creator's interest in and control of the work?
The original stands on its own two feet, beside any other work derived from it. It's not like derivative versions erase the original. Any creative work of humankind is inevitably a variation on the themes of the artist's and other cultures. Should it not properly enter that stream, enrich it?
Even Isaac Newton's famous statement on this issue, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" is itself derivative of earlier ideas expressed by others at least hundreds of year earlier.
Hmmm, does that sound like nascent opinion...?
[*I'm not exactly positive about this, but I believe Ansel made it clear that he would like students to be able to print his negatives after his death as learning experiences, but the holders of his archive at the University of Arizona don't allow this because the original negatives are considered too precious. I'd have to research this claim to be more sure of it, so don't quote me. But if true, it adds a couple more layers of complexity. —Mike]
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