Art.com

A few weeks ago, I was starring into the empty space of depression that is my wall space, I decided that I HAD to get some art. Not like paintings, more like prints. I have a painting, but I just don’t have enough money at the moment for another one. So, there I went to Art.com, and probably spent over 2 hours looking through 500,000 prints of art and photos, to pick the ones that I wanted to put on my wall. Needless to say, it was quite the experience, which culminated with a 20% off sale; leading me to buy 4 prints when I only had room for 2. Once I got the prints in the mail, framed them, and hung my favorite two up, I found something that really bothered me. The one is a print of a photo, and looks great. However, the other is a print of a painting, and doesn’t look like anything but a few colors in a black box on my wall. The conclusion that I came to was that it had no character, no essence. It was simply a copy of essence. Sure it looks a certain way and evokes certain feelings, but that’s about it. When you look at a painting you look at everything; the strokes, detail, globs of paint. But when you look at a print its like staring at a computer generated photo, it just lacks the excitement. I look at that print and see a piece of paper, but when I look at a painting I see the time, meaning, and art of the piece. Its kind of like looking at a handwritten letter vs the text inside of a card; you can feel the difference. Art.com is a perfect example of taking something original, commercializing it, and loosing the meaning.

Needless to say, ill be returning the other two prints, and im trying to find an artist desperately in need of money to paint me a new piece for my wall.