Wise to Art

There’s an immense difference in perception of art on-line and in reality.

On-line you are always forced to look at art in a certain way, whereas in a real situation it is you who chose the approaching angle. This is a severe handicap for on-line commerce that some less scrupulous dealers turn to advantage. In fact, it is not only the extent of the artwork’s spatial presentation that is controlled by the web-merchant, but as well the visitor’s perception of its colour, texture and detail.

In reality and in first instance, a painting is always approached globally. In real hangings you are also under the influence of the ‘setting’, i.e. the distance and the visual angle, the height of the hanging, the background and the immediate environment. The inevitable order of intake is first of the whole, then of the detail. On-line these things work quite differently. There is no beneficial or corrupting environment and there are no rules as to the order of impressions. You are totally in the hands of the web designer.

It’s evident that in any commerce presentation is everything. Even the most honest web merchant wouldn’t want to present a large painting in its entirety on a thumbnail. It would pass unnoticed. But blowing up a carefully chosen detail, that might be a minor or even insignificant contribution to the whole, isn’t that leading the user astray? Prejudicing him in the important but difficult task of imagining proposed art in reality?

This necessary imaginative step is executed automatically by the brain and can lead us equally well to fantasy land as closer to reality. Bearing in mind that this imaginative process is the acting agent to almost all transactions, in the sense that the result of that imaginative transfer encourages or discourages the interested party to go ahead, we can understand the importance of getting web representations right. By ‘right’ we mean as true as possible to reality, creating neither understatements nor overstatements of the art proposed.

Unfortunately, not to manipulate is difficult and moreover, manipulation as virtue is taught in every commercial school. Beware thus, as a buyer, of being carried away by hasty conclusions and analyse carefully the necessarily biased documentation at hand.