Alex Fulmer
5/19/22
Fine Art on Film
In establishing the first visual language in moving pictures, the creators of early cinema took a page from the existent purveyors of visual culture, creators of fine art. Filmmakers built upon the foundation well-established by artists by putting their preexisting static frames in motion, exploring the duration beyond still images. As considered in Lehmbeck’s Fine Art on Film, these filmmakers were not the first to put these well-recognized still figures in motion, as they were preceded by Tableau Vivant performers bringing art to life on stage before it would be enlivened on screen. These efforts, both by filmmakers as well as their Tableau Vivant predecessors, not only recreated fine art as a form of creative inspiration, but also as a commercial tool as well. By beginning with a well-recognized painting or sculpture, filmmakers could capitalize on familiarity as well as build off of that well-recognized idea to create something new within this newly developed medium of film. However, in bringing this fine art to a new medium, filmmakers also brought the political implications and critical discourse around fine art onto the screen as well.
Paintings and sculpture existed in two disparate echelons of the artistic hierarchy prior to their inclusion in early cinema, thus holding different social positions in the public consciousness. Considering its long standing position at the top of the artistic hierarchy by art critics, painting’s value came from the exclusionary nature of the structures in which it was displayed, mostly salons catered to the upper, educated classes. However, due to sculptures' accessibility within the public spaces of Haussmannized Paris, it was considered as the art form for all. These two determinations had much to do with the replicability of each respective medium. Due to its recastability, sculpture was by nature far less exclusive because it could so feasibly be replicated. As stated by Lehmbeck, art critics considered sculpture’s materiality as “the root of its supposed shortcomings.”
In fine art’s transition onto the screen, the mass-oriented nature of film eviscerated critics’ pre-existing notions of exclusivity. It is fascinating how painting and film operated on two opposing value systems, not only artistic value, but monetary value as well. As widespread recognition and familiarity with a painting is increased through reproduction, its value, both seemingly artistically as well as monetarily, is lessened in accordance with its diminished singularity. Inversely, as familiarity with a film is heightened within the public consciousness, its value does as well through the increased number of viewings, thus ticket sales.
This is interesting proof to display how film is inextricably linked to commerce due to the fact that increased cultural value, through increased familiarity, will most always mean increased monetary value as well. However, I am curious to see how these critics would defend their creative valuation of a painting if that valuation can only be upheld through exclusion. Further, I am curious to consider what Talmeyr might have thought. How does the mechanical reproduction intrinsic to the medium of film interact with Walter Benjamin’s concept of an aura? Can the aura of a film ever truly be lost when, as a medium, in defiance of staticity, it can only be displayed en masse through repetition? Or is it all just all a farce of classism in an attempt to keep the lower classes uneducated?