Annabelle Olson
AHIS499
5/17/2022
Reading Response Posters and Prints

19th century posters faced significant opposition due to their ability for mass reproduction, their Avant-Gard colors and design, and their primary display on the streets that democratized art viewership. Early poster portfolios included many black and white prints because those were more accepted in the traditional art world. Roger Marx and André Mellerio were poster critics who made important arguments in the attempt to admit posters into the art world. Marx defended against the argument that posters and prints were of lesser value because they were not limited in the number of copies that could be produced. He stated they were original works because all that mattered was that the print “transmits the force of action of the original thought.” He argued that the artist's original idea for their work is what makes great art, not the medium or even the final product. Marx believed in the importance of the initial surge of improvisation, that inspiration is more important than the final finished work. He even argued that one day sketches would be more important and treasured than the final work, because they captured the initial surge of inspiration.

Mellerio also defended posters for their originality. In the 19th century art world that valued the rarity and limited quality of great works like paintings and sculpture, posters had an uphill battle because of their ability to produce limitless copies. Mellerio acknowledged that chromolithographs lessened great art because the practice of reproducing paintings using lithography did not represent those works in their intended form. The use of lithography to reproduce a painting had no concern for the traits of the medium of lithography. But, Mellerio argued, prints are specifically designed for lithography and thus multiple originals can be made. Prints were designed specifically for the medium in which they were being produced so copies captured the original intent of the artist. He called this “medium specificity.” The print medium had benefits and challenges of its own and an artist must familiarize themselves with these traits in order to create great works within this medium. Mellerio stated that print was a mechanical process that couldn’t possibly capture the brushstrokes of watercolors or oil paintings and that it should not attempt to. But when used correctly, the medium is just as valuable. Mellerio recognized the legitimacy of artists’ use of any process for their expression. He said: “the right of the color print to exist derives directly from the axiom that any method or process that an artist finds to express himself is, for that very reason, legitimate.” Marx agreed with this stating “the future is with the artists.” Marx thought that original artist inspiration was the most important aspect of art and the medium used to convey this did not matter, thus any medium is legitimate if it expresses the artist’s vision.

To Mellerio, medium specificity meant that art was designed with its medium in mind, and worked to create within its limitations. I am curious how medium specificity relates to our exhibit. The exhibit shows popular posters and paintings appropriated in performance art and film. Mellerio said: “a mania to imitate not nature, but an artistic creation which has already been achieved. It is the eternal resort of crafts people, which is useless and repugnant to true and original artists.” Would Mellerio be disgusted by the practice of appropriation of popular art through film? Maybe, but I think he might be okay with these films. The films used the great works as a jumping off point, but then told the story before or after the moment captured in the original work. Medium specificity relies on the artist in each medium adapting the work to her own medium using its strength to advance the work’s meaning. I think these films did this. Films’ greatest quality is its ability to tell a narrative using motion. The films that appropriated popular art attempted to tell the story before and after the static moment using moving pictures. Thus these films adhered to Mellerio’s medium specificity. This also plays into Marx's idea that the sketch might become an artist's most valuable work. Marx believed that the idea is important and the final form is more flexible, thus I believe he too would be okay with this kind of appropriation because the filmmakers used the original idea behind popular art and translated it into a new form.