Print Culture and Distribution - Part 1

Currently, we are living in the "Late Age of Print". Subjects taught now, such as Illustration and Graphic Design, were not taught in the art schools of the 1800s. Instead, they taught the "fine arts", of painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and painting. The men only aspect of this was also stifling - only history paintings, classist.

As production became mechanised, the industry of art rapidly expanded to the lower classes, the working class. Instead of owning a singular piece of art, it became a case of experiencing it, being able to see it and get a cheap reproduction. The higher class hated this - reproduction was seen as less valuable, cheaper.

This one dude Matthew Arnold (who had some banging sideburns) called for culture to be "in the minority keeping" - to belong to only an elite few, not the general masses.

damn those sideburns could put guy martin to shame

Popular culture offers addictive forms of distraction and compensation - with culture being cheaply produced by and for the working class. Schools of design began to crop up, creating workers for industrial capitalism. Even LCA began as a school of design.

One argument is that technological reproduction removes the aura of a piece of work - the creativity, genius, and mystery of it. However, I believe that reproduction only increases this. By being so famous and well recognised, certain pieces of art become more mystified by seeing the original - almost like a celebrity.