Are coins really a work of art?
stonej
following today:
The most lucid thing the Marxist critic Walter Benjamin ever
wrote is the essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction," Written in 1936, during an apparent dry spell in
Berlin's hashish supply.
Benjamins famous essay, a staple of film-lit classes, puts a
dope-scented finger on a central issue in aesthetics: If the
art object is special - if it has an authenticity, an
"aura," Benjamin calls it - what is the staus of the duplicate,
the mechanically reproduced copy?
"That which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is
the aura of the work of art," says Benjamin. Reproduction
"substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence."
In other words: The first David by Michelangelo is art, the
second is a lawn ornament.
Interesting food for thought in relation to coins. Is a pattern
coin or the engravers model the only true "art" in numismatics
and the rest something less?
Edwin Johnston
Well, if you begin delving into the various theories of postmodernism,
where just about everything is questioned and "decentered", you will
find them saying things like "true art" is merely another fiction that
actually has at its basis money, marketing, etc. -- taste dictated by
finance. And in an age of absolute reproducibility (say, architecture),
that just brings things that much further out. So, we have come to the
point of complete simulacra -- or a society totally mediated by images.
As William S. Burroughs has stated: "In the end, all that will be left
are the recordings"
bri
"stonej" <sto...@mail.lib.msu.edu> wrote in message
news:1112987854.3...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
One persons junk is another's treasure.
That about sums it all up ;-)
There is a small and clannish cult of lawn ornament collectors who are
offended by you!
Most of these 'ornamentists'--AHEM--- for many years had to endure the
anti-ornamentists who have turned their love of ceramic gnomes and lawn
jockeys into sheer mockery.
Lawn 'jewelry' is nothing to make light of my friend so WYB.
They are everywhere you look.
;-)
stonej
I pass a few of them during my walks after work. Better be careful
from
now on or a gnome or a deer might attack me. (smile face here).
Christian Feldhaus
> The most lucid thing the Marxist critic Walter Benjamin ever wrote is the
> essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," Written in
> 1936, during an apparent dry spell in Berlin's hashish supply.
While Benjamin was indeed born in Berlin, he emigrated to France in 1933
for fairly obvious reasons. In 1940 he committed suicide near the
French-Spanish border when faced with the extradition to Germany.
> Interesting food for thought in relation to coins. Is a pattern
> coin or the engravers model the only true "art" in numismatics
> and the rest something less?
Sure, technically each coin is a copy. But couldn't you enjoy an
excellent copy of a famous painting or statue as well? :-)
Christian
stonej
For sure. I think Benjamin took his views to a rather extreme
viewpoint.
Jeff R
"stonej" <sto...@mail.lib.msu.edu> wrote in message
news:1112987854.3...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> following today:
<...>
> Interesting food for thought in relation to coins. Is a pattern
> coin or the engravers model the only true "art" in numismatics
> and the rest something less?
Ouch ouch!
Can anyone point me to where I can get a Whitman or Dansco album which will
fit dies? Or plaster models?
==
Jeff R.
(and a new, beefy, bookshelf)
Reid Goldsborough
wrote:
>Interesting food for thought in relation to coins. Is a pattern
>coin or the engravers model the only true "art" in numismatics
>and the rest something less?
I wouldn't say so. Just as form follows function, so can beauty. A
flawlessly working engine can be a thing of beauty, even if mass
produced in the millions, no less so than a one-of-a-kind abstract
sculpture that has no function.
But most collectors don't value beauty very highly, at least
collectors of U.S. coins. I'd say most place the prospect of
completeness (completing a set -- filling an album) as their top
priority, and they choose coins to collect that allow them to do this
within their collecting budget. There are exceptions of course -- type
collectors and specialists.
Regarding art, the aesthetics of most U.S. coins pales in comparison
with many other coins, modern and ancient. Most U.S. coins are either
ugly or uninspiringly mediocre, relatively speaking. The most notable
exceptions are the "golden age" coins of the early 20th century --
Saint, Walker, Standing Lib, and Merc. Another exception is the
Buffalo nickel, which unlike the previous four coins wasn't patterned
after ancient coins but has a unique American flavor and a harsh
expanding frontier/dying civilization beauty. I'd put Draped Bust
coins up there as well with the most beautiful American efforts. To
each his own, it goes without saying.
Some 11,250 High Relief Saints were struck. I'd be very surprised to
find one that I wouldn't deem beautiful, even one heavily worn by
having been kept as a pocket piece.
--
Email: reid...@removethisnetaxs.com (delete "remove this")
Consumer: http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Connoisseur: http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Counterfeit: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos
fletch
friend has a great art deco toaster; there were probably thousands of them
made. But they each are beautiful.
Here's another way to think about them, in terms of Aristotilian forms (in
my lame understanding of Aristotle). The whole purpose of a coin hub and
die is to be beautiful art; but also to produce lasting tools of commerce.
In this interpretation, a 'good' coin is one that is both beautiful and
serves its purpose well.
--keith
"stonej" <sto...@mail.lib.msu.edu> wrote in message
news:1112987854.3...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
Alan Williams
>
> Coins are no different that other 'design' work or 'industrial arts'. My
> friend has a great art deco toaster; there were probably thousands of them
> made. But they each are beautiful.
>
> Here's another way to think about them, in terms of Aristotilian forms (in
> my lame understanding of Aristotle). The whole purpose of a coin hub and
> die is to be beautiful art; but also to produce lasting tools of commerce.
> In this interpretation, a 'good' coin is one that is both beautiful and
> serves its purpose well.
>
> --keith
Keith nominates the die as archetype. I second the motion!
Alan
'throwing shadows on the cave wall'
oly
copies of Greek originals. The Greek originals no longer exist, in
very many cases. Nobody much complains about the "copy" status of the
ancient Roman artwork.
IMHO (well, not so humble, I suppose), well done medallic art is
miniature sculpture, a form of sculpture that I can both afford to own
and have a sufficient space to maintain. Actually, I am having a
two-inch diameter high relief art medal produced right now, so thanks
to modern mass production techniques, I can own, maintain and even
produce this type of art -- and I am hardly wealthy myself.
The mass production aspect isn't worth losing sleep over. The
gentleman who did the "Connections" television series a few decades
back on PBS spoke and wrote about the paradox of mass production --
thousands can now afford to own quality things that their grandparents
had no access to, but that their pride of ownership might be decreased
by the fact that nobody had anything that was truly unique. IMHO, the
important thing is that the possession of such items is no longer
limited to the patricians but may be enjoyed by the plebes as well.
oly
Reid Goldsborough
>The mass production aspect isn't worth losing sleep over.
This applies directly to coins too. Rarity is way overvalued as a
desirable trait in a coin, in my view, as I've said here before.
Rarity is based on exclusivity. It stems, I believe, from the faulty
premise that you really have something if few other people have it
too. But real wealth, to my mind, doesn't come from having what others
don't have. It comes from finding the special in what's all around us.
What's most common is ultimately what's most valuable because it
connects us rather than isolates us.
I prefer representative coins. A representative coin is a coin that
was used as coinage. It passed from hand to hand in the exchange of
goods and services. It was real money.
I'd take a beautiful common coin over a rare ugly coin any day, a
common date Saint, mind-bogglingly beautiful, over an 1895 Morgan,
butt ugly as all of them are, or an 1892-Micro O Barber half, double
butt ugly as all of them are, or a 1912-S Liberty Head nickel, triple
butt ugly as all of them are, or an 1815 Capped Head half eagle,
quadruple butt ugly as all of them are.