How to Tell a Painting is an Original Piece of Art on Canvas
1) You are buying directly from the artist, who verifies the art is one of a kind and not a print.
2) You are buying from a reputable gallery who verifies the art is one of a kind and not a print.
3) When touching the canvas, your fingers can feel the textures, brushstrokes, or other media that your eyes tell you are there.
4) If the painting is done with oil paints, the canvas smells like oil.
5) If you take a photograph, most of the details in the painting will not show in the print unless close up photos are taken. Try it with your digital camera (if the gallery or museum you are visiting allows you, of course!)
6) There are water marks, paint drips, smears, and other “messy” marks along the sides and perhaps back of the canvas.
7) The paint looks layered, meaning colors are transparent in places instead of solid blocks of color. You can see the red layer of paint over the blue, not just the color purple.
8) The artist’s signature is on the back or front of the work. There is NO printed number or fraction on the front side of the work. If there is a number, ask what it means (I date my work with month/year on the back).
9) You are not in a hardware store, furniture store, home goods store, etc. where mass produced items are the normal things found.
4 comments:
A-M: Great tips. Thank you. However, I still worry now and then, not about whether it is "an" original piece, but "the" original piece. Any tips?
To JJ: "The" original piece? I think you mean "the piece that the artist is defined by?"
Thinking of past artists like Michaelangelo and Picasso (sublime to some what ridiculous), neither have "the" original piece of art that defines their bodies of work.
My best answer would be how do you know that you are reading "the" book (or poem, or short story) of an author? If that author has many works?
I've been thinking about your comment all day. What did you mean?
To Jason: I saw that comment! It was benign, so now I am curious why you erased it, LOL.
Sadly I misspelled a word and attempted to fix it... It would appear that I deleted it instead. So, here is my previous post:
I just learned a good deal more about paintings! I would not have thought to "smell" the painting to see if was created using oil based paint. That is awesome! Keep the posts coming as I tend to learn more and more about this aspect of art.
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