David Mazzuchelli:
When you see, for example, the Giotto paintings, in Padua at the Scrovegni Chapel… when you see those in the context of the chapel that they’re in —
Dash Shaw:
It’s totally different.
Mazzucchelli:
— and, the particular blue that he got in those paintings, it’s such a different experience from looking at even the best reproductions in books.
Shaw:
I know, because those are designed to be seen at certain angles.
Mazzucchelli:
Exactly. It really struck me, traveling from place to place, seeing things. The other thing I’m thinking of is the Villa of Mysteries, in Pompeii. Again, you see reproductions of it all the time, but until you’re in the room and looking at these things on the wall — the beautiful surface of the walls, where it almost looks like…like marble. It’s painted, but it’s hard to know what it was painted with.
Shaw:
People don’t get that a still image can be like installation art.
Mazzucchelli:
Right. Or that certain things were made for specific environments, and to see them in their environment is very different from seeing them isolated, whether it’s in a museum setting, or reproductions. But it just doesn’t give you the same feeling.
Who Knew?