1 Dixon on art and nature

Daisy, let's assume that we've got an original work of art, and then a copy that looks exactly like the original work of art. Now, the first is valuable, and the second isn't valuable. Now why is that?

Well, there are two answers to that question, really. One which says that, I'm going to agree with you, that yes, the original is more valuable than the copy. And the other answer is saying actually, no they're the same value. So I'll start with the first answer.

So let's imagine like we've got Van Gogh's Sunflowers, the original, and we've got an exact copy, and it's a really good copy. And aesthetically, so the appearance of them, they're completely identical. They're going to generate the same kind of visual experience when we're looking at them.

But you might think that the original is more valuable than the copy because art works we tend to think of them as end products of human performances. So, Van Gogh's Sunflowers is a kind of human achievement. It represents Van Gogh's solving problems with the paint, and his use of the paint brushes, and working within certain art world conventions or responding to the movement of impressionism, and then going into expressionism. So he's doing all this stuff when he's making Sunflowers.

Now that original represents that kind of human achievement. But you might think the copy is lacking value because it's representing some other kind of human achievement. Because it's just a mechanical copy, it's not doing the same kind of problem solving as the original one is. It wasn't like a novel sort of attempt to make us look again at a certain art movement.

And so in that sense, the difference in value can be explained by the quality of the artistic achievement.

But why might you think that they were equally valuable?

Well, this would come from a certain line of thought that the value of an artwork comes just from the formal features of the artwork. So what you might call the aesthetic qualities. So whether it's beautiful, whether it's graceful, maybe whether it's ugly. If the value of an artwork just comes from those aesthetic qualities, so with our painting, it's just sort of what we've given perceptually, then if we've got the same aesthetic qualities, then we're going to have the same value. Because what doesn't come into artistic value would be the origins of the painting. So who made it, why they made it, how they made it. We're just dealing with what we've given in front of our eyes.

And which of those two do you believe? Do you think the original is more valuable or not?

I would probably go for in relation to artistic value, I'd probably say the original is more valuable, yes. Because I think the idea that art works are human achievements of some kind is relevant there. And the copy is fundamentally lacking in that. It shows technical skill, maybe. But it's the origins of an artwork I think are quite important into how we understand or how we value it.

Right. And if we knew there had being a work of art, and we knew a lot about it, and then it was destroyed, and you got some experts together to recreate it, would that be a sensible thing to do? Or should we just accept that the thing's gone?

I think that's a really nice question, actually, because obviously, this has been happening more recently with ISIS destroying art works in Syria and Iraq. I would say most of the time, it is sensible very sensible to replicate an artwork. It might be because the artwork was very beautiful and we might want later generations to have that experience that would be lost if we weren't to replicate it again. But also the artwork might have sort of high cognitive value. Even if the artwork is problematic in some way, even if it was perhaps racist, has problematic messages, you might think that is important if it was destroyed to have it sort of replicated to sort of serve as a sort of dark reminder about how far humanity can fall or something. So I would say most the time, it is sensible to do that.

So not as valuable as the original, but better than nothing.

Yes. It definitely wouldn't be you might think I mean, when looking at these replicas in Rome at the moment, of the sculptures that were destroyed in Syria in the last few years, it's definitely better than nothing. Because you're holding onto that cultural heritage. But you might think I think there's something intuitive in saying that some value has been lost because it's a sad reason why we're having to replicate these. But yes, definitely better than nothing.