Re[2]: [Leica] Off-Topic: Butchering Eisenstaedt

[Peterson_Art@hq.navsea.navy.mil]

     Dave,
     
     I apologize.  I did not intend to take your word out of context.  I no 
     longer had your original message when I addressed this topic, and only 
     remembered the word "sacrilegious."  That is why I qualified my remark 
     by writing, "I think." 
     
     By the way, my hat's off to you for running a classical music station. 
     I'm a huge classical music fan, and I know that in Philadelphia, where 
     my parents live, their longtime classical music station WFLN no longer 
     broadcasts it, leaving the city without a full-time classical station. 
     It must be a VERY tough business to keep commercially viable. 
     
     I can understand the argument that "every time a piece of music or art 
     is used [commercially]...it cheapens the original," but I disagree.  I 
     think art is not so fragile, not so easily cheapened as that.  And, on 
     the contrary, one could as easily conclude that the "misappropriation" 
     brings the art, however briefly and with whatever distortion, into the 
     awareness of some who otherwise might never experience it.  Who knows! 
     I can only say that such use never "cheapens the original," or "erodes 
     the reputation of the creator," for me. 
     
     Again, my apologies for taking your word out of context! 
     
     Art Peterson
     Alexandria, VA
     

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: [Leica] Off-Topic: Butchering Eisenstaedt
Author:  leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us at Internet
Date:    7/19/98 8:52 AM


Hello Art,
     
I did use the word "sacrilegious."  But please don't take it out of context.  I 
wrote, "For me, this BORDERS on the sacrilegious.  At the very least it's 
disrespectful."  I'll stand by that.
     
Of course, whoever owns a work of art can do whatever they want with it, 
including
using it to sell something.  I run a classical music radio station.  Ad agencies
use
classical music every day to sell things, but in my opinion, every time a piece 
of
music or art is used in this way it cheapens the original.  It erodes the 
reputation
of the creator.  Beethoven didn't write his Symphony No. 9 to sell telephone 
answering machines, and Eisenstaedt certainly didn't create that photograph so 
that
Dell could sell more computers.  Isn't it appropriate that those of us who have 
an
interest in art should defend the works of Beethoven, Rembrandt, Eisenstaedt... 
against this type of misappropriation?
     
Are those who utilize and manipulate these works of art for commercial purposes 
within their legal rights?  Of course they are.  Does that make it right?  I 
don't
think so.
     
Dave
     
     
Peterson_Art@hq.navsea.navy.mil wrote:
     
>      Oh, c'mon!  There's no shame in this, no prostitution.  I think the 
>      original writer used the word "sacrilegious."  Give me a break!  No 
>      one is "Butchering Eisenstaedt."  His pictures, like those of Adams 
>      and Cartier-Bresson and other great photographers are reproduced in 
>      books and hung in museums and always can be.  That one of them gets 
>      used in an advertisement (as, for example, we've all seen the "Mona 
>      Lisa" used) may be tasteless, but so what?  Life's often tasteless, 
>      and business and advertising have nothing to do with art.  It's not 
>      as if the sole, existing print of this photograph had been defaced. 
>      Ted even wrote of being offended, but certainly no offense was ever 
>      intended, and none need be taken.  Life's too short!
>
>      Art Peterson
>      Alexandria, VA