I had a brief word earlier today with a good client of ours- someone who has purchased the entire panoply of Chappell & McCullar material- English antique pieces, two pieces from our Contemporary Classics range, and several paintings. With homes in several locations, she is kind enough to stop in when she’s in town, but, otherwise, she misses out on our email blasts. She told me she does do email, but as it’s normally accessed through her iphone, images are often lost to her. With her travel, she accesses her email via computer only once a week or so. What to do? She’s asked us, consequently, to dial technology back a decade or so, and send her via snail mail images of antiques and artwork we think might be of interest to her. And this morning, that is what we did.
In an object-based industry, of course, nothing ever completely substitutes for tactile contact. To alter a well-worn phrase, one look is worth a thousand images. This applies at least as much to 18th century English antiques as it does to painting. While the subtle variation of form and color wrought by a particular glaze or brushstroke might be occluded in even the best digital image, color and figuring on a well-patinated piece of walnut or mahogany is nearly impossible to communicate without first-hand inspection.
But, given the world we now inhabit, communication must always in the first instance be electronic. For all the clients with whom we deal regularly, what has piqued their interest was the digital image of an object we had sent them. Moreover, I am not aware of anyone who now trades with us that did not, in advance of their first visit, acquaint themselves with us and our stock in trade by a browse on our website. Although we don’t make many initial sales based on images found on our website, subsequent sales occur that way. What seems to happen is that the initial piece forms something of a benchmark for the client, with the client as a consequence satisfied that pieces purchased subsequently are accurately represented by the images we send them. Thinking metaphorically, we can all tell the difference between, say, a recorded piano recital and a live one. However, if once we’ve heard a Garrick Ohlsson concert live, we can certainly enjoy one in recorded form.
What, then, might seem an ostensible clash of cultures, conflating an experience of 18th century material culture with the technology of 2009, the seemingly infinite adaptability of humanity renders this clash moot. The aesthetic and intellectual experience of mimesis that Aristotle identified two and a half centuries ago is now with as great an effect as ever to be had on a computer screen.