Kyoko Sengoku-Haga

The Originality of Sculptors and the Inventiveness of Clients as seen in Copies
The Case of Alkamenes' Herma

Many Greek masterpieces of the fifth century B.C.E. were copied over and over throughout antiquity. A consideration of Alkamenes' Herma, erected at the entrance to the Acropolis of Athens, provides special insight into this phenomenon, because its copies are abundant and the earliest example dates back to as early as the fourth century B.C.E. Based on an examination of these copies, the author will trace various methods of copying in sculpture and demonstrate the originality of many sculptor-copiers. In addition, through an examination of well-documented cases, the original contexts of certain sculptural copies will be reconstructed and the so-called messages that their patrons intended for them to convey will be clarified. In these various messages can be discerned the shared significance of Herma copies as symbols of the Acropolis of Athens, embodying the golden age Athenian art in the 5th century B.C.E.

Koichi Motoki

From Copy to Copy
Copy-Making in Late Medieval Northern Europe

Albrecht Durer brought a suit against Marcantonio Raimondi, because Marcantonio copied completely Durer's prints with the monogram. It was presumably the first suit concerning copyright of image in the history of European art. Consequently Durer was delivered a decision to prohibit Marcantonio not from copying the image, but from copying the monogram. Why was Durer given the decision? I want to investigate the reason by researching how copies were made in the workshop of artists in the period. As a result, it was explicated that German prints could be copied repeatedly. For example, Israhel van Meckenem copied the prints by the famous masters reversely, and then the reverse copies by Israhel could be copied again by others. So we can hypothesize that there was a chain reaction of making print-copies in the late middle ages. Why did Durer bring an action against Marcantonio in this milieu? I think that a clue to the question can be found in the monograms of Durer, for his monograms were strikingly original. The originality of monogram may have been deeply respected in the court, because the monogram was a trademark.

Theodore Reff
Translation by Miyuki Fukuma, with Commentariy by Atsushi Miura

Copyists in the Louvre, 1850-1870

The Louvre, home to numerous masterpieces of western art, was a valuable site of instruction for modern painters from the nineteenth century onward. This was the case not only for academic painters following the traditions of the past, but for the avant-garde pursuing originality in the present. From the "registers" of the period, this paper reconstructs in detail the records of the copyists who obtained permission to work in the Louvre for the period 1850-1870, thereby revealing that Manet and his colleagues as well as the future Impressionists, especially those deeply concerned with figures, devoted themselves to copying older works for varied motives. Equally instructive are the 'registers' of the painters who received permission to work in the Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibliotheque Imperiale, where reproductive engravings of the masters were then on permanent exhibition. A close investigation into these records also brings to light their practices of copying in the institution.

Hiroko Ikegami

The Paradox of Repetition
Ad Reinhardt and Andy Warhol

Ad Reinhardt and Andy Warhol are normally regarded as poles apart both in terms of their work and ideas on art. Reinhardt kept painting Black Paintings without ever doubting the value of abstract painting, while Warhol put an end to the myth of originality in modern art with his Pop paintings. These two artists, however, had something fundamental in common: both of them based their paintings exclusively on the principle of repetition.
This paper examines the paradox of repetition as witnessed in the works of these two artists. Reinhardt's modernist method of "repetition as development" may at first seem incompatible with Warhol's postmodernist strategy of "repetition as simulacrum." In fact, their repetitions should be seen as a different side of the same coin, that is, the "death of painting" in modern art. They approached this phenomenon with their repetitive working principle, almost gave up the practice of painting in consequence, and yet sought to re-examine the possibilities of the medium, with the same method of repetition, which might transcend its "death."