JLO63O Jameson

“…if this copiously reproduced image is not to sink to the level of sheer decoration, it requires us to reconstruct some initial situation out of which the finished work emerges” (487).
This quote of Jameson’s immediately triggered me to Barthe’s notion of Tmesis. The idea of tmesis, or injecting our own thoughts to a given subject, is used day in and out and redefines the world as we know it. In this context, Jameson is specifically talking about Van Gogh’s painting, Peasant Shoes.

In a former context of the painting, Peasant Shoes was supposed to symbolize the misery, poverty, and hardships of peasantry. Today, Jameson argues, Peasant Shoes lack that symbolism because it’s so mass produced, and somewhere in that mass production, the famous painting seemed have lost its authenticity and has been redefined as an inert object of sheer decoration. Although Barthes likes the voyeuristic notion of tmesis, theorists like Jameson and Benjamin believes mass production generates an unarmed eye. While I was google-ing Peasant Shoes, I landed upon an Andy Warhol reproduction of the image titled Diamond Dust.

I could not believe it the irony in the reproduction (which I will touch on shortly) and it further connected me to the concept of the cult of the new which Habermas argues. In a previous post someone commented on if everything is a remake, where is the original? The irony in the reproduction is that Diamond Dust completely undermines, and almost mocks, any symbolism of peasantry and destitution Van Gogh was trying to portray. On that note, what does Diamond Dust symbolize?! Whatever it may be, it is certainly does not dive deep into anything. Contemporary art is losing its depth, compassion, and originality as we know it. If think if Van Gogh and Andy Warhol were to meet, Warhol would be walking away with much more injury than a cut of earlobe.