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**richsc** · 11-04-2002, 06:37 PM

This is from Newscan, seemed appropriate to Roman studies as well as architecture 
 
Architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable has complete loathing for the phrase "authentic reproduction," explaining: 
"I cannot think of a more mischievous, dangerous, anomalous, and shoddy perversion of language and meaning. A perfect contradiction in terms, it makes no sense at all; but what particularly offends is its smug falseness, its dissembling, genteel pretentiousness. Authentic is the real thing, and a reproduction, by definition, is not; a copy is still a copy, no matter how skilled or earnest its intentions. To equate a replica with the genuine artifact is the height of sophistry; it cheapens and renders meaningless its true age and provenance. To imply equal value is to deny the act of creation within its own time frame, to cancel out the generative forces of its cultural context. What is missing is the original mind, hand, material, and eye. The kindest thing you can say is that an authentic reproduction is a genuine oxymoron." 
Richard Campbell, Legio XX

Goffredo · 11-05-2002, 07:51 AM

Hi 
I think this type of comment is only good at a dinner table with a good bottle of wine. It might even be good at a cocktail party to pick up a late evening partner, but made public it just sounds snob and doesn't impress me at all. 
 
In our context I think a reproduction is at its best when it is honest. As we do not know all the details the indeed funny words "Authentic Reproduction" (*) are not really criticable if one points out the uncertainties and gaps in the reconstruction and explicitely states the arguments behind the plausible solutions adopted to bridge those gaps. Getting all heated up about the expression rather than simply laughing and then proposing another is a waste of time. 
 
In the minds of such "purists" such as Ada Louise Huxtable we poor mortals (poor economically) would never be allowed to see even photo reproductions of famous paintings of Botticelli (name your favorite). We would only be permitted to see the original. But then I would argue that even the orginal in a museum is already an artifact as the intended contexts of many paintings of our not so distant past were not public museums. Purists are frequently too rigid to admit that purity is more often than not in the eye of the beholder. 
 
(*) "Authentic Reproductions" reminds me of a comedian that made commercials of furniture made of "Real Fake Leather".

**richsc** · 11-05-2002, 04:45 PM

It is one of those annoying intellectual affectations, but the oxymoron point is good. 
 
I'll give the distributors a bit of a plug: Newscan is my favorite daily and free IT/tech newsletter. 
 
www.newsscan.com/ Richard Campbell, Legio XX

11-05-2002, 06:11 PM

This sort of philosophical snobbery goes back at least 2 1/2 millennia. Aristotle would have argued that any manmade object is itself only a copy of the original, ideal object, which exists only in the mind of God. By this standard, even the original artifact was not authentic, but rather a copy of a nonexistant ideal.

***Praefectusclassis*** · 11-05-2002, 06:41 PM

Yup, except that this was Plato. Just to be snobbish and pretentious Greets 
 
Jasper

**richsc** · 11-05-2002, 07:24 PM

I actually think of it as a point of English, that is, an unnecessary intensification of a simpler anglo-saxon word like 'copy'. I think George Orwell (1984 et al.) who wrote a piece in 1949 about the substitution of lengthy Latin terms for good old anglo saxon. 
Of course, in a Roman Army discussion group who am I to complain about Latin root words? Richard Campbell, Legio XX

11-06-2002, 03:21 AM

Let us just say that such a statement contains a plethora of excess surplusage. it is overly redundant, and repetitive. it's like looking up the word redundant in a dictionary where the description says: see redundant. 
 
LOL, 
 
GMA

11-06-2002, 08:47 AM

To be really snobbish: Platoon instead of Latinised Plato. 
 
Regards, 
 
Sander van Dorst

**Robert Vermaat** · 11-06-2002, 09:07 AM

How about reading 'Kaiser' for 'Ceasar'...EM 
 
Cheers, 
Robert

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