Make your TV a work of art

That’s right, put a digital copy of a masterpiece as a screensaver on your TV:

An expensive new digital television is big, beautiful, flat and can hang on the wall. Some might even consider the set a piece of art.

RGB Labs charges for subscriptions to images such as The Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre Auguste Renoir.

So why not display Picasso, Renoir, Monet and other masters on the screen itself?

Three companies have recently formed to help consumers do just that…

[One of them] Chandler’s company, Dream City, has acquired licensing rights to more than 1,000 pieces of art, including masterpieces from Cézanne, Van Gogh and Picasso. He sells them in $14.95, 30-piece collections as screensavers. A Web site offers step-by-step instructions on how to connect a PC to the TV and run a slide-show loop on your big screen.

The core idea came from Bill Gates:

Microsoft (MSFT) Chairman Bill Gates has displayed art on wall-mounted PC screens at his home for years. That’s where Chandler got the idea for Dream City.

He put a frame around a monitor hooked to an old PC, hung it on the wall and showed family photographs and art.

“At parties, people just stood there, mesmerized,” Chandler says. “I realized there was a business there.”

Here is the whole story, which includes a Renoir image on a big TV screen.

My take: The idea is a promising start, but I am repelled by the idea of copies of classic paintings in my living room. Looking at lower quality reproductions would depress me. It would also make me wonder why I cannot find anything more personal, more current, and more alive to enjoy. I am keener on the idea of art created especially for this medium, let’s hope that is forthcoming.

Addendum: Michael Giesbrecht writes: “You’re in luck, Tyler! Literally hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of art, created especially for this medium, are taken to market each year, and have been for quite some time. Check out netflix.com. In the common vernacular, the medium is referred to as a “movie”. Many of them look great displayed on wall-mounted digital television screens.” You can put up a static image from these movies quite easily. I love Renoir but on my screen I want Blade Runner.

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