Originals are better than reproductions in art and shopping

I went to see the Canaletto exhibition at the National Gallery in London at the weekend. He’s an 18th century artist who made a living selling views of Venice to rich collectors. As with Banksy, reproductions in books do them no justice. Only by seeing the large canvases full size, can you can appreciate the naturalism of the vast blue sky, which hangs calm and eternal above every scene, or the solid detailed buildings whether in light or shade that have been there throughout the history of Venice. At the bottom of each painting, most fascinating and hardly noticeable in reproductions, the human beings going about their busy lives on the canals, here today gone tomorrow. These may have been commercial ‘view paintings’ but their purchasers must have found them unexpectedly emotive.

Like many people, my wife and I like to have objects in our home that delight with their originality. We can’t afford a Canaletto but we have some watercolours by minor artists on our walls. We also have things from our shop that combine creativity with practicality, like a heart within a heart fused into a glass coaster or an aluminium bangle anodised with splashes of glowing colour. Because they’re handcrafted, they’re unique in a way that something mass produced can never be.

Mind you, you can only find them as long as independent shops like mine survive against the onslaught of the high street chains.

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