At a recent meeting of our general philosophy and poker group, the subject of “masterpiece” art works came up. Specifically, we are all mystified as to why any particular painting is classified as a “masterpiece”, and how the value of such works is determined.
What are the determining features of a “masterpiece”? Does a painting have some innate, objective, value? What is so special about “The Mona Lisa”? Why is my granddaughter’s finger painting worth less than a Pollock drop cloth?
Of particular relevance to this question is a recent study (no cite) in which subjects were shown a painting, and told that it was a masterpiece. Most of the subjects stood mesmerized by it for extended periods of time. Meanwhile, other subjects were told the same painting was a minor work by some unknown artist; these subjects gave the painting barely a glance.
Similarly, we have read about numerous instances in which paintings valued at millions of dollars and on display in prominent galleries have been declared “fakes”; their value immediately dropped to zero.
These points suggest that works of art have no innate value, and that their significance and value is purely due to marketing.
a) technically a masterpiece was once a work that a person produced to demonstrate to a guild that they shoud be classified as master as have their own workshop.
b) commodity fetishism.
Some of it is like the dollar bills in your wallet. They don’t actually mean anything individually but you know they still have real value because that is the way people view them and you can exchange them for other things. That is one of the reasons really rich people invest in rare collectibles like art. They are one of a kind so they don’t tend to go down in value and can usually be sold later for a gain. In the meantime, you have something to show off unlike most other investments. That produces a specialized market effect that depends on a collective view of what is and isn’t a masterpiece regardless of any objective measures of the work.
However, sticking to the art thing for a while: what if someone were to come along and definitively and indisputably prove that “The Mona Lisa” was painted by an unknown homeless guy, what would happen?
Would the painting continue to hang in the Louvre and continue to be the object of great reverence, or would it be relegated to a dumpster in a back alley?
The Mona Lisa would continue to hang in the Louvre and would in fact be even more visited because the story you proposed would make the painting even cooler. Now if you chose a less famous painting that did not already have a huge reputation with everybody not just people who care about paintings then it would probably be taken down an put in storage only to be brought out for special exhibits on forgeries and the nature of art.
This takes us back to the original question: are there objective and universal standards against which a painting is measured? Ie: exactly what is it that makes a painting a “great painting”?
Why is “The Mona Lisa” considered a great painting?
The proof of this is that artists’ reputations have gone up and down through enormous swings over time. This is true of “masters” and of current artists. It’s true that technical mastery is important. But that doesn’t explain why the impressionists and cubists and surrealists were reviled when they first emerged and the technically perfect French artists favored by the academy who are forgotten today got all the attention and praise and money.
But the real answer is the one you rejected: that nothing has innate value. It’s all opinion. All art of all kinds everywhere in every time. And everything else. That’s why these arguments go nowhere.
However, people love to make these arguments nevertheless. So they have value to them. And that’s all that ever counts.
The Mona Lisa is almost synonymous with the the phrase “the greatest painting ever” in popular culture but I don’t think any individual person, even art critics, would praise it as such if they had to pick it out of a lineup as anything nearly so great if they had to pick it out of a lineup without knowing about it in advance. Its major selling point is that it was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci who was a great artist among other things so they just picked an example of his work to honor him and that was the one that was picked.
It is a suprisingly small painting when you see it in person and it certainly doesn’t stand out among the other art in the Louvre except for the fact there are always hoards of people crowded around taking crappy pictures of it with cell phones :smack: It is a really good painting though. It represents the Renaissance style well and there has been a lot of mystery associated with it. Nobody know who the subject really was, why “she” is smiling (some people think it was a self-portrait of gay Leo in drag) and it was stolen and hidden from 1911 - 1913 before it was recovered intact. Basically however, it is just something that is famous for being famous.
They say a piece of art is worth what the last person paid for it, as long as that person doesn’t try to sell it. As others have mentioned the price of art is more or less entirely subjective, however there are many factors that will influence what someone is willing to pay. In addition to age, rarity, technical mastery, and how much people have paid for it in the past, the current perception of the artist or society that created the work will also have an effect on price. And of course there’s always how it will look sitting in a corner of your office or hanging in your vestibule.
Also, “great” pieces of art are most often sold at auction, which are organized to fetch the highest possible price. Similarly, art sold at a trendy or up-and-coming gallery in NYC can command a higher price then similar stuff sold at some mom-and-pop gallery in the Smoky Mountains, because there are a lot more people willing to pay $30,000 for an inkblot in Manhattan than in the backwoods of North Carolina.
The answer is no. The value of anything is determined at the moment when a seller and a buyer agrees on a price and there are many factors involved in that decision. That is why I have a problem with the TV program Antiques Roadshow. Big city arts dealers and auctioneers, who think in terms of pricing there, tell people from Lesser Boondock how much their property is worth, disregarding that that is a totally different market.
The message I am getting here is that in the art world, “a fool and his money are soon parted”.
However when, after a few beers, I started to think about this, I came to the conclusion that there may actually be a bit more to this than meets the eye. (I had to slip that one in…)
I don’t know anything about art, but I do know what I like. Of the art works that I do like, some of them are amongst the “great” works of art.
Since my opinion of these particular works is evidently shared by millions of other people, this suggests that the attractiveness of some works of art may involve some kind of physiological process.
Ie: the “great” works of art may involve particular combinations of color and shape that trigger some kind of pleasurable physiological response in the observer. Kind of like a drug that goes in through the eyeballs.
This could be tested by doing an analysis of “great” works, and seeing if there are discernible patterns in shape, color, texture, etc. Then new “great” works could be produced which apply these patterns, and the response monitored. May be the basis for a whole new industry here!
Is my thinking reasonable, or have I gone one beer too far?
About a six-pack too far. There is already mass produced art that follows popular patterns. First, there are really good prints of famous art that should be good enough if the only thing people cared about were the images themselves. Some people take it farther than that however. There are some exceptionally talented forgers that can produce ‘lost’ masterpieces of famous artists by copying their style but using it to make a completely new painting. That type of thing doesn’t cut it in the art world. It isn’t just about the technique or colors when it comes to an art pieces worth.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, “Art is that which is recognized as Art by those who can recognize Art.” (Mark Twain’s definition of a dog was “a dog is that which is recognized as a dog by other dogs”.)
Or, “Art is the name of a guy with no arms and legs hanging on the wall”.
Read Tom Wolfe’s The Painted Word, where he pokes at the modern “art scene” as a game (or double-backed beast) between “artists” and the art critics who make or break the latest and greatest.
Obviously, the value of “masterpieces” is determined by their provenance. Anything from, say, 400 years ago in decent shape is probably worth something just for its rarity. The more important the artist, the rarer the work, the higher its value. This is reinforced by the advantages of rarity and the "bubble’ effect of art as an investment. As pointed out above, there’s the display value and the prestige of owning a rare and valuable item.
For modern art, it’s a herd mentality where people who want to appear “hip” and have money to blow, follow the words of those recognized critics in the art scene about what is good today.
However, even pieces of crap from ancient times have a decent value due to rarity. Like dead artists (except for Salvador Dali) they aren’t making any more so its current rarity is guaranteed.