Art and its value

lawlolawl

osarusan wrote: »

I saw something similar a few years ago, where they added flavourless, odourless colouring to turn white wine red, and then the wine tasters were going on about the characteristics of red wine.

I've seen similar stuff done with craft beers and gourmet coffee.

Experts can't tell the difference if they don't know ahead of time that something is "supposed" to be good.

Caravaggio was a genius. It is impossible to study a painting like the Taking of Christ and conclude otherwise. It is depressing that his talent is reduced to something as grubby as money, as someone else has said it should be priceless, but that's a product of market forces and the fact that almost everything has a price.

lawlolawl

Deleted User wrote: »

It is impossible to study a painting like the Taking of Christ and conclude otherwise.

I'd sooner look at a painting called Taking a ****e.

Iwasfrozen

sonofenoch wrote: »

A 'Caravaggio' found in an attic in France valued at 120m.....is it the name or the painting that has been decided it's worth? the painting is worthless surely to any sane mind, it's worth is the price of canvass and paints ....or as the saying goes 'it's worth what someone is prepared to pay for it'.......I don't and never will understand the decadence of art

It's not decedance, art can be a good investment that increases in value over time or as a means of legally avoiding tax.

MacauDragon

Same as with that 'yellow on blue' "masterpiece" .... Its worth that amount because theres a big enough consensus that says its worth that amount.

Like paper money. Its the reputation that counts.



Plus owning such a rarity endows status upon the owner and allows him to go nyyyuuh look at me with my Caravaggio, nyyuuuh.

o1s1n

MacauDragon wrote: »

Same as with that 'yellow on blue' "masterpiece" .... Its worth that amount because theres a big enough consensus that says its worth that amount.

Like paper money. Its the reputation that counts.



Plus owning such a rarity endows status upon the owner and allows him to go nyyyuuh look at me with my Caravaggio, nyyuuuh.

You're talking about two different things.

I agree that there is a lot of contemporary art that's absolute muck and many do wish to own it for name alone. (believe me, after studying Fine Art in College for 4 years it's definitely something you come into contact with on a day to day basis)

However, the difference between something like Yellow on Blue and Caravaggio's masterpieces (especially if you're at all interested in artistic rendering, especially realism) are staggering. In the sense of film, it's like comparing a BBC test card and a 2001 A Space Odyssey. You just don't.

Zaph

While I'm not an art lover and I think that an awful lot of it is pretentious nonsense, I will make an exception for Caravaggio. Even a philistine like me can see that the guy was a genius. If you're ever in Rome there a small church on Piazza del Popolo that has a couple on an altar that are well worth seeing.

However as regards the value of art, while the OP has a point about the nominal value of the materials etc., he's ignoring the effort put into it by the artist. But how is the value of that effort ascertained? Why is this new painting worth €120m and not €80m? Or €200m? Who decides what these paintings are worth? And if a Caravaggio is worth €120m, then how is a Jackson Pollock painting that is essentially a load of splashes on a canvas that I could have done myself worth $200m? Surely the Caravaggio should be worth more than the Pollock? But presumably I don't understand the mindset of the artist when he splashed painted it and what emotions he was conveying so what do I know?

Wibbs

cowboyBuilder wrote: »

Excellent !!

fair play to them, what happened ?

did they get fined or charged with fraud ?

Oh they were charged alright CB. The son ended up in prison for a time(the parents were considered too frail IIRC?). Lotsa red faces all around. Remarkably few experts spotted it at the time. They faked a Gauguin sculpture of Pan again IIRC that was displayed in a major retrospective of his work and the critics duly salivated. Another one was an ancient egyptian(Armana period) sculpture in alabaster that yer man dropped while making it and glued it back together with superglue. That was a centrepiece of a museum and the Queen of England was wheeled out to ooh and ahh at it. There is a strong suspicion that there are fakes out there yer man hasn't admitted to. He has claimed a purported Leo DaVinci head of a woman is one of his. And he based her on a lass who worked the till in his local Tesco.

I'd say there are a few longstanding fakes in museums and collections. An obvious one IMH and others is the very famous bust of Nefertiti found in 1912 and in a German museum. It's suspiciously modern and is a stylistic outlier for Egyptian art, even Armana stuff. It's missing an eye and the space provided wouldn't fit a replacement. How it's made is odd too. It's made of a head shaped stone covered with plaster. That's a very cheap and cheerful way to do things and not the usual for a royal portrait where the best in the kingdom would be doing the carving into raw stone. The damage to the piece is remarkably fortunate, as the face is fine. It wasn't mentioned once in any of the original dig notes, nor shipping notes. It wasn't fully described until a decade after the so called discovery. The biggest thing he ever discovered in his career? Eh…

Funny enough we may have a guaranteed bust of Nefertiti, or one of her close relatives, but in an odd place. The world famous bust of Tutankhamun. It's unlikely to have been specifically made for him, but he died suddenly and his burial was a major rush job. They even took a chunk out of the tomb wall and chopped off bits of his coffin to fit him in. The famous mask has some odd features. For a start it has holes for earrings. Adult Egyptian men and certainly Pharaohs didn't have earrings. The holes themselves were covered with a thin layer of gold foil to cover this up at the time.

osarusan

Zaph wrote: »

While I'm not an art lover and I think that an awful lot of it is pretentious nonsense, I will make an exception for Caravaggio. Even a philistine like me can see that the guy was a genius. If you're ever in Rome there a small church on Piazza del Popolo that has a couple on an altar that are well worth seeing.

However as regards the value of art, while the OP has a point about the nominal value of the materials etc., he's ignoring the effort put into it by the artist. But how is the value of that effort ascertained? Why is this new painting worth €120m and not €80m? Or €200m? Who decides what these paintings are worth? And if a Caravaggio is worth €120m, then how is a Jackson Pollock painting that is essentially a load of splashes on a canvas that I could have done myself worth $200m? Surely the Caravaggio should be worth more than the Pollock? But presumably I don't understand the mindset of the artist when he splashed painted it and what emotions he was conveying so what do I know?

Seconded on all this.

And you can be sure that for all the effort, there are a thousand painters out there who put in just as much effort, just as time, just as much sacrifice, and felt their talent burn just as brightly....and the paintings are worth a fraction of the price, if they're worth anything at all.

AtomicHorror

lawlolawl wrote: »

I'd sooner look at a painting called Taking a ****e.

The Taking of Christ is an incredible painting. If you can't be arsed to go look at it when it's right there in the National Gallery then that's a bad decision and a real shame. If you've seen it and you just don't get it, then I genuinely feel sorry for you and would be concerned that you might be a sociopath

osarusan

AtomicHorror wrote: »

If you've seen it and you just don't get it, then I genuinely feel sorry for you and would be concerned that you might be a sociopath

That's a ridiculous statement to be honest, if you are serious (smiley suggests you might not be).

AtomicHorror

osarusan wrote: »

That's a ridiculous statement to be honest, if you are serious (smiley suggests you might not be).

I do feel sorry for anyone who isn't at least astounded by the technical achievement, if not moved by the work itself. But no, I obviously don't think that would be an indicator of mental illness.

Cianmcliam

Some interesting points in this worth discussing

I remember walking up as close as they will let you to the Caravaggio in a cathedral in Malta, The Beheading of St. John the Baptist. It is absolutely incredible, the man was a genius and an innovator in the use of light, far ahead of his time.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Lantus

Art is good. Paint, dance, sculpture etc. Good for people to do and enjoy. Unfortunately money and cultural obsessions with fashion and exclusivity have made a mockery out of a lot of paintings. They are not worth what they fetch. Not at the expense of thousands of equally good paintings and artists.

Banksy tried to sell original pieces in NY on a stall. If his art had a universal beauty then it would if been ripped out if his hands. Instead he struggled to sell anything. Two pieces for 60 dollars at the end of the day. That man will net 140k from selling them.

That's the absurdaty of art in a modern financial system that's places a distorted value on it.

donegaLroad

I remember posting this before over in the Arts forum. This guy (J.S.G. Boggs) is an American artist who draws fake money with a pen, and spends it for it's face-value.

I think he has 'spent' over $300,000 worth of bills which he has drawn himself.

He then sells the change and the receipt of the transaction to various art collectors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEtKSqzpj0Q

cowboyBuilder

Wibbs wrote: »

Oh they were charged alright CB. The son ended up in prison for a time(the parents were considered too frail IIRC?). Lotsa red faces all around. Remarkably few experts spotted it at the time. They faked a Gauguin sculpture of Pan again IIRC that was displayed in a major retrospective of his work and the critics duly salivated. Another one was an ancient egyptian(Armana period) sculpture in alabaster that yer man dropped while making it and glued it back together with superglue. That was a centrepiece of a museum and the Queen of England was wheeled out to ooh and ahh at it. There is a strong suspicion that there are fakes out there yer man hasn't admitted to. He has claimed a purported Leo DaVinci head of a woman is one of his. And he based her on a lass who worked the till in his local Tesco.

I'd say there are a few longstanding fakes in museums and collections. An obvious one IMH and others is the very famous bust of Nefertiti found in 1912 and in a German museum. It's suspiciously modern and is a stylistic outlier for Egyptian art, even Armana stuff. It's missing an eye and the space provided wouldn't fit a replacement. How it's made is odd too. It's made of a head shaped stone covered with plaster. That's a very cheap and cheerful way to do things and not the usual for a royal portrait where the best in the kingdom would be doing the carving into raw stone. The damage to the piece is remarkably fortunate, as the face is fine. It wasn't mentioned once in any of the original dig notes, nor shipping notes. It wasn't fully described until a decade after the so called discovery. The biggest thing he ever discovered in his career? Eh…

Funny enough we may have a guaranteed bust of Nefertiti, or one of her close relatives, but in an odd place. The world famous bust of Tutankhamun. It's unlikely to have been specifically made for him, but he died suddenly and his burial was a major rush job. They even took a chunk out of the tomb wall and chopped off bits of his coffin to fit him in. The famous mask has some odd features. For a start it has holes for earrings. Adult Egyptian men and certainly Pharaohs didn't have earrings. The holes themselves were covered with a thin layer of gold foil to cover this up at the time.

What a shame - they did nothing wrong

Yet the greedy sociopathic pig bankers get rewards for defrauding working people of money.

Vandango

ScumLord wrote: »

Still spent years learning the trade.

Toddlers can perfectly imitate the style within minutes...:pac:

Zaph

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Genuinely they'd be wasted on me. I just had a look at them on Google, and tbh if I went to see them in a museum I'd probably just spend my time taking the p*ss out of them. To be fair to the Mural one, it does look like he attempted to paint rather than throw pots of the stuff around. Though what he was painting is anybody's guess.

FizzleSticks

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Wibbs

Zaph wrote: »

Genuinely they'd be wasted on me. I just had a look at them on Google, and tbh if I went to see them in a museum I'd probably just spend my time taking the p*ss out of them. To be fair to the Mural one, it does look like he attempted to paint rather than throw pots of the stuff around. Though what he was painting is anybody's guess.

Never saw the deal with Pollock myself Z. Vastly overrated IMH and the thin end of the wedge where modernism started to disappear up its own arse(mixing metaphors FTW). Before his "drip period" - which yep, describes his working method - he was a very cut price bargain bin picasso.

FizzleSticks wrote: »

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True, so long as somebody isn't charging to watch a musician throw tennis balls into an open piano. That was a "thing" in the 50's and 60's. Oh yeah. When music went "modernist". Jazz went up its own arse too. The rise of popular music saved music from itself.

thattequilagirl

OP, do you also object to young men being paid millions upon millions for kicking a ball around a field?

conorhal

sonofenoch wrote: »

A 'Caravaggio' found in an attic in France valued at 120m.....is it the name or the painting that has been decided it's worth? the painting is worthless surely to any sane mind, it's worth is the price of canvass and paints ....or as the saying goes 'it's worth what someone is prepared to pay for it'.......I don't and never will understand the decadence of art

Is your worth measured by the price of a pound of meat at the butchers?


There is an argument to be made about the inherent worth of a peice of art however. I would say that a Caravaggio is inherently worth far more then a Duchamp for example:
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573
Why? Because if both sat in an attic for a couple of generations, I suspect one might still be worth something while the other would end up in a skip with the houses owners wondering why in God's name some prior owner had a urinal in the attic. Or more esoterically, one still has the power to speak to the soul, the other to the bladder.

pickarooney

Surely the fact that nobody can say for sure if this is actually a Caravaggio and the difference in its value would be of the order if tens of millions if it's not prices beyond doubt that it's the name alone that gives art its worth?

smash

pickarooney wrote: »

Surely the fact that nobody can say for sure if this is actually a Caravaggio and the difference in its value would be of the order if tens of millions if it's not prices beyond doubt that it's the name alone that gives art its worth?

If it's not a Caravaggio then it's pretty much worthless. Unless of course it's been done by some other famous artist.

Discodog

He was a great artist but the only reason that it may be worth 120 million is because that's what someone will pay for it. The buyer will factor in that it may well be worth a lot more in the future. There are a lot of billionaires who are looking for safe investments.

The same applies to all Art including Tracy's bed.

FizzleSticks

FizzleSticks wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Discodog wrote: »

He was a great artist but the only reason that it may be worth 120 million is because that's what someone will pay for it. The buyer will factor in that it may well be worth a lot more in the future. There are a lot of billionaires who are looking for safe investments.

The same applies to all Art including Tracy's bed.

This is exactly it.

It's just the way the market works, in anything. Prices that seem outrageous are put on everything, from a U2 tour bringing in a €100 mill to an NFL player signing a $50 mill contract. Of course it can all be reduced to some absurdity, of the "all that money for singing a few songs/ throwing a ball/ firing paint on a piece of paper" variety, but in fact it should involve a deep philosophical analysis of consumerism, market forces etc. not some "art, pfffft, overpriced" type take.

valoren

thattequilagirl wrote: »

OP, do you also object to young men being paid millions upon millions for kicking a ball around a field?

I wouldn't object to that. Football generates billions in revenue (advertising, sponsorship, TV rights, gate receipts etc). It's only fair that the players get their proverbial slice of the pie. You can't have art (or a market for that art) without the artists themselves.

The only objectionable thing would be the transfer market. When you see players being 'bought' for £100,000,000 it makes you step back and question the sanity behind such decisions. Then you realise that that kind of money is being paid because the player themselves will produce the revenue to somehwat justify the amount paid. For example, when Ronaldo was sold to Real Madrid for £90m people baulked at the price tag. Real recouped most of the price tag through revenue generated from Shirt sales with his name and number across the globe.

When you see the enormous price tags with some works of art then it becomes a pissing contest among the super wealthy which is why I believe that if a work of art's value is estimated among the experts over a nominal value then as Indiana Jones would say "..this belongs in a museum". It would be deemed priceless and invalid for auction pissing contests.

For the rest of civilisation, there will only be one classical era of Carvaggios and Mozarts.

So saying anything great from that time is overpriced is silly.. One, rarity, two, historical significance and three, the price will always rise.

Chain Smoker

Zaph wrote: »

Genuinely they'd be wasted on me. I just had a look at them on Google, and tbh if I went to see them in a museum I'd probably just spend my time taking the p*ss out of them. To be fair to the Mural one, it does look like he attempted to paint rather than throw pots of the stuff around. Though what he was painting is anybody's guess.

I'm not a Pollock fan by any stretch of the imagination, but he really does seem like the kind of person where actually seeing the painting is a totally different experience to seeing it on google image search, there's very much a third dimensional element to a lot of paintings.