Many have claimed that for an art form to have intrinsic value, it must be significant. It’s is an expansive definition, one that bears further examination.
Can the definition of art as “significant form” be narrowed down to base elements?
- Importance to a single person makes an artwork valuable. If a creator finds the painting of mountains and trees that they made interesting enough to hang on their house wall, an artwork has significance to them. It exemplifies art being significant to one person.
- A Blue-ribbon Panel of Judges finds that a painting by a local artist entitled “Parallel Lines in White Field” fits the criteria for their exhibition entitled “New Trends in Seattle Minimalism.” This Panel might find it significant enough to include in their upcoming show. It would be a case where art is meaningful to a group of people.
- Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting, “Untitled” (1982), which sold to a Japanese collector for $110.5 million at auction, was significant in that it was worth that much to the collector, and because that it was the most expensive artwork by an American artist to have ever sold. This artist and the painting “Untitled” hold a place at the pinnacle of history. The collector and the community of art speculators who bid on the work by Basquiat are a vital group of art world movers and shakers, making this a most significant piece of modern art.
- Leonardo da Vinci’s fresco “The Last Supper” is an example of one of the best-loved and most reproduced images of all time. It is acknowledged around the world as a great work by an artistic genius. Recently, a team of Italian art restorers finished a 20-year project to make “the Last Supper” look more “fresh.” Many people in the art world took issue with their clean-up and preservation efforts; the controversy may never be put to rest. However, the undeniable skill and vision of the original work by da Vinci is evident. Being that “The Last Supper” is one of the most well-known and recognizable artworks of the western world, it is perhaps the most significant of the four works mentioned here.
From these examples, we can see that there is a hierarchy of value in art. Some artworks are simply more valuable than others due to the number of people who place value in them.
What other qualities make art valuable or significant? Let’s look at the question from the artist’s standpoint:
- Artist’s Choice: The artist might say, “…I think I did a good job on this one, mom…” if the artist was a child or young art student.
- Artist’s Choice: A college art student might say, “…my work is of equal value to all other works of art because our instructor told us art is NOT OBJECTIVE. There are no qualities that make any artwork more valid than the stuff I’m doing here at Cheyenne Community College. As the instructor said, art is relative, beauty is in the beholder’s eye, and that saying goes double for art. Art is a TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE because my instructor said so, and I trust him. I know he is a good man who would not blow smoke up my butt to build up the confidence level I have toward my creations and creativity in general. So next time my classmate says his work looks better than mine on so many levels, I will simply tell him, ‘art is subjective; beauty is in the eye of the beholder; you are a loser…’”
- Artist’s Choice: About their creations, the graffiti/street artist might say, “I did it because this anger I feel inside must be expressed. So, I tag, and it’s right…”
- Artist’s Choice: The undiscovered, obsessed hobbyist/genius might say (to anyone who will listen), “…this is my latest work. Since it is abstract, I’m not sure what it means. You figure it out, I’m going to make more art…” Or, this person might say, “…I started out making a cat, then it turned into this…” or this artist could say, “…I can’t afford to care about an audience or a market! I’m MAKING ART! Do I look like a mechanic…?”
- Artist’s Choice: Co-op and Coffeehouse artists are a breed apart, selling on rare occasions, which keeps them motivated, “…I sold one like this a few months ago, so I made 32 more of them. Some will be at a coffee shop 60 miles south of here next month, and right now, I have six works in a coffee shop in the mountains just off the highway 30 miles to the east. As always, I show at the co-op, but that’s just for the sake of vanity. However, the community at the co-op is great…!”
- Artist’s Choice: Tattoo artists make their living from their art, so what they often say about it comes from that, “…People tell me what ink they want, and I make it happen. I am one of the best; I’ve been drawing since I was six, and I knew I wanted to do this for a living by the age of twelve. If you want to look, a lot of my sketches are for sale. People tell me I should try harder to sell them, but I’m happy right here, in my shop…”
- Artist’s Choice: A Commercial Artist might say to his employer or client, “…I got everything you asked for in this job, on time, and under budget. I am delighted with how it turned out. Are you…?”
- Artist’s Choice: A top-selling artist might say to a potential buyer who is looking at a work by them, “…this is one of my best works…You had better buy it before someone else does…” or “…this is what I’m doing now. With the current situation in Washington, D.C. I think contemporary art needs to be socially aware. This artwork is my reaction to the times that we find ourselves living in…” or “…my theory behind this picture is extensive. As you know, I only select CUBE-SHAPED grains of sand to glue onto my 32’’ X 48’’ geometric abstractions. This picture, which took me two years to complete, has over nine-hundred thousand grains of sand on it, all of them roughly CUBES. During the two years that I worked on the picture, I made a twelve-disk CD set and a three-volume set of books regarding the image you see and its interpretation…”
- Artist’s Choice: A world-renowned artist might say, “…in my studio, I have six assistants who paint my works from sketches and notes. I am casting my bronzes at a small foundry in SoHo, and I’m dropping by there later this morning to see how it’s going. My latest work is for the ‘Art in Public Spaces’ project in Buffalo, New York, and it will be a contiguous glass pyramid that completely encases the Buffalo Courthouse, except for a small door that you must bend down to go through. If I were to describe the installation’s general meaning, I’d say it is about ‘…Injustice as a metaphysical/spiritual condition of the 21st century.’ We are disassembling it in six months; we’ll recycle the glass, melting it down and blowing it into vases that will go on permanent display at a luxury Hotel in Las Vegas.
There is again a measurable hierarchy of importance in the art referenced in the above examples. Each artist has a place in society from which their need to express and create originates. Their art generally finds its way to the right audience, adding to the cultural backdrop.
Let’s deal with another issue of significance, the date of creation.
- Early work by Pablo Picasso, the master of 20th-century art, usually is more valuable than later pieces. One of Picasso’s Rose Period paintings, “Garcon a la Pipe,” sold at auction for $104,168,000. Picasso’s Rose Period was very brief (1904-1906), and pictures from that time are some of his most valuable works. Picasso’s paintings from later periods are still highly prized, but much less so than what he did in his formative years. “Dora Maar au Chat” is a cubist portrait by the master painted in 1941. The painting sold for $95,216,000—about 9 million less.
- The time of creation we see in the two Picasso works isn’t completely illustrative of the point I was trying to make. Imagine this: A torso and head from the classical period of Greek sculpture (circa 400 B.C.) compared to a modern work by an acknowledged master of Abstract Expressionist Sculpture, David Smith. David Smith lived from 1906-1965 and has a large body of work in cast-steel or polished-and-assembled steel. Smith’s works are challenging and enjoyable, yet the Greek sculpture is much more valuable due to its rarity and, simply put, its AGE.
Since we just mentioned the quality of rarity, we’ll look at the paintings by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). He has only 23 known works, yet he is undeniably a master of Dutch painting and Baroque painting in general. His pictures are so precious and so rare that a well-known work by Vermeer, which may be a well-executed forgery “Girl with the Pearl Earring,” fetched $30,000,000 at auction. Pieces with traceable provenance (history of ownership dating back to the artist) only include the 22 works by Vermeer. They are monetarily some of the most valuable art from the Baroque period.
In this essay, I have quoted auction prices frequently. But as you may have picked up from the initial part of what I wrote, the movers and shakers of the art world (where the money is, what is popular, what is up-and-coming, what is down-trending) is often decided by sales at galleries and auctions. Sales are an unfortunate but measurable way to track the value and significance of art.
Aesthetic qualities are certainly more challenging to measure, but a trained eye knows good art from bad. Why is a primitive-style painting by Henri Matisse (1869-1954) more valid than a primitive style painting by a child, a tribesman, or even an art student? Why is something by Matisse a superior work of art? It is in the aesthetic quality of the image detectable by a trained eye. Matisse made few choices unintentionally and had mastered form, figure, object, color, harmony, composition, shade, and line early on in his pursuit of art. Those who would question the validity of the previous statement must learn to look at art. Perhaps they have not seen enough of it to judge good work from an average or unschooled work. At times, a Matisse might look clumsy, but it is purely intentional, and more than likely, the facetious part is recovered in other areas of the composition.
In summation, I have demonstrated what “significant form” is through a hierarchical analysis of art.
- Through the cultural value of art via the artist
- Through the date of creation, both within an artist’s oeuvre and human history
- Through the rarity of art
- Through the monetary value of an artwork
- Through tangible aesthetic qualities that a professional eye can observe
There is room for debate on point #5. Did the art restorers who worked on Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” illuminate and improve it, or did they do it irreparable damage? It is a point of debate. Is the painting “Girl with the Pearl Earring” really by Johannes Vermeer, or is it a forgery? A trained eye only goes so far to find the truth. Why do we lack the words to describe the aesthetic experience accurately? Perhaps we are not so evolved as we think?