Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) ranks among my top five artists of all time (I suppose the others would be Rembrandt, Leonardo, Picasso, and then a tie between Johannes Vermeer and Caravaggio), so it’s a big thrill to see that a previously unknown painting of his has come to light. Below is “Sunset at Montmajour,” painted at Arles in 1888.
Isn’t it beautiful?
The New York Times describes its provenance and how it was authenticated (the “museum” is the wonderful van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam)
“For the first time in the history of the museum, that is in the past 40 years, a substantial capital new work of van Gogh has been discovered that was completely unknown in the literature,” said the museum’s director, Axel Rüger, in an interview. “He is one of the most famous artists in the world and we always think we’ve seen everything and we know everything, and now we’re able to add a significant new work to his oeuvre.” He added, “It is a work from the most important period of his life, when he created his substantial masterpieces, like ‘The Sunflowers,’ ‘The Yellow House’ and ‘The Bedroom.’”
The painting depicts dusk in the rocky landscape around Montmajour, a vineyard hill town in Provence, with the ruins of a Benedictine Abbey in the background, a subject that van Gogh explored many times during his time in Arles.
The painting has been in the private collection of a family for several years, but the museum would not release any more information about the owners because of privacy concerns, Mr. Rüger said. Two years ago, they brought it to the Van Gogh Museum to seek authentication, and researchers from the museum have been examining it ever since, said Mr. Rüger. The museum recently concluded that the work was a van Gogh because the painting’s pigments correspond with those of van Gogh’s palette from Arles.
It was also painted on the same type of canvas, with the same type of underpainting he used for at least one other painting, “The Rocks” (owned by the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston) of the same area at the same time. The work was also listed as part of Theo van Gogh’s collection in 1890, and was sold in 1901.
“Sunset at Montmajour” is comparable in size to van Gogh’s “Sunflower” painting of the same year. The owners brought it to the museum once before in 1991, said Mr. Rüger, but at the time no one recognized it as a van Gogh. “This time, we have topographical information plus a number of other factors that have helped us to establish authenticity. Research is so much more advanced now, so we could come to a very different conclusion.”
If you are Dutch, or headed to Amsterdam, you’ll be able to see it soon: it goes on exhibit at the Museum on September 24.
These things are priceless, and I think all art of this quality really belongs in museums so it can be appreciated by everyone, but you might have asked yourself, as I did, “What would this sell for at auction?” Well, Wikipedia of course has an article on the most expensive paintings ever sold privately or at auction, and a van Gogh doesn’t come in until #6, “Portrait of Dr. Gachet,” which sold in 1990 for $82.5 million ($146 million in today’s dollars). Topping the list is Paul Cezanne’s “The Card Players,” which, as you may recall, sold two years ago for anywhere between $250 and $300 million dollars to the Royal Family of Qatar (price was undisclosed). I’d take a Van Gogh over a Cezanne on my wall any day.
The Old Masters, of course, are mostly in museums and are never sold. But the Wikipedia article discusses the possible value of the world’s most famous painting: the Mona Lisa:
The museums very rarely sell them, and as such, they are quite literally priceless. Guinness World Records lists the Mona Lisa as having the highest insurance value for a painting in history. It was assessed at US$100 million on December 14, 1962, before the painting toured theUnited States for several months. However, the Louvre chose to spend the money that would have been spent on the insurance premium on security instead. Taking inflation into account, the 1962 value would be around US$759 million today.
Here’s a graph of some of the paintings, but go over to the article to see the full list. In general I have no beef with the artists, except for the three Warhols, which went for 100. 70, and 63 million dollars respectively. That’s an absolute travesty: Warhol was a new-kid-on-the-block mediocrity, though I expect he’ll find his defenders here.
Which would you rather have on your wall: van Gogh’s sunflowers or Warhol’s soup cans?
But enough of crass materialism. Who are your five favorite painters? Anybody who says Schnabel will be banned (only kidding!).
Fantastic. I love it.
Fabulous!
Van Gogh is definitely in my top 5. The other 4 would be Caravaggio, Leonardo, Gericault and Picasso.
I like various artists and various works, and can’t explain my preferences. I just like what I like.
My favourite, I suppose, is The Scream by Edvard Munch.
Glad you mentioned him. I don’t feel competent enough to have a top five list, but in the early ’70’s, when I heard that a Munch exhibit was coming to a gallery in DC (forgotten which, perhaps the Corcoran) I made sure to see it. I seem to recall that this was the first time a traveling Munch exhibit had ever been mounted. There were at least four different versions of The Scream.
Otherwise, I like Monet* in general, H Bosch (Garden of Delights), de Chirico (Mystery and Melancholy of a Street), Gaugin, (Fatata te Miti) and Rousseau (Carnival Evening) *and for the Swedes out there, Prince Eugene, too.
Also, George Catlin – stunning artistic documentation of western Native Americans if the name’s not familiar. About ten yrs ago an exhibit of his more or less complete works was mounted at the Renwick, essentially across the street from the White House, and that was fantastic (as well as free!) too.
I’ve seen one of The Screams – can’t remember which one – I could look at it all day. If I could have any painting in the world as a gift that’s the one I’d choose, although objectively speaking there are probably better works of art. If I can ever get to Oslo I’ll set aside a couple of days for the two galleries with Munch works.
As to van Gogh, I quite like Starry Night, Cafe Terrace at Night and Starry Night over the Rhone, amongst many others. Yes, I’m a night sky nut. 🙂
Isn’t there a cat somewhere in that shrubbery?
Maybe. I do know that if you look at the upper left and squint, you can see the TARDIS sitting there.
I saw that!
A new painting by van Gogh is nearly as exciting as a new mammal species! Re rankings, not really into that, but the light and colours and sense of serenity you get from Giotto’s and Piero della Francesca’s paintings (especially the landscapes) are the first things that came to my mind.
There was an episode of Doctor Who where they bring van Gough to the future to see his paintings. When Amy & The Doctor return back to the future (our present) after dropping van Gough off in his time, Amy is crushed that he still committed suicide. It’s a really good episode.
I don’t really know that I have five favourites as such. There’s a lot of artists I like a great deal. Five (of many) I keep coming back to?
Kandinsky
Turner
Renoir
Rembrandt
Picasso
Nice. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is a must-see. One of my favorites of all times/places.
I’m pretty conconant with your choices of painters. I also like Rafael, Goya, Velasquez, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Caillebotte. And others quite a lot too.
Oh yeah, supposed to 5 favorites …
Hmmm, I’m going to land on:
Van Gogh
Renoir
Rembrandt
Picasso
Goya
250-300 million dollars for some paint and canvas!?!
That’s bloody insane. 🙂
The prices are primarily due to rarity and prestige, and not to aesthetic quality. If this painting had not been attributed to van Gogh it would be worth very little. Conversely, if a very poor painting were attributed to van Gogh is would be worth a great deal.
Precisely. They have become status symbols, whose indication of status has nothing to do with the artistic merit of what’s on the canvas.
If I were an artist whose work was currently fetching tens of millions of dollars, but had lived in near poverty or obscurity during my lifetime, I’d be flippin’ pissed.
A particularly egregious musical example is Mozart. If he were alive today he’d be a millionaire many times over. But during his life he constantly had to beg friends for money just to make ends meet.
(On the other hand, if he were alive today, writing the Jupiter symphony or Gran Partita, his work would be dismissed as derivative and irrelevant. But that’s another issue.)
“if he were alive today, writing the Jupiter symphony or Gran Partita, his work would be dismissed as derivative and irrelevant”
Yeah, for sure, that’s the rub. Though maybe people would recognize the genius there.
What amazes me was how J.S. Bach was more or less “forgotten” for a while. (Current!) style rules so often.
Money and art are strange bedfellows.
Indeed. At least Bach lived in relative comfort, although he felt pinches now and then, too. He wrote a letter to his employers in Leipzig (I think, perhaps Arnstadt) asking for an advance because fewer than average people had died that year. He missed the funeral income.
A reason often given for Bach’s fading is that his style was too severe and cerebral. Canons and fugues were “old-fashioned.” Berlioz criticized the fact that fugues would still often appear in religious music.
I can’t understand that superficial approach to categorization and evaluation. Form is certainly something to consider, but to use it as the sole criterion by which to dismiss a piece? No, no, no. One has to look at what the composer has done with the pitches. It would be rather like saying “I love/hate shirts!” No, you love/hate particular shirts for particular reasons.
Did you see this about the lost Sunflowers?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23960021
I do not really have favourite painters. Well, favourite piantings maybe…
Not a modernist. I prefer ancient & mediaeval art, all anonymous. And I am afraid I really am not a Picasso fan!
If you like mediaeval art, you should follow @BLMedieval on Twitter. It’s about the British Library’s medieval manuscripts and some of the manuscript art is very cool.
Very interesting, thanks!
Just hung a huge Kandinsky print- “Mit und Gegen” on my wall, fabulous picture. He believed painting could express musical compositions and seemed to have the condition of synaesthesia- experiencing musical notes as colours- as have many composers.
He’s my fave, then yes, Van Gogh, Turner, Escher and crazy poet William Blake.
Yes, Blake’s visual art is excellent.
“Kandinsky print- “Mit und Gegen” on my wall, fabulous picture”
So, I can’t make much of most 20th century painting. Can you please explain what you see in that work that makes it fabulous: I would honestly like to know, because I can’t see it.
I can’t speak for its merit, it just appeals to me. The figure on the left reminds me of a knickerbocker glory with a wafer, the one on the right a flying ship, and an amoeba in the middle, with a gorgeous red and terracotta background- makes perfect sense to me!
It has no more “meaning” than a Mozart sonata, but I find it beautiful to look at, and it’s geometric shapes trigger memories and emotions in my mind. I get a similar thing listening to Prokofiev: often I can’t figure out why the harmonies work, but they work.
Thank you! It may just be (purely): À chacun son goût.
Blake’s treatment of human figures is interesting, especially for the period where cadavers were beginning to be studied. I just found a book by someone I went to school (now a professor at a university right near where I work) with detailing Blake’s treatment of the body….serendipity!
Bosch
El Greco
Dali
Caravaggio
Friedrich
And my top 3 of graphic artists:
Da Vinci
Goya
Escher
Many of the artists mentioned so far would make my list, but an American painter I have always liked was Winslow Homer, particularly paintings of (or near) the sea.
Wow. I’m guessing this piece was done in 1890 (the year of VG’s death), by the size of the brush strokes and the sheer hallucinogenic quality of the whole thing. I’m no expert…
My favorite artists:
1) Warhol
2) William Copley
3) … oh, who am I kidding.
1) Rembrandt
?) Seurat
?) Matisse
?) Van Gogh
?) Dali (strangely enough – mostly due to his hyperrealismo stuff)
although I’d probably revise and revise that list in a heartbeat. I’m fairly illiterate, where the graphic arts are concerned. I’d even put Francis Bacon up there, despite the low opinion of a rather well-studied artist I know in the neighborhood. I guess I gravitate towards the really dark, wacky stuff.
he I go a-revising… when I said Matisse, I meant Degas. That spooky absinthe stuff…
Could not find a good example of the kind of hiperrealismo I’m thinking about (that exists in Figueras) – that I seriously could only barely distinguish from a photograph with my eyeballs inches from the paper (black ink).
This will have to do. The language he is speaking is “Dalinian”, which is actually the only proper form of English in existence. He actually made some vinyl recordings in an effort to educate the rest of us mere mortals so that we might speak correctly. But would we listen? Noooo…
OK. Time for the thorazine. (and a few Hail Mary’s while I wait for it to kick in)
My tastes are naturalism (so yes, I prefer photos), non-figurative art and the amusing juxtaposition of surrealism.
More seldom nice techniques, and van Gogh doesn’t move me at all, most of his paintings bore me in fact. As do most of Pollock’s and Warhol’s productions. In this category I prefer Escher, as many physicists are wont to do, because he grokked symmetries, quasi-symmetries and geometry all.
Picasso is … interesting (say, Guernica). But I more often prefer Dali among surrealists.
So among the given ones I prefer Rembrandt and da Vinci, certainly. Minoan, Greek, Roman, Hindu, Khmer sculptures; Museum Het Rembrandthuis, Le Louvre, Musée Rodin; are all worth a look. But nowadays I want my art on web or as useful glass ware, not on walls or pedestals.
I was tempted to add sculpture as well. 🙂 I have a fascination with Archaic Greek sculpture, in particular the kouroi funerary statuary! You got to love the “archaic smile”. 🙂
+1. They were amazingly sophisticated.
As well as incredibly conservative. They kept that same look for centuries. This could be because they were funeral statuary but they also had a lot of eastern influence (if you look at the very stable, no changing sculpture of Egypt of that time).
My five favorite painters: Rembrandt, Velazquez, Pissarro, Klee, and someone whose name I’ll probably recall the instant after I press the “Post Comment” button…
What a painting! One could just drown in the color, light and movement! If it was on my wall, I’d never get anything done in my house. When I used to go to the Chicago Art museum, my favorite was whatever was hanging that day, but besides Van Gogh, Renoir would leave me high for days.
My other favorite artist is my Mom, who painted some incredibly lovely paintings, including a couple where she tried to mimic Van Gogh’s style, and they came out very nice and enjoyable. My favorite was the one she did of my prairie boots (Van Gogh style) and sits on the center of our fireplace mantle.
In 1987 Van Gogh’s “Irises” was the most expensive painting ever bought. I love Van Gogh’s work; I can see and feel the passion in every brush-stroke of his paintings.
However, it boggles my mind that the Van Gogh Museum could not recognize this painting as a Van Gogh the first time it was brought in. Any art student would suspect Van Gogh upon seeing that painting. The style, the subject matter, the sense of movement, the lighting, the sky, the way the trunks of the trees were painted, these were unique to Van Gogh at that time. Compare his painting of poplars. It would be staggeringly stupid to not recognize Van Gogh’s style in this painting.
Proving that it is not a forgery is another matter entirely, but the quote in the post says “The owners brought it to the museum once before in 1991, said Mr. Rüger, but at the time no one recognized it as a van Gogh.” Unbelievable.
Indeed.
Even someone with no training in the visual arts at all would guess Van Gogh. And I did.
I like John Singer Sargent. He’s arguably undervalued because he mostly painted portaits of rich and famous people, but he did it extremely well.
+1
Richard Schmid
John Singer Sargent
Ilya Repin
Anders Zorn
William Merritt Chase
Kadinsky
Klimt
Picasso (esp The Scream & Guernica)
any work by The Dutch Masters (their use of reflection is hypnotizing!)
I don’t like pointillism. I attribute this to being extremely myopic. 🙂
And I meant Munch’s Scream. Ha ha I forgot to add him and attributed him to Picasso instead.
Whew!
There are just too many to choose from. I’d probably have a nervous breakdown if I tried to choose my 5 favorites. Of those mentioned so far in the OP and comments I take no exceptions.
I agree with Jerry about Warhol too. I understand and accept that Warhol said some interesting things that were worth saying with his art, but his art has never moved me. If I did not have the cultural contexts to understand the message and was therefore dependent only on the uncensored, uninformed, reaction I had to the aesthetic visual experience of seeing something like one of his soup can pieces, I would not have a memorable experience.
In contrast consider pieces like A Wheatfield with Cypresses by van Gogh, Guernica by Picasso, The Kiss by Klimt, and so on. Understanding the cultural contexts of these pieces, or understanding what the artist’s intended message was can certainly add to your experience of the art, but it is not necessary. Even when experienced with complete ignorance they are capable of evoking strong emotions whether wonder at the beauty of the piece, yearning, comfort, sadness, revulsion, or some combination thereof.
If you take something like a Warhol piece and take it out of context, say displace it in time, you are left with something that doesn’t have much to offer.
+1
+1
plus 1
+ 4
(Where I picked up this notation, those noting their agreement indicated the total so far…)
+11111 …
Such lists are foolish but irresistible. Here’s mine:
Titian
Velasquez
Goya
Thomas Eakins
Winslow Homer
Van Gogh, followed by Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, which already adds up to ten, so what the heck – Seurat, Monet, Renoir, Turner, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Pollock, Escher, Constable, Rembrandt, da Vinci, Renior, Cézanne … Possibly I was unduly influenced by the board game “Masterpiece” as a child. I would say that there is a huge difference between what I would want on my walls (Impressionism, Pointillism, Mathematical art, landscape photos) and what I am happy to wander around looking at in galleries.
I’m more of a Symphony connoisseur than painting but I’ll tentatively go for davinci and El greco.
Van gogh seems to have been portrayed on film and had more pop songs written about him than any other painter. I like joni Mitchell’s “turbulent indigo” but am so so on Don macLean’s “Vincent”.
Best Van Gogh movie is New Zealand film “Vincent” Every scene is seen through Van Gogh’s eyes while John Hurt rads from his letters to Theo. Magnificent!!
Yes, excellent movie.
If you are ever anywhere near Mons Belgium stop and see Van Gogh’s house. It’s a small museum but I enjoyed it. He lived there from 1879 to 1880. It was neat to see where he lived. I’ve always liked Van Gogh. And Mons is a really cool town.
Jerry, the question you asked about JK Rowlings new novel can be asked about this painting: would you think it was so great if you didn’t know it was a Van Gogh?
I’d like to think so, as there’s something about his brushwork and vision that resonates with me. During my life I’ve seen several paintings that I’d consider great, but didn’t recognize the artist.
When I was in St. Petersburg a few years ago, I saw a painting in the modern art museum that riveted me from across the room. It was “Barge Haulers on the Volga” by Ilya Repin, whom I hadn’t heard of previously. I stared at it for a long time, and marveled at his ability to capture character.
At the time I thought I’d found another great world-class painting by an unknown artist, but of course quickly discovered that Repin is actually quite famous. And I note that at least one reader ranks Repin as one of his favorite artists of all time.
That’s not to say that I have some amazing ability to recognize great art, for I don’t: we’re all conditioned by our cultural milieu. But I think I’d thrill to the new Van Gogh painting even if I didn’t know who created it.
He’d make my top 10, too. Did you come across ‘Cossacks of Saporog Are Drafting a Manifesto’ on your visit?
Yeah, I think Repin is amazing. His portrait work is particularly cool and his painting of Ivan the Terrible holding his murdered son is one of the most chilling things I’ve ever seen on canvas. The expression of abject horror is appropriate since Ivan (Sr) was himself the (semi-accidental) murderer.
Wow! Thanks for mentioning that. I had never come across that painting before.
Couldn’t agree more. Repin was very good at evoking mood and emotion with this painting. As a father it is very disturbing to look at that.
Holy crap, that is an intense painting! I love the huge “white space” around the pair.
I like many different styles and thus many different artists – however, I could stand and look at a Turner or a Bruegel for quite a long time.
Is that the Tardis in the background?
Most definitely; see the sub comment to #5! 😉
Looks like others saw the TARDIS as well. 🙂 This article also mentions the episode I talked about up thread. 🙂
I also love what van Gogh wrote about the idyllic panorama, (second page of the NY Times article). He was a very good writer too!:
[The date of the painting has been identified as July 4, 1888. A letter van Gogh wrote the next day says, “Yesterday, at sunset, I was on a stony heath where very small, twisted oaks grow, in the background a ruin on the hill, and wheat fields in the valley. It was romantic, it couldn’t be more so, à la Monticello, the sun was pouring its very yellow rays over the bushes and the ground, absolutely a shower of gold. And all the lines were beautiful; the whole scene had charming nobility.”]
I love stuff by Renoir, Degas, van Gogh, Picasso, da Vinci, Group of Seven, Modigliani, Monet, Rembrandt, Gaugin, Robert Bateman, and more…
I agree that Van Gogh was a surprisingly compelling writer and highly recommend “Dear Theo” (a sort of “condensation” from all the letters he wrote to his brother). It’s debatable how much of its literary merit derives from Vincent and how much from Irving Stone who edited it all together, but either way, it’s a wonderful read for anyone interested in Van Gogh, art, or the artistic process.
Thank you for the tip!
He definitely had an artist’s eye for seeing and articulating what many miss.
Vermeer, Rembrandt, Velázquez, van Gogh, and… mmm… a tie between Monet and Turner. The list would likely be different if I were to make it again. Bosch deserves a place, and so does Caravaggio — and if engraving also counted, Dürer and Escher…
The Netherlands win easily, anyway.
I think it took this far down the comments for Monet to show up. I was surprised by that.
I know. I mentioned him at #29. He’s wonderful.
Dürer and Escher for sure.
The Night Watch alone is enough to put Rembrandt on my no 1 position.
Elsewise… Van Gogh doesn’t make my top 5 even though I do like him.
Dali, definitely. I can stare at “Dream … awakening” for hours.
Caravaggio, unbelievably modern for the time. Looks contemporary now!
Bosch, again, hasn’t aged at all, and the sheer lunacy… brilliant.
And I’m gonna add Mucha even though he didn’t paint that much.
As a bonus I’d like to mention a friend of mine’s favourite painter, Jan Steen, who seems to have been overlooked so far. Striking insights into 17th-century day-to-day life. And another lowlander.
I’ve seen the Nightwatch. Yes, large, impressive, etc. What about it makes it your #1?
(Seriously, honestly. I liked it; but it didn’t impress me as much (just speaking of Rembrandt) as his self-portrait drawings …)
All of the above, and…. Canaletto (sp?).
His rendering of the perspective of the Grand Canal in Venice was amazing.
Saw almost that scene when on vacation last year.
Well you asked for favorite painters rather than greatest or most important painters. I think there may be something objectively true about great art making one artist or at least one work of art “better” than another. Van Gogh was highly idiosyncratic, his style was his own and to that extent he invented the modern notion that it is imperative for an artist to find their own “voice.”
It is true that the dollar amount asigned to a artwork is primarily a function of their name recognition and notoriety but all the artist represented on the graph are first rate. (Andy Warhol was responsible for taaking the notion that name recognition was all and exploiting it for artistic purposes.)
Paul Cezanne, whose painting of the card players tops the money list was also the greatest of modern artists and most art after his are footnotes to his work.
That being said.
Paul Cezanne
Rembrant
DeKooning
Michaelangelo
Venus de Milo’s creator (subject to dispute)
It has just occurred to me that we are all a little bit Eurocentric and modern-centric. I would therefore like to add a couple of other favourites of mine:
Katsushika Hokusai
The anonymous painter(s) of Lascaux
I bemoaned the lack of eastern art in introductory Art History courses, which are very Western. I’m sure there were great pieces in the East during Europe’s dark ages (and the East’s renaissance).
I keep looking for mention of some women. Though Western, Elaine DeKooning, Lee Krasner, Dorothea Tanning, Alice Neel, and Grace Hartigan are some wonderfully painterly painters.
And yes, the Lascaux paintings are just splendid!
Sofonisba Anguissola and Artemisia Gentileschi are as great as any of their male contemporaries.
Yay for Alice Neel! Indeed, very painterly.
So perhaps this might be better described as a lost van Gogh, rather then a “new” or “previously unknown” one.
Chaim Soutine
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
El Greco
Reblogged this on Funny and Interesting Stuff People Have Sent Me and commented:
I just learned about reblogging so I thought I’d try it. Enjoy.
Thomas Kincaid, LeRoy Niemann, Norman Rockwell. (Hee Hee)
A meme that seems to be gaining traction in the Russian corners of the interwebz is the concept that great art can only be improved by photoshopping a 10 kg orange tabby into the composition.
http://fatcatart.ru/gallery-2/?lang=en
The Monet haystack is not to be missed.
Hehe…a ginger cat even.
I like Grant Wood’s American Gothic.
I saw this cat (by Nicholae Maes) in the Rijksmuseum just a few weeks ago, and loved it.
Typo alert: Nicolaes
Ha – that’s great. I’m going there next month – I’ll have to watch out for it.
Jerry should do a Caturday post on cat cameos in great art. Are there many? I don’t even know. Admittedly, art isn’t really my felid.
There were felids already in Paleolithic rock paintings. The Chauvet cave lions, for example:
Manet
Wyeth
Hopper
Mombassa, Reg
Vermeer
I agree with everyone who says it is silly or impossible,but I’ll play : Goya,Velazquez,Courbet,Vermeer, Rogier van der Weyden.
P.S. I also endorse almost all the artists on other lists…
I bet there are a lot of people who are very excited about this news, yet who poo-pooed all the hubbub around the book The Cuckoo’s Calling when it was revealed to have been written by J.K. Rowling. “Oh sure, just because it’s Rowling you make a big deal out of it? Where were you when everyone thought it was by Robert Galbraith? Wasn’t it just as good then?”
I’ll let others have their Warhols and Jackson Pollocks; they don’t compare at all to van Gogh. I especially like van Gogh’s cherry blossoms. I wouldn’t put the Mona Lisa on my list of great pieces though; the Dutch masters have produced much more interesting portraits and if I wanted a pretty Italian painting I’d prefer Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.
Love that last one too.
Escher. Niemann. Whistler. Frazetta.
Thought experiment:
Suppose the wildest dreams of nanotechnology came true and it were possible to duplicate a van Gogh painting precisely, atom by atom, particle by particle, right down to the exact quantum state. The copy would be indistinguishable from the original by any physical test.
So, how much would the copy be worth, compared to the original?
For the copy to be constructed by physical means, you would presumably have to physically deconstruct the original in order to access the states of all its particles. You would of course put it back together again, but then you don’t have an “original” and a “copy”, you have two identical, newly constructed instances. There’d be no meaningful sense in which one was more “original” than the other.
Good point. There would be no difference, even in principle, between the “original” and the “copy.” It would be possible to make an unlimited number of perfect “copies.” The validity of the one that van Gogh produced would be moot.
So, how much would each be worth.
There’s a fair amount of science fiction written on this general theme. (See for instance Cory Doctorow’s work.)
Basically, if you can manufacture anything at all on demand for essentially zero cost, then the whole idea of money and material economics goes out the window. Once an object has been scanned, its value goes to zero. What’s valuable in that sort of world is the ability to design new objects for the nanofactories to make.
You can manufacture rubies and diamonds and although they are exactly like “natural” ones, they are valued less and you have to certify that they are not natural ones.
I think this would apply to the van Gough painting.
Personally, I would see them as having the same value (as I do the diamonds and rubies). But if the paintings were mass produced, it would become commonplace and lose some of its value this way, even though it is just as lovely to look at.
The monetary value would approach zero as the number of perfect copies approached infinity. The aesthetic value would be constant, but small in monetary terms.
To answer your question in the spirit of its intention:
I don’t know if I can say which would be more valuable than the other but I would say that they’d be valuable for different reasons.
An analogy to (surprise, surprise) music:
The playing of a great virtuoso is valuable because it represents a challenge met, a remarkable human achievement in dexterity, control, and musical insight.
A computer simulation of the same virtuoso’s playing might still represent a remarkable achievement, but not in the categories listed above. It would be an achievement in computer science.
There’s a science fiction story about that too (surprise, surprise), called “A Work of Art” by James Blish, in which the mind of Richard Strauss is reconstructed from historical records and commissioned to compose a new work. But at the premiere, the applause is not for the resurrected Strauss, but for the psychologists who resurrected him.
I’m interested in the concept of value; in the context of this thread: monetary value vs. aesthetic value. Would a superb live musical performance, witnessed and unrecorded, exceed in value the same one recorded? Does the spontaneous experience trump the recording? How many of you commenters were at Woodstock? 🙂
Well, unfortunately I think it comes down to subjective preference, at least in the specific scenario you gave.
Some people factor the experience of being at the performance into their estimation of its value. For me, the live/recorded distinction doesn’t make a difference. All I care about is hearing what the performer did with the music. I like going to live performances, I just don’t confuse the excitement of that with the actual music-making. But with a computer simulation, the performer never did anything with the music.
Surely, the musical value of the same live performance recorded or unrecorded is the same.
Were it recorded, it might bring in more money.
You neglect the value of being there. Why else would more people claim to have been at Woodstock than could possibly have been? A lack of recording would only add to the experience, because it would be denied to others.
It’s not rational, but values aren’t rational. That’s why some pigment on canvas is worth hundreds of millions, and other pigment on canvas is worth nothing.
“It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.” — GHore Vidal
A great musical performance is both great art and a great athletic performance. And then there are the instruments, which often are also works of art.
(Michalangelo painting ceilings might be that as well, along with ballet and some others.)
I’m sure we have all listened to computer-generated musical performances, and like a great painting, the human original trumps all. Unless a programmer has a great model to copy, it sounds wooden and lifeless — because it is lifeless.
It makes one realize how important small changes in tempo, dynamics, pitch, slurs, ornaments etc. are to the emotional content of music: They rule. (Of course a good melody and good harmony are powerful too.)
Producers and musicians are familiar with this. Often when recording you are chasing that “organic” sound where the music comes to life.
Small errors can be a great contribution to a song and the songwriting.
Shih Tao, Pa-ta-shan-jen, Sesshu, Hasegawa Tohaku… there are so many out here in the East. And, alas, nobody has mentioned Poussin, who could paint the lucidity of air. I was astounded by the first (small) painting of his I saw: it stood out, for me, from among the other excellent paintings that surrounded it.
And look at Rubens’ portraits – particularly of his children.
Rubens was a great artist, but unfortunately for his legacy he ran an art factory. Many of his paintings were done mostly by apprentices, and parts were sometimes subcontracted to specialists. Unlike van Gogh, he was successful and much appreciated in his time.
Which was why I drew attention chiefly to his portraits. I don’t see what Rubens’ success in life and van Gogh’s unfortunate lack of it have to do with anything very much.
People like the ideal of the mad, tortured artist, unappreciated in his time. Call it the Dead Painter Effect. It’s both tragedy and pathos. Van Gogh is the archetype.
I’m not dissing Rubens. He’s a favorite.
My favourite painter? Ruby. The painting elephant predicted by Dr Johnson : “It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all. “
The full quote by the otherwise estimable Samuel Johnson, which rings falsely today: “Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”
It may ring falsely today, but since Johnson was making the statement in the (errrr?) 1780s, that aspect of it didn’t raise an eyebrow in it’s time. These days you could substitute a crack about a priest molesting children, or a creationist dieing of XDR (eXtremely Drug Resistant ; i.e. naturally selected) tuberculosis, which would have been controversial in Johnson’s time but is rings true now.
Besides, I saw something going past in the press a couple of days ago before I came to Africa, where some Scottish priestess was complaining about the rampant Church sexism driving women out of the priesthood in Scotland ; somehow I doubt that would have improved Johnson’s opinion of the Scots.
I recall Edgar Wind remarking somewhere, perhaps in his Reith lectures, that the taste for van Gogh and his expressionist use of colour had rendered many people insensitive to the kind of subtlety of colour found in a painter like Degas.
The colors in van Gogh’s paintings have, sadly, faded over the years.
Yes, colours tend to do that.
And paintings get dirty over time …
I would argue that a van Gogh replica, painted with skill, using van Gogh’s pigments and intended to look as close as possible to the original, would have greater aesthetic value than the faded original. Of course, it wouldn’t be worth as much, not by a long shot.
The painting was not completely unknown, as you indicate, but was believed to be a forgery. As such, it would be worth only a fraction of the cost, although it is obviously the same painting. Discuss.
The same arguement applies to stamp collecting. The high price of name recognition artworks is not solely a function of their rarity as all the artists mentioned with the high auction prices are first rate paintings by first rate artists; masterpieces that, besides being superlative artworks, are part of history.
Yes, it is mainly “first rate”, not rarity, which is the driving factor. Picasso painted many paintings, so they are not rare. (Of course, any individual painting is infinitely rare, but you know what I mean.) However, my point is that the quality of the painting is independent of whether it is a forgery or not. So, whatever it is which makes van Gogh a great painter, why doesn’t this apply to forgeries as well, which only experts can recognize as such (and not based on their quality)?
Well, values exist only in heads and heads are not always particularly rational. A lot of the value we place on a van Gogh is there only because we know a lot of other humans really like him.
The aesthetic emotional impact of the art is a source of value as well, but this could presumably be reproduced easily enough in a good forgery.
So I guess I’m saying that I don’t think a forgery is necessarily of lesser quality than an authentic van Gogh, insofar as “quality” is taken to mean something that can be objectively measured. But when people look at, buy, or think about art, they aren’t interested in objective measurable reality. I think a lot of what makes great art great is manufactured in our heads, and in a different historical context we could look at the forgeries and have the same wonderful subjective experiences that we get now looking at “real” masterpieces.
A forgery of a masterpiece might be a nice example of beautiful painting but it is a recording. I know of no examples of “original” forgeries, where a forger copied the style an artist but not a particular painting, which rise to the level of great works.
The painting in question will gain it’s stature from being a Van Gogh not from being a great Van Gogh. Though it is pretty powerful in itself, the painting is not on the level of his “Irises”, “Cafe Terrace at Night”, “Vincent’s Room at Arles” or even “Starry Night”, paintings that are responsible for the value we place on the name of Van Gogh.
(Picasso (?) once claimed to have forged a few Picassos. DeKooning said Cubism was not an important movement so much as that there were some terrific artists doing it – mostly Picasso, Braque and Gris.)
Picasso is said (I’m reading a thorough biography) more than 15,000 paintings (just paintings, not drawings, collages, sculpture, paper 3-D “creations”, etc.).
Prolific ain’t in it!
… said to have painted …
Renoir, Lawren Harris, Vermeer, Sisley, Klimt.
Most of the time, when I look at paintings, I tend to wonder how well the artist can actually paint… It’s weird, but most of the time I just don’t get a lot of visual art.
Notable exceptions are:
Prehistoric art (gives me a kind of vertigo)
Da Vinci’s cartoons
A room full of Rothko canvases is pretty intense
Bosch/Goya (anything apocalyptic and religious)
Generally I get either music or architecture/use of space over painting. My knowledge of eastern art is limited, although I do know a bit about Japanese and Pacific islands tattooing!