What Makes Art Valuable?

Assessing the value of art isn’t as simple as it might first seem. Sure, it’s safe to assume that a recently uncovered van Gogh would attract global attention and a multi-million dollar price tag, but the value of art is generally complex and encompasses artistic merit, historical importance, provenance, rarity, reputation, and even the hype surrounding an emerging artistic talent. But, how are these rules interpreted? And how can you tell what exactly makes art valuable?

“A work of art which isn’t based on feeling isn’t art at all,”

Paul Cézanne

It’s been debated and explored for centuries, with the price of some artworks fluctuating depending upon differing assessments of what it is that actually makes art valuable. At times it can be a conflict between the head and the heart, and at times in can be calculated in a much more methodical fashion as, in general, the greater the public demand for an artist’s work then the higher the price achieved at auction.

The value of art is multifaceted and can be appreciated in a wide variety of ways that include critical, cultural, and historical viewpoints. Encompassing a huge variety of mediums, styles, and purposes, art is diverse and expressive, but the rules of what makes art valuable can be much easier to define, meaning that you have all the tools necessary to make a decision at auction that’s driven by the head, as much as it is by the heart.

Artistic Merit

It’s easy with the benefit of hindsight to asses artistic merit in clear terms, just ask Vincent van Gogh (in his good ear, of course). Art critics, collectors, and enthusiasts have all agreed and disagreed about the merit of certain pieces over the years, and many factors contribute towards artwork being highly acclaimed, including an artwork’s aesthetic quality, which considers its visual appeal, composition, color palette, and overall design.

Technical skill is another factor, alongside an artist’s mastery of their medium or technique, as well as the creativity and originality of a piece. Art that breaks new ground, challenges conventions, or offers a fresh perspective can similarly be highly valued. Of course, all of this is subjective. Artistic merit is not an absolute measure as it varies from artist to artist. What one person considers a masterpiece, another might not. Art is deeply personal and can be appreciated for a multitude of reasons, often tied to the individual’s own experiences, tastes, and cultural background.

Edouard Manet and the Impressionists are one example of this. Today seen as pivotal pioneers in the transition away from Realism, with their embrace of color, imagination, and a thrilling new approach to art, but not everyone at the time was in agreement. In fact, in 1863 a group of artists including Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, and Manetwere forbidden from presenting at the Salon de Paris, so in the same year the Salon des Refuses was formed, which exhibited the work of all the artists who were forbidden from participating in the official salon. It caused a scandal and the critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary wrote in L’Artiste, “Before the exhibition of the Refused, we were unable to figure out what a bad painting was. Now we know it.” One of the paintings exhibited was Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (pictured, top), which was bought in 1878 for just 2,600 Francs (approximately $4.15) and is today greatly admired in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Historical Importance

“Impression! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished!” exclaimed the art critic Louis Leroy in response to Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise. Appraisal of Monet’s art is considerably kinder today, as he is held in the highest regard as an artistic revolutionary who changed the canon of art history. Monet’s art forms a central piece in the history of art and as a result is worth more than any Impressionist imitators. One of his Haystacks series achieved $110.7 million when auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York on 14 May 2019.

The historical significance of a piece not only exaggerates its price, but can also be a useful indicator for viewers and collectors, as it can helps them appreciate the cultural, political, and social context of a piece, which can not only enhance their appreciation of the artwork, but also help to establish its value.

Similarly, the historical importance of some artworks can be measured by their development of art movements and as a result these influential pieces are highly valued for shaping the course of art history. Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is one obvious example, as the seminal work is considered to have directly contributed to the development of Cubism.

Provenance and Condition

History plays an important role in the present and the same goes for art. The provenance of any artwork and its history of ownership makes a difference to its value as it helps to validate a piece’s historical significance. For instance, if the name of a famous collector is listed on the ownership information then it’s sure to attract attention, while if the artwork belonged to a museum then it is almost certain to add an incredible value to the art piece. This also has an effect on the rarity of the work and on the mechanisms of demand and supply, but more on that later.

Mark Rothko’s White Center offers a succinct representation of how an artwork’s value can be attributed to its provenance. The Rothko masterpiece rocketed in value from less than $10,000 to $72.84 million when it was sold in May 2007 by Sotheby’s on behalf of David Rockefeller to the Royal family of Qatar for what was at the time a record for the most expensive post-war work of art sold at auction. Colloquially, the painting became known as the Rockefeller Rothko.

Rarity

In the world of art collecting, rarity can drive up the value of a piece, regardless of its artistic merit. Some critics might point an accusatory finger towards Zombie Formalism when discussing pieces that have enjoyed inflated prices thanks to a manufactured scarcity of availability, irrespective of artistic merit. Scarcity has no prejudice though and also helps drive demand in artists brimming with artistic merit. This is particularly the case when an artist has a lot of their artwork displayed in public museums, as this creates increased demand for the remaining pieces that appear auction.

Vincent van Gogh is a prime example. The van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam (definitely worth the entrance fee) houses the largest van Gogh collection in the world, with 200 paintings, 400 drawings, and 700 of the artist’s letters. That means that even some of his lesser-known, but no less accomplished pieces sell for tens of millions when they do go under the hammer. His Champs près des Alpilles oil on canvas sold for $51,915,000 at Christie’s in May 2022, while only a year before Christie’s hosted the sale of Le pont de Trinquetaille for $37,400,000.

Similarly, The Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris holds over 300 works from Claude Monet, making it one of the largest collection of his art in the world. Claude’s second son and only heir, Michel Monet, donated the artworks in 1966, including his 1872 Impression, Sunrise, and immortalized his father’s legacy. Sales of his artwork topped an impressive $305 million in 2021 according to Artalistic.

It’s masterpieces of a more mature vintage that attract serious bids though when they appear at auction. Seldom sold and typically held as prize pieces in museum collections around the world, they very rarely go under the hammer. So, when Massacre of the Innocents was attributed to Peter Paul Rubens in 2001, it showcased the impact an artist’s reputation can have on the value of a piece.

Reputation

Considered one of the most accomplished painters of all time and the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition, Rubens’s reputation is sealed as an artist of the highest heritage. With many of his paintings in the Rubens Museum in Belgium, it’s very rare that originals of his appear on the secondary market. However, the art market was sent into a flutter in 2001 when an expert in Flemish and Dutch paintings at Sotheby’s, London revealed that The Massacre of the Innocents was indeed a Rubens due to the characteristics it shared with Samson and Delilah, which was painted around the same time.

Originally catalogued as a Franciscus de Neve (II) painting, it was attributed in 1780 to one of Rubens’ assistants, Jan van den Hoecke. Undeniably, a piece of considerable artistic merit, it was largely forgotten over the years and loaned in 1923 to Stift Reichersberg, a monastery in northern Austria. However, the fortunes of the painting were transformed overnight when it was identified as a Rubens and the value of the painting instantly skyrocketed, proving that people’s perception and the value of a piece is transformed when attributed to a famous artist.

The Massacre of the Innocents was sold at Sotheby’s, London in July 2002 for £49.5 million to Canadian businessman and art collector Kenneth Thomson. Since 2008 it’s been on display in the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto where it can be appreciated by viewers and simultaneously appreciate in value too.

Trends and Hype

Often driven by consumer demand, trends can sweep through the art world like a hurricane. Over the years, trends have come and gone in the same way that tastes in food, fashion, and music have changed. Anyone fancy a retro Eggo Waffle? Alongside consumers, it’s collectors, and curators that can influence which artistic styles will become popular trends, with Impressionism and Pop Art providing historic examples of movements that have grown almost out of nowhere to become the dominant artistic style.

In recent times, consumers have driven demand for artistic experiences and immersive experiential art, which has promoted the popularity of artists like Yayoi Kusama and Ai Wei Wei. Equally, street art has enjoyed its moment in the sun. It has been transformed from an angry expression into an emerging art form and made worldwide stars of Alec Monopoly and Banksy, who continues to have box office appeal at auction, with his iconic Love is in the Air selling for approximately $6,500,000 at Sotheby’s in April 2022.

Spurred on by the pandemic and lockdown, the trend for virtual art has was given a boost as consumers found their gallery fix with a virtual stroll around the world’s museums. Originally created out of necessity, the range of virtual art events have adapted today with a greater level of sophistication to allow patrons to visit the world’s galleries from the comfort of their own home.

It’s the rise and fall of NFTs that has been by far the biggest trend of recent years, as images of monkeys from the Bored Ape Yacht Club saw people parting with millions of dollars, while many scrambled to find out precisely what an NFT is – it’s a unique digital identifier that’s essentially a digital receipt of a physical work. For a brief period they were hot investment property, with Pak’s Clock selling for 16,593 ETH (a crypto currency equivalent to $52.7 million), making it one of the most expensive artworks to ever exist. Or not exist, as it’s a digital copy. You decide.

The most expensive Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT of all time is the imaginatively titled Bored Ape #8817, which sold for $3.4 million at Sotheby’s in October 2021. Just a year later though and their value was decimated by the implosion of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, as the bubble of hype that had elevated cryptocurrency and NFTs burst in emphatic fashion. It’s by no means finished as a trend though as the art world continues to find ways to work with NFTs, with Christie’s announcing its new Christie’s 3.0 platform to coincide with Miami Art Week.

Sentimental Value

Of course, not everything is centred on the monetary value of an item. In its place can be a far stronger pull than the almighty dollar, as the value of an artwork can instead be drawn from the emotions that a person feels when viewing it. This is a highly subjective emotional value that people can place on artwork, relative to how it makes them feel and the sensations it might provoke.

It could be similar to the emotions felt the first time you stood in front of Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, the first time you were enraptured by the intoxicating swirls of van Gogh’s Starry Night at MoMA, the curves of a Henry Moore sculpture, or it could be the emotions felt upon discovering a gem at auction that has a greater sentimental value than its list price. That’s the dream, anyway.

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see,” wrote the French Impressionist Edgar Degas, and if you see something that makes you feel something beyond its material value then it can be a special experience that is not only difficult to quantify, but also difficult to resist.

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Sources: The Collector.com | ArtistryFound.com | Magazine.Artland.com | ArtHistoryProject.com | Useum.com | MetMuseum.org | ImpressionistArts.com | ParisUnlocked.com | Artsy.net | TheArtNewspaper | Eden-Gallery.com | NFTNow.com | WealthyGorrilla.com | ArtBizSuccess.com | Artalistic.com