Is It a ‘5’ or a ‘6’? The Answer Could Make an Art Fortune

I'm always bemused that art aficionados seems to care much more about provenance and prestige than about the art itself. Whether this piece was made by a revered master or a no-name should have no bearing on whether it's "clunky" or "exquisite."

If it's a copy rather than a wholly original work, I can see that affecting the perception of its uniqueness, at least. But I've seen discussion of "rediscovered" paintings from masters that are worthless if they turn out to have been original work from a different artist, even though the quality was good enough to fool professional appraisers.

dec0dedab0de• 7 years ago

I think that is the Terrezano's effect.

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

jonahrd• 7 years ago

Think of it this way. Say you were trying to piece together the life story of Stephen Hawking. You'd be happy to come across an unknown/unpublished paper of his, which would be a new plot-point to demonstrate his intelligence and talent in a specific way that was previously unknown. Sure, it may not be his best work. It may not even be that different from other work going on at the same time. But because we are interested in Stephen Hawking's story specifically, it would still be a very valuable piece to keep track of. If you later found out it was an imposter's paper, it would be worthless.

lisper5• 7 years ago

That's not at all comparable. The value of art is purely subjective. The only reason we're interested in (say) Giambologna at all is because his art has some ineffable subjective quality that the art of his competitors lacks --better "aesthetics" (or whatever you want to call it). So if you can't tell the difference between a Giambologna and an Arglebargle based on its aesthetics, what difference does it make whether it's a Giambologna or an Arglebargle? It's like arguing over whether Shakespeare's plays were really written by Shakespeare or by someone else with the same name.

The reason we're interested in Hawking has nothing to do with aesthetics, it has to do with science. The original works of a scientist may be of historical interest, but they are of no scientific interest. The reason we're interested in Hawking in the first place has nothing to do with the details of his original works, whereas the reason we're interested in Giambologna has everything to do with it.

PhasmaFelis2• 7 years ago

I would have hoped that art was more than just a puzzle-piece of historical narrative.

practical_lem• 7 years ago

I think a better comparision would be a manuscript about calculus. If it was produced before Newton/Leibniz it's remarkable, otherwise well... who cares?

CoolGuySteve• 7 years ago

I agree, I've seen this statue before in the Uffizi gallery and I totally don't remember it. Not even one bit.

It's made me wonder why I even go to art galleries where I'll see hundreds of works of art but only remember maybe a handful.

rob74• 7 years ago

Well, the provenance and the prestige greatly affects the price of a work, that's why people care about it.

It's even less understandable with contemporary artists: some are the critics' darlings and their works sell for mind-blowing amounts, while others who are arguably equally talented can't make a living from their art. And it doesn't have to be paintings or sculpture, it's the same for e.g. musicians...

jorams• 7 years ago

Well, the provenance and the prestige greatly affects the price of a work, that's why people care about it.

That sounds like a chicken/egg problem. Do people care because it affects the price, or does it affect the price because people care?

jfengel• 7 years ago

I deal with much the same thing as a Shakespeare scholar. You'd like the works to stand on their own, but there is something to be gained from studying the corpus as it evolved. When I go to perform a play I treat it as if the audience is seeing a brand new work for the first time, but my process is informed by what I know of the other works and the context in which it was written -- including what I know of the author.

It's unfortunate that conspiracy cranks take that up as a power trip rather than a serious way to study the plays themselves. And that there's a countervailing effort (dating back to the author's lifetime) to attribute lots of things to him -- it would be great if Edward III really were by Shakespeare, but the evidence is circumstantial at best. We can study it to see if it informs us in any useful way, but the combination of weak attribution and weak play means we don't get much of anywhere.

sojmq• 7 years ago

Don't worry, there is a patch for that http://www.snakebytestudios.com/projects/mods/diablo-2-mods/...

mcphage3• 7 years ago

Oh man, I wish I knew about that back in the day...

mself• 7 years ago

croisillon• 7 years ago

totally a 5

neonate• 7 years ago

http://archive.is/AX6RU

manicdee• 7 years ago

Giambologna 1529–1608

In 1597 the artist would have been 68. In 1697 he would have been 168.

What is actually the topic of debate here? Surely not whether this bronze casting was created by this artist?

tmearnest• 7 years ago

Oh man, finally a use for that network I trained on MNIST!

hakfoo• 7 years ago

Look at the coinage of Elizabeth I for an unambiguous contemporary example. The top sections of the "5s" vary substantially-- some are nearly square, some are an obtuse angle which looks not that far from this figure.

The Arabic numbers took a long time to standardize-- you were still seeing the weird early "4" that looks like the nodern one tipped back 45 degrees not that much earlier.

Is It a ‘5’ or a ‘6’? The Answer Could Make an Art Fortune

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