Why is paintings expensive

But the shuttering of small galleries is making it harder for emerging artists — not to mention the dealers who represent them — to make a living. Meanwhile, large galleries are opening new locations to cater to an increasingly global market, and dealers from around the world are increasingly expected to make appearances at international art fairs like the Armory Show and, yes, Art Basel.

Olav Velthuis, a professor at the University of Amsterdam who studies sociology in the arts, attributes the shuttering of small galleries to this rise in art fairs.

But since fairs are becoming the preferred way for wealthy collectors to buy art, galleries have no choice but to participate. Smaller galleries tend to represent emerging artists, putting both dealers and the artists they represent at yet another disadvantage. Those signals can be for instance what an important curator is saying about an artist; if [the artist] has exhibitions in museums; if influential collectors are buying his work.

Because everybody is, to some extent at the least, looking at the same signals, at one point they start agreeing [on] who are the most desirable artists. Just 0. An analysis conducted by Artnet that year found that just 25 percent of artists accounted for nearly half of all contemporary auction sales in the first six months of Only three of those artists were women.

However, galleries in the middle segment of the market are having a hard time surviving, and if many of them close their doors, that is bad for the ecology of the art world.

We should think of ways to let the profits at the top trickle down to the middle and bottom. There are more collectors now than ever before, and those collectors are wealthier than they have ever been.

The Gulf states are also a hotspot for collectors. If investors invest wisely, the works they buy can be worth much more later on. The Price of Everything , a documentary about the role of money in the art world released in , delves into the Scull auction drama and its aftermath.

More recently, the financial crisis was a boon for wealthy collectors who gobbled up works that were put up for auction by their suddenly cash-poor acquaintances. A highly valued work of art is a luxury good, an investment, and, in some cases, a vehicle through which the ultra-wealthy can avoid paying taxes. The Republican tax bill eliminated this benefit for art collectors , though it continues to benefit real estate developers.

Collectors can also receive tax benefits by donating pieces from their collection to museums. Jennifer Blei Stockman, the former president of the Guggenheim and one of the producers of The Price of Everything , told me that galleries often require collectors who purchase new work by prominent artists to eventually make that work available to the public.

Returns for paintings by leading Australian artists including Brett Whiteley and Jeffrey Smart exceed stock market returns. The study also found that oil and watercolour paintings, as well as those sold by certain auction houses, had higher prices.

However, because art also provides benefits through consumption prestige, decoration etc. The returns may be lower, but art is still attractive to invest in. The Australian art market reflects what has happened in the global market for contemporary art. The aesthetic pleasure of art, a feeling of being challenged or inspired, is subjective and difficult to measure. This is broken down into three main areas. One area is the satisfaction of supporting the arts and artists. This motivation is especially important for those who donate their collections to museums or otherwise support the arts.

While this motivation is important it is not directly related to auction prices. This is generally the closest to the artists intention when they create the work in the first place.

For instance, entrances and foyers of offices often display large striking works of modern or contemporary art. Being an artist comes with a lot of challenges, and appreciation of art is an art in itself.

And what makes it more expensive than the next piece. However, there are some technical aspects that you can consider while evaluating it, like the size, how old is it, who made it, if it has been bought by someone before and the like. The value of art is determined by the perceiver. Something can be worth millions to a person and worth nothing at all to the next. Unless you plan to buy a piece of art at a given time, you should never see it for it is worth economically.

Art needs to be appreciated and admired. The market value of a piece of art keeps changing. In the end, the value of something is only going to be what people are willing to pay.

And art should not be bound in terms of money. Artists tell their story through art and to them the value of art lies in, how many people were able to connect to it. Art is not about beauty, it never was. It means different things to different people, its strength lies in the uniqueness, the raw passion, and the ability to convey those intense emotions. It will be beautiful to some, and it will be stupid to others. So, it depends on you if you were able to connect to something or not.

Artists often live a challenging life. Because again, the value of something is only going to be what people are willing to pay for it at the end of the day. A tiny thing like that can make a huge difference to that person. Whenever the demand for something increases, the supply has to catch up to satisfy the people.

But when the supply is less, and the demand is immense, the thing becomes exclusive. The reason why some paintings are so expensive is that the artists who painted them are no longer alive anymore. The value of art increases significantly after the artist is dead. Because it makes that piece exclusive and more important. Most of the famous art by eminent artists are preserved in museums. That is why even if a painting looks like a toddler splashed paint on a canvas is worth millions sometimes.

It is not just the value of art that needs to be considered while evaluating it. Exhibitions and events are expensive. If you really want your art to be seen in the elite art galleries on the planet, that is going to cost you a buck.

Being a member of an elite art club can be super expensive. Art exhibitions, auctions, and other events cost money. To bring the art in front of people and making them aware of its existence is not cheap.

So, it is another factor why some of the pieces of art are worth so much. The invention of camera technology led to a major shift in the art culture. Now, the camera could do a much better job at what art had been doing for years. So, art was no longer about representing the world with skill. The modern art was more focused on the abstract aspect. It was more about the feeling and representing yourself rather than the world.

So, that was one of the huge shifts in the art culture and that definitely affected the way it is perceived by the world today.