{"id":262,"date":"2003-07-10T13:16:29","date_gmt":"2003-07-10T21:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2003\/07\/10\/why-an-authentic-painting-is-better-than-a-perfect-forgery\/"},"modified":"2003-07-10T13:16:29","modified_gmt":"2003-07-10T21:16:29","slug":"why-an-authentic-painting-is-better-than-a-perfect-forgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=262","title":{"rendered":"Why an authentic painting is better than a perfect forgery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tyler Cowen at the Volokh Conspiracy <\/a>argues (in a post whose permalink <\/a>isn’t working for me – look for a post entitled “Authenticity, affiliation, and self-image” on July 6 2003) takes a pessimistic view of human nature and art appreciation:<\/p>\n

Why, for instance, does a given painting plummet in value, if we discover that Rembrandt never painted it? After all, the painting looks no worse than before. […]<\/p>\n

My core view of human nature is that people wish to think well of themselves. Within this framework, they use affiliations, and the arts, as means to a positive self-image. The arts help us think we are cultured, sophisticated, self-aware, with the “in” crowd, and so on.<\/p>\n

Buying a fake makes you think you have been suckered. Or if you know it is a fake in the first place, you feel undiscerning. Buying a Rembrandt makes you feel that you are touching the immortals.<\/p>\n

How much of the pleasure of art comes from looking at the picture, and how much comes from the associated self-image? Well, economists can measure this. A Rembrandt fake is worth a small fraction of the real thing (even holding quality constant), so most of the value cannot come from simply looking at the painting.<\/p><\/div>\n

While no doubt some people value art for the reasons Cowen suggests, I can think of other reasons to prefer an original even to a very skilled forgery. I’d love to own an original piece of Peanuts<\/i> art, for instance. But Charles Schultz is not a hard artist to imitate; shouldn’t I be content with a forgery, if the drawing was convincing enough to be just as appealing as the genuine article? (Heck, shouldn’t I just manufacture the forgery myself?)<\/p>\n

Well, no. I’m interested in owning a piece of Schultz art not just because I think a particular drawing look attractive on my wall, but because any single Schultz drawing exists as part of the arc of Schultz’s artistic career and development. An original Schultz would be a thought-aid to me; it is a reminder of a very particular point in Schultz’s development. Owing a Schultz drawing (or a Rembrandt painting) is meaningful not just for the individual image but because it is part of a sequence of masterworks.<\/p>\n

A forgery, however attractive, isn’t part of that sequence, and can’t tell me anything about the sequence. It fetches less of a price, I think, because from the standpoint of art appreciation it provides less genuine value..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tyler Cowen at the Volokh Conspiracy argues (in a post whose permalink isn’t working for me – look for a post entitled “Authenticity, affiliation, and self-image” on July 6 2003) takes a pessimistic view of human nature and art appreciation: … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-site-and-admin-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}