On the Economics of Contemporary Art

Since 1945 no modern person could with certainty be included within the top 100 or even 200 of all time great artists.  Lucian Freud, Mark Rothco and Henry Moore are fine artists, all of whom are dead; it would be difficult to say for certain that there were any contemporary living heavyweights equivalent to the like of artists such as Michaelangelo, Goya or Gauguin.
    Why is this?  What is it about contemporary art that fails to produce greatness?
    A partial answer is found in the economics of art.  To be great an artist must live long enough to reach maturity during which time he must be able to eat while producing continuously.  It is not enough to be driven by inner need to express himself and produce, he must be able to feed himself as well.

Echostains by Lucien Freud

There is no attempt here to be exhaustive or overtly scholarly. Output and maturity are estimates only.

The gestation period

There are those that believe in  the old soul.  I note that in music and mathematics we witness the phenomenon of the child prodigy.  While every one of these prodigies has some favourable situation – such as parents who nuture the talent of their offspring – there is attraction in the idea that these great figures come into the world bearing with them the fruits of their labours in former lives.  As Wordsworth writes, "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting." (1)
    Nonetheless, in the case of the visual arts, a glance at the top 100 reveals the startling observation that there are no childhood prodigies.  This reflects the inherent difficulty of the work of the artist who primarily interprets reality as it is presented to his eye and translates this into a two- or three-dimensional structure.  At the same time he works with ideas and emotions in one respect, with such things as texture and colour in another, and in yet another with the sheer physical aspect of art: materials, mediums - the mechanics of producing paintings, sculptures, etchings and so forth. 

    It is simply not possible for a childhood prodigy to learn all these things.  Visual art is difficult – the most difficult thing there is.
    A cursory glance at key artists from among the top 100 indicates: -
● Almost every historically great figure had a great teacher.  The exceptions are Van Gogh and Gauguin, both of who died in obscurity.
● Most great artists do not reach maturity until middle age or later.
● There are arguably no British artists in the top flight.  (And if this is true, then it has definitely not changed with the contemporary period.)
    What we see here is the concept of the gestation period.  In general, it takes a great artist on average about twenty years to mature.

On feeding oneself

 What did these great artists do while reaching their period of maturity?  Answer: in general, they were practising artists.  There are exceptions: Van Gogh was an art dealer, Gauguin was a stock-broker, but generally these great artists during their “infancy” belong to the second or third flight of artists.  They still live by means of their art.
    Historically, artists were able to fund themselves in a number of ways: portraits, reproductions of other works, engravings, illustrations, genre paintings, lesser devotional works, and so on and so forth.  Hence, the profound observation about our contemporary scene: all these “mainstays” of the artist’s economic livelihood have more or less disappeared.
    The Contemporary scene does support artists to a limited extent - though one hardly comparable, for instance, with professional football.  There are three categories: -
● The extremely famous
● The “named” artist.
● The “unnamed” artist.

Diego Velázquez: Portrait of the Infanta Margarita Teresa of Spain, 1655. This is a later work, but Velázquez also earned a living during his gestation period from portraiture.

    Extremely famous contemporary artists are not great artists in the traditional sense of that term.  The question is whether artists in the other two categories can evolve into great artists, and also, within their own lifetimes, achieve recognition.
    Economically, it has proven impossible for artists in the unnamed category to make the transition.  Let us explain why.

Output

The production of great art requires time.  It takes a gestation period of twenty years to acquire the conceptual and material understanding to produce great art.  However, even once that level has been achieved, great artists can produce on average less than two masterpieces per year.
    An artist in the unnamed category, even if he has a gallery or distribution network, can sell work at about 1,000 euros per piece.  This means that he must produce and sell about 24 pieces per annum in order to stay alive at a modest level, or 12 if he is prepared to sustain a lower level of economic existence.
    Since portraiture has become the domain of photography the moot question is: what can an artist produce that he can sell?  To sell, there must be a market.  So, what is it that people who are prepared to spend 1000 euros on a work of art want?  Answer: decoration.

    Most people nowadays choose an original work of art because they think it matches the colour scheme of the interior design of their living space.
    To sustain any reasonable rate of pay (that is, say, relative to the Greek minimum wage) an artist must produce each work in less than forty hours per piece.  The unscrupulous hone this down to twenty or even ten.
    Perhaps artists in the second category of “named” artists can migrate to the status of great artists?  To explain why not, one would have to look additionally at sociological and ideological forces.  Let us leave that for another occasion, but suffice it to say that: -

Matching pictures to the decor of the living space.

● Even the named artists face economic pressures that mean they cannot devote half a year to an individual piece.
● They too are selling to a market that is looking for wallpaper.
● They usually supplement their income with teaching or other work which reduces their time for development.
● They work in an ethos that denigrates the acquisition of skill and the importance of direct observation, so they cannot make the transition for the reason that their skills are poor.
● They also develop a personal culture that denigrates skill, observation and intellectualism, so they are short of ideas.
    So the conclusion is that economic forces cause contemporary art to be decadent and spiritually empty.  Furthermore, there is no immediate prospect of any change.

Note
(1)  Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood