As part and parcel of our need to hold close and admire artworks, our understanding of art history and theory helps us to analyze the nature of beauty itself — the first half of the equation. Our understanding of the art market helps us to analyze how beauty is controlled and distributed — how we possess. The two fields of art endeavour – I believe – fit hand in glove.
In the preface to his book, Reid seeks to quash the distaste many in the art world have about discussing the hitherto seamy aspect of art as trade – a throwback, the author says, to 19th century quasi-academic snobbery when the realm of the intellect and aesthetic appreciation was considered inviolable, and any hint of business interest deemed disdainful.
It is a gob-smack of a read, dealing with a topic that I – if somewhat perversely – relish. In no uncertain terms, it lands a massive pie on the faces of those in the arts and culture community who express contempt for commercial concerns – not wishing to compromise the integrity of art and its presentation – yet find themselves, with gaunt faces and begging bowls, scrounging around for funds which are drawn from the very market that they denigrate.
With hypocrisy on the art scene scaling new heights, it is quite timely that comments such as this are seeing print: Waking up "woe-am-I" scruffy art types from their substance-induced stupor, and convincing them to put their "devil-may-care-because-I’m-weird-but-fabulous" attitudes in check. Indeed, applying the author’s ideas to the Philippine context, it is easy to see how such character blocks do nothing to encourage outside support that could help assuage the plight of certain art spaces or practices, particularly those of the non-conventional, alternative sort.
Reid enters litigious ground when he discusses the art world’s need to understand the gravitational pull of art towards money. He uses as his example the Florentine banking and merchant family, the Medicis, who rose to power in the 15th century, and spent lavishly on buying or commissioning artworks from the most talented artists of the day to fill their various palaces.
Noting the Medicis’ insatiable desire to own works of great beauty, which helped to foment the flowering of creativity that we know of now as the Renaissance, the author notes with great importance how the demands of these quintessential art patrons were shrewdly balanced by the artist’s own understanding of the market.
My own study of the works produced during that period reveals just how artists were able to successfully promote themselves, and move their careers forward without setting their creative visions back. They did so by embracing the way things were: Allowing themselves to participate in the cycle of buying and selling which revolved around the Medicis – knowing their place in the chain of supply and demand, so to speak – but at the same time pushing creative boundaries as far as they could.
"The Adoration of the Magi" by Sandro Botticcelli, for example, which was commissioned by a tax collector who was out to impress the Medicis, contains flattering likenesses of the family. Cosimo, the patriarch, appears as the oldest Magus (he is the one kneeling and touching the Christ Child’s foot). His sons Giovanni and Piero are the Magi kneeling in the foreground. On the left is his grandson Lorenzo (Il Magnifico), and on the right is Lorenzo’s brother Giuliano, who would later be famously murdered by political rivals at the Duomo. Most interestingly, we find the artist including himself in the group portrait. He is the one who is peering directly at the viewer, on the extreme right.
Such intimacy with the most powerful family in Florence was critical to Botticelli’s career, seeing that he did not need to depend on them exclusively for work. Using his connections, the artist also kept busy with commissions from distant Medici relations, fawning associates and hangers on.
As part of the brilliant intellectual and artistic circle of Il Magnifico, Botticelli incorporated the images and themes of Christian neo-platonism in his paintings, which tried to reconcile classical and Christian views. It is said that "behind the walls of the Medici Palace, Botticelli listened to philosophical debates and classical legends, discussed amongst his patron’s intellectual friends. Botticelli was inspired, and under the protection of the Medicis, he created an entirely new genre of art…With such a sophisticated understanding of his friends’ arcane ideas, Botticelli had successfully developed his own form of visual poetry, peppered with symbolism..."
This synthesis would appear in two much larger panels that Botticcelli would later execute for the Medicis’ other abodes, both of which are now at the Uffizi. "La Primavera" and "Birth of Venus," are again portraits of Medici family members: The former a fantastical allegory of the arrival of spring peopled with slender, beautiful maidens, buff gods and elegant goddesses bathed in golden light – doubtless a visual and intellectual treat for his patron – the latter purportedly a naughty wedding gift to a Medici cousin to be hung above the matrimonial bed!
The book certainly leaves a lot of room for debate about the relationship between art and money. The presentation of art as enterprise, or the creation of art for monetary gain, has long been questioned, particularly by contemporary artists. And yet, in spite of the emergence of a counter-culture that produces art forms which try to resist the pervading influence of the market by producing works that aspire to go beyond the pale of possession, the centrality of beauty – be it aesthetic or conceptual – and the desire to own such beauty (to appreciate it, preserve it, share it) remains. Tied to this axiom, of course, is the abiding need of artists for financial resources not only to secure materials or have the space to execute their works, but also to have the means to live, to carry on realizing their capacity to create.
Perhaps, then, an important lesson could be learned here. In as much as the Medicis knew just how far they could, as another Renaissance painter, Vasari, wrote, "(push the artist’s) brush to dance to the tune of money," the truly outstanding artists – those who did not eventually end up being cast into the dust bin of history – knew not only how to wield that brush well, but also how to do so with astute perception, brilliant cunning, and most importantly, with a view towards assuring their own immortality.