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Vol.93
Illusion |
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Dec.01,2025 |
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I have had doubts about the artistic value of world-famous paintings
since my 30s.
Representative examples are Pablo Picasso's works. When he was young, he painted common portraits, but gradually changed his painting style to feature facial distortions.
In any genre of art, artists will never become famous without discovering a fresh dimension, which is kind of a dilemma for them. In that sense, Picasso may be the first artist who worked on abstract paintings.
Even though these abstract paintings are highly valued among art critics and art dealers, I must question why one painting is traded at a price as high as the annual sales of a company.
I like watching the TV program "Sunday Art Museum," but I am an art layman and do not paint myself. I do not understand Picasso's works and personally like impressionist works among European paintings.
I asked several of my friends whether they understand or like Picasso's works, but none said they do.
Needless to say, product value and prices are determined by the relationship between supply and demand. The higher the demand for something, the higher the price gets.
The Los Angeles Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani on the largest contract in MLB history because they saw that the deal would be profitable.
Value varies depending on the brand in the field of gifts as well. Some brand gift is sold at a price 10 times higher than a similar product in a supermarket, but there are no differences in product value at all between these two. The brand has value, or ratings that satisfy the pride of people who give and receive the product.
Meanwhile, how many people in the world can afford to buy a Picasso's work at an auction? I think people in the art business let the price go up to seek their own benefits.
Humans have a sense of perception called illusion. Here are interesting experimental results. When some testers were asked to give their opinion on the differences in taste between two fruits with the same quality and ingredients placed side by side, after being explained that the right one has high sugar content, almost all of them answered that the right one is sweeter. When other testers were asked to do the same thing with the fruits swapped, almost all answered that the right one is sweeter.
I guess that Picasso's works give people the same illusion.
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