Art for Heart's Sake

So much for the recession.  This week, Roy Lichtenstein’s Sleeping Girl sold at auction for almost $45 million, which is nothing compared to the $120 million paid for one of three pastel sketches by Edvard Munch of The Scream.  It is interesting to consider what these purchases represent.  There is no inherent value to art; it cannot be weighed on a scale like a piece of gold and assessed a value.  Art is worth only what a person is willing to pay for it.  In both cases, these works were bought for amounts far in excess of what the auction houses had estimated, driven up by competing bidders who had to have them. 

I know what it is like to behold precious art.  In my adult life I began collecting precious art pieces to adorn my home.  Take for example, my “Miniature Museum Collection” of Kwakiutl Indian drawings.  This piece charms with its four naïve drawings and tiny sculpture, mounted in a simple shadow box.  I love it for the expressiveness of the drawings and the whimsy of the sculpted face.  It captures love of nature characteristic of these Pacific Northwest indigenous peoples.

I also cherish a collection of black and white photography, most particularly one that captures a simple pigeon who stands curiously at the delineated junction of ancient cobblestones and modern street pavers, the former distinguished by its worn texture and patina.  Entitled “Spectateur de Notre-Dame,” its irony is a commentary on how our enduring man-made monuments are forsaken as society pushes onward in citified excess.

Another piece is a mosaic fashioned of torn paper bits.  It is crafted in the Byzantine style, its tiny golden and vibrant color tesserae expressing the face of a young woman.  Only half-completed, it resembles an ancient piece in decay.  Known as “Girl in Progress,” it is a self-portrait of its artist; she studies the past in order to reveal her future.  The artist included a commentary that explains “whether half deteriorated or half complete, it looks the same.”

Another work, “Chagall Dreams,” is a painted canvas of extraordinary colors expressing the life of the artist, but imagined as if painted by Marc Chagall himself.  The dominant angel reflects the artist's belief in unseen powers.  The images of villages, parents, pets, and nature recede into many planes washed in blues, greens and pinks.  It is a showstopper that some have mistaken for an original Chagall.

These are just a modest sampling of the works that I have amassed over the years.  I have become such a voracious hoarder of this art that my collection far exceeds my wall capacity.  These are the works of my son and my daughter.  These gems capture the personalities of two great individuals as well as special memories we have made.  Yes, I have the occasional piece of “art,” acquired at moderate expense from galleries or travels, but the pieces that capture the souls of my kids are front and center in my home.  Nothing brings me greater joy as I walk by and remember the moments we shared.  Nothing brings me greater comfort than seeing these trappings of young minds and hearts, emerging adults laboring to express themselves.  As an investment, nothing pays greater dividends.

 

Now that’s priceless.