Collecting Art Works

Fine Art Appreciates Time

Our world changed radically in the 19th Century when human beings invented machines and powered them. The craft guilds and art skills didn't disappear altogether but our employment and training systems collapsed when machines started to manufacture goods at a rate that no artisan, however well skilled, could compete.

Over those two hundred odd years we travelled so far from our ancestors that if a person were to be able to travel through time they would barely be able to recognise our world as being the same place they lived in but three generations on.

In that time many skills have simply vanished, except for notations in books, in libraries that themselves struggle to keep safe. If it were not for art collectors, it would all be gone. Of what use are such time intensive skills when items can be made so much more easily and in such high quantities by machines.

There was a time when people thought that this advanced technology would lead to a renaissance of art. That machines would free people from the yoke of work to enjoy the time needed to employ artistic skills to create more beautiful things. Instead it seems that we have simply created more work for ourselves and we continue to work long and hard, as our ancestors did, but now we do it at desks in front of computers.

This means that skilled artisans are few and highly prized and the original art works of yesterday are valued at prices it's hard to imagine any normal person being able to afford. The collection of art works is an investment that is done as much for the appreciation of value of the art work as for its visual appeal or its skilled execution.

For art works in a form that can be duplicated on an electrical devise, art is now available to almost everyone in our part of the world. Art collectors can seek out and collect old music recordings and share them via lime wire. You can torrent old movies till your hard drive is full. The internet has multiple copies of images of famous paintings, and old books are scanned into digital form and made available in the public domain by sites such as Gutenberg.

But how many children have heard a live orchestra play or watched a live ballet or live theatre. How many have seen the original tiny canvases of Dali or feasted their eyes on the huge smooth marble thighs of Michelangelo's sculptures. How many, percentage-wise, even want to read books anymore?

And does it matter? I admit, to me it does. But to them, the play station and the pc are their art galleries and there are plenty of contemporary artists to feast their senses on. For the rest of us, who like myself are drawn to the past, the collection of art is a personal thing. Perhaps we hold on to lace doilies our great aunts embroidered, or spend our weekends doing up an old vintage car.

Either way, art survives and museums will have old Atari's in them for our grandchildren who will find the image of Super Mario quaint. Those who can afford to, will seek out collectors items and maybe gain from their sale or simply be pleased in their ownership.

And some few of our children will be drawn to learn the endangered art skills of our ancestors and may become skilled artisans creating collectable's for future generations. It is these art works that it will be best for art collectors to start collecting now, while their artists are unknown and appreciative of the support.