寄托家园留学论坛

标题: [REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][12.27] [打印本页]

---

作者: AdelineShen    时间: 2009-12-27 02:37:14     标题: [REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][12.27]



关于REBORN FROM THE ASHES组COMMENTS活动的说明&汇总
https://bbs.gter.net/thread-1042733-1-2.html

Art.view
Back to the future
Dec 19th 2009
From Economist.com
The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant
WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental. With bad weather coming, much of London may have been preparing to shut down early for Christmas last week. But Christie’s sale of Victorian and British Impressionist pictures on December 16th and Sotheby’s sale of Victorian and Edwardian paintings the next day were surprisingly busy.

Sotheby's

Of the two auctions, Sotheby’s was by far more successful, fetching £4.4m ($7.1m) for works by some of the best-known names of the period, including Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Alfred Munnings, Dame Laura Knight and Charles Spencelayh. The cover lot, Spencelayh’s “The Old Dealer”, sold for a record price for the artist at auction. The buyer was David Mason, a London dealer who joined his father’s firm, MacConnal-Mason, when he was just 17. Mr Mason, who has seen recessions come and go in the 53 year he has been in the business, said afterwards: “Prices today reflect what is happening out there. People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.”

Buyers in every sector of the art market, from Chinese porcelain to Old Masters, now seem to follow a pattern. They are happy to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures, but leave the rest untouched. Nearly 40% of the lots in Sotheby’s sale were bought in. Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate. Some pieces went for as much as four times what the auction house had predicted.

John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893. His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight. Eight years ago Mr Mason sold an 1881 Grimshaw entitled “Prince’s Dock, Hull” to an American collector for £130,000. Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s, that same American saw his Grimshaw sell to an anonymous bidder for £397,250 (including commission and taxes), the third highest price achieved for the artist at auction.

Spencelayh, the son of an iron and brass founder, rose to be a prolific member of the Royal Academy of Arts and a favourite of Queen Mary. His work is, if anything, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s. Spencelayh, who died in 1928, liked to paint fussy interiors. The most sought after are realistic pictures of men, often gathered around a table in a room full of clutter, with glazed jugs, books, umbrellas and pieces of velvet jumbled together. There is usually a pipe or two on the table, and there is nearly always a clock hanging on the wall.

A Manchester cotton merchant named Levy supported Spencelayh from the early 1920s. He offered the artist and his wife a house to live in and bought a number of his paintings. When Levy's widow, Rosie, auctioned his collection in 1946, the picture that fetched the highest sum was “The Old Dealer”, which Spencelayh had painted in 1925. It was sold again in 1973, where it was bought by Richard Green, a London dealer, on behalf of an American collector for about £30,000.

Consigned last week to Sotheby’s by this same collector, it sold for more than ten times that (£337,250 including commission and taxes) to Mr Mason. Mr Green, an earlier owner, was the underbidder. “It has everything you could want: the old man, the clock, the knickknacks,” Mr Mason said afterwards. “It is quite simply the best example of a Spencelayh I have ever seen.” Mr Mason said he bought the picture for stock, with no particular collector in mind.



“On the Cliffs” (pictured above) is one of a series of pictures that Laura Knight painted of women sitting high above the water on the Cornish coast. In one of the earliest examples, “Daughter of the Sun”, the women were naked. That picture did not sell when Knight exhibited it at the Royal Academy in 1912, and Knight later cut it up and sold the pieces after it had become damaged. She continued to be inspired by the Cornish theme in the years before the end of the first world war, after she and her husband moved to London. In “On the Cliffs” one woman is sewing while the other may be threading a needle. Both are strong, calm figures. Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists. But there are no men in any of Knight’s pictures of this period, reminding viewers that war was close at hand.

“On the Cliffs” sold to an anonymous bidder for £646,050, nearly twice the top estimate. Even at that price, many regard the painting as a bargain. In July, Galen Weston, a Canadian billionaire whose family owns Fortnum & Mason, bought the companion picture, “Wind and Sun”. It cost him £914,850.

---

作者: prettywraith    时间: 2009-12-27 09:05:58



Comments (2009-12-27):
As far as art is concerned, there is little knowledge in my head. Fortunately, I have read several articles and books last year. Most of these introduce jewelries and Chinese porcelain. After reading that report whose name is ”suspended animation”, I begin to realize western collectors usually pay more attention on famous paintings.

Driven by my curiosity, I find those paintings’ photos on website today. In my first glance, they are interesting and wonderful. But I cannot say how well they are painted or why they attract many people to buy them. Perhaps, the reason is that I have never seen the real paintings in gallery. Or, as the article said, some collectors, such as Mr. Mason, only want to keep high quality paintings to protect their wealth from inflation, or treat the paintings as stock and hope them more valuable in future. Like me, those dealers also know a little about art or painting.

Art is not necessary for life, but it is important for our spiritual world. They can enjoy our soul and give us special way to express ourselves. But art market is filled with numerous popular styles, for getting more profit. Sometimes realism is popular, and sometimes impressionism is popular. Almost every corner of art market has been applauded in past years. Which is the next one?

Good sentences:

WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental.

Mr Mason, who has seen recessions come and go in the 53 year he has been in the business, said afterwards: “Prices today reflect what is happening out there. People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.”


Difficult sentences:
The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant

---

作者: fancyww    时间: 2009-12-27 09:13:10



Vocabularies:
Clutter: a crowded or confused mass or collection
[V] to fill or cover with scattered or disordered things that impede movement or reduce effectiveness  *a room cluttered with toys*
Buoyant: having buoyancy: as  a : capable of floating  b : CHEERFUL, GAY  c : capable of maintaining a satisfactorily high level
Edwardian: of, relating to, or characteristic of Edward VII of England or his age;  especially   of clothing   : marked by the hourglass silhouette for women and long narrow fitted suits and high collars for men
Christie's is a leading art business and a fine arts auction house.
Sotheby's is the world's third oldest auction house in continuous operation.
Consign:1 : to give over to another's care
2 : to give, transfer, or deliver into the hands or control of another;  also   : to commit especially to a final destination or fate  *a writer consigned to oblivion*
3 : to send or address to an agent to be cared for or sold
intransitive verb  ,  obsolete   : AGREE, SUBMIT
Cornish: of, relating to, or characteristic of Cornwall, Cornishmen, or Cornish

My Comment:

After finishing the article and back to read the title, it seems quite perplexing. Well, we can put the title aside for a while, and see what the article tells us about firstly.

The article mainly describe a recent trend of art market, that is the taste for clutter and realism. I did not find and accurate definition of Clutter, which, obviously is a form or genre of art. So according to the article and the meaning of the word itself, Clutter is an art style characterized by disorder, crowded mass, fuss, or something like this. Comparing to the novel, avant-guard art works, Clutter is old-fashioned and sentimental. As to Realism, needless to say, is also and old-fashioned art genre. However, the contemporary art market has a curious focus on such art styles besides the pursuit for novelty. And the auction performance at the Christie's and the Sotherby's justifies it.

Then the article cites the words of Mr Mason to explain why this phenomenon seems reasonable. According to him, the inflation provides good opportunity for art dealers to change there less valuable money at hand into quality like paintings. This is a worldwide trend, and it does not restrict to paintings, but also other arts like Chinese porcelain.

To demonstrate this trend, the article gives representative examples of three painters and their high-priced auction: John Atkinson Grimshaw, Spencelayh, and Laura Knight. Their works all share the style of oldfashioned-looking.

Well, back to the title, I think it means that the old-fashioned art works rejuvenate now and may become even more valuable than those paintings seeking for innovation in the future.

---

作者: adammaksim    时间: 2009-12-27 09:45:42

buoyant adj.  cheerful 活跃的 old master = a term for a European painter of skill who worked before about 1800, or a painting by such an artist. over the odds, pay over the odds 付的钱超过物品本身价值 celebrate=to hold up or play up for public notice  （谢谢adeline的解释） rigging 桅杆 velvet  天鹅绒，丝绒 comments: Obviously the author gets his inspiration for this title from the famous science fiction movie series “Back to the future”, however this title which seems a paradox confused me again like it did in the movie. Despite the Sci-Fi title, actually this article deals with something practical—the business in the art market. It shows us that purchasing art works is such an effective way to discounting inflation and more expensive the work is, the more it can benefit its owner in the future. To be honest, as a oulier, I feel difficult to give any valuable comments about this article. Stop here. Sign~

---

作者: 123runfordream    时间: 2009-12-27 10:18:42



Back to the future
Dec 19th 2009
From Economist.com
The taste for clutter（ a crowded or confused mass or collection ） and realism is curiously buoyant（capable of maintaining a satisfactorily high level）
WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental. With bad weather coming, much of London may have been preparing to shut down early for Christmas last week. But Christie’s sale of Victorian and British Impressionist pictures on December 16th and Sotheby’s sale of Victorian and Edwardian paintings the next day were surprisingly busy.


Of the two auctions, Sotheby’s was by far more successful, fetching £4.4m ($7.1m) for works by some of the best-known names of the period, including Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Alfred Munnings, Dame Laura Knight and Charles Spencelayh. The cover lot, Spencelayh’s “The Old Dealer”, sold for a record price for the artist at auction. The buyer was David Mason, a London dealer who joined his father’s firm, MacConnal-Mason, when he was just 17. Mr Mason, who has seen recessions come and go in the 53 year he has been in the business, said afterwards: “Prices today reflect what is happening out there. People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.”

Buyers in every sector of the art market, from Chinese porcelain （瓷器）to Old Masters, now seem to follow a pattern. They are happy to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures, but leave the rest untouched. Nearly 40% of the lots in Sotheby’s sale were bought in. Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate. Some pieces went for as much as four times what the auction house had predicted.

John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893. His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight. Eight years ago Mr Mason sold an 1881 Grimshaw entitled “Prince’s Dock, Hull” to an American collector for £130,000. Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s, that same American saw his Grimshaw sell to an anonymous bidder for £397,250 (including commission and taxes), the third highest price achieved for the artist at auction.

Spencelayh, the son of an iron and brass founder, rose to be a prolific member of the Royal Academy of Arts and a favourite of Queen Mary. His work is, if anything, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s. Spencelayh, who died in 1928, liked to paint fussy interiors. The most sought after are realistic pictures of men, often gathered around a table in a room full of clutter, with glazed jugs, books, umbrellas and pieces of velvet jumbled together. There is usually a pipe or two on the table, and there is nearly always a clock hanging on the wall.

A Manchester cotton merchant named Levy supported Spencelayh from the early 1920s. He offered the artist and his wife a house to live in and bought a number of his paintings. When Levy's widow, Rosie, auctioned his collection in 1946, the picture that fetched the highest sum was “The Old Dealer”, which Spencelayh had painted in 1925. It was sold again in 1973, where it was bought by Richard Green, a London dealer, on behalf of an American collector for about £30,000.

Consigned last week to Sotheby’s by this same collector, it sold for more than ten times that (£337,250 including commission and taxes) to Mr Mason. Mr Green, an earlier owner, was the underbidder. “It has everything you could want: the old man, the clock, the knickknacks（a small trivial article usually intended for ornament）,” Mr Mason said afterwards. “It is quite simply the best example of a Spencelayh I have ever seen.” Mr Mason said he bought the picture for stock, with no particular collector in mind.

“On the Cliffs” (pictured above) is one of a series of pictures that Laura Knight painted of women sitting high above the water on the Cornish coast. In one of the earliest examples, “Daughter of the Sun”, the women were naked. That picture did not sell when Knight exhibited it at the Royal Academy in 1912, and Knight later cut it up and sold the pieces after it had become damaged. She continued to be inspired by the Cornish theme in the years before the end of the first world war, after she and her husband moved to London. In “On the Cliffs” one woman is sewing while the other may be threading a needle. Both are strong, calm figures. Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists. But there are no men in any of Knight’s pictures of this period, reminding viewers that war was close at hand.

“On the Cliffs” sold to an anonymous bidder for £646,050, nearly twice the top estimate. Even at that price, many regard the painting as a bargain. In July, Galen Weston, a Canadian billionaire whose family owns Fortnum & Mason, bought the companion picture, “Wind and Sun”. It cost him £914,850.

John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893.

这个celebrate把我搞懵了。

"Old Master" (or "old master") is a term for a European painter of skill who worked before about 1800, or a painting by such an artist.In theory an Old Master should be an artist who was fully trained, was a Master of his local artists' guild, and worked independently, but in practice paintings considered to be produced by pupils or workshops will be included in the scope of the term. Therefore, beyond a certain level of competence, date rather than quality is the criterion for using the term.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Masters

Comments:
There are two points confuse me. First one is the title—BACK TO THE FUTURE, which I think it is a good one but can’t understand well. The second one is a word in a sentence.
On the whole, it’s clear structure help me much. The auctions are busy, people buy the paints at a high price compared to a few years ago. All the figures above, the author is trying to show us what exactly the art market is. “People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend”. Those words conclude what the author’s idea and the describing below.
Though, actually, I still am unfamiliar with the economic rule.

---

作者: fancyww    时间: 2009-12-27 10:40:49

John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893.

我觉得有这个意思吧: the painter actively and positively depits, shows, expresses someting in his paintings because he honors, cherishes, and praise it. In Grimshaw's case, he appreciated and gorified the prosperity in Victirian era, so his works mainly focus on the industry, commerce and consipcuous wealth at that time.    So I think "celebrate" here is a quite vivid and expressive word.

至于标题，我的理解是：
I think it means that the old-fashioned art works rejuvenate now and may become even more valuable in the future than paintings that seek for innovation or the future itself.


不知道表达清楚了没，中文就是：过去的作品在当前重新焕发活力，并且在将来可能比那些追求创新或以未来自身为主题的作品更有价值。

---

作者: 海王泪    时间: 2009-12-27 10:42:48



My Sum-Up
The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant
1.By comparison to fasion paintings, a curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental. [Example] Paintings in two auctions: Christie’s sale and Sotheby’s sale
2.Sotheby’s sale was by far more successful than Christie’s one. Prices reflect that people are discounting the soon inflation and buying articles.
3.There is a buyers’ pattern, which people tend to pay high price for those that sold expensive before.
4.John Atkinson Grimshaw’s paintings-“Prince’s Dock, Hull”- in Sotheby’s sale achieve a very high price.(Clutter?)
5.Spencelayh’s paintings, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s, are realistic pictures of men.
6.Spencelayh’s painting-“The Old Dealer”- has long been fetching.
7.The Old Dealer in Sotheby’s sale sold an astonished price. The buyer bought it for stock but not for collection.
8.Laura Knight’s paintings-“On the Cliffs” and ”Daughter of the Sun”-was introduced.
9.“On the Cliffs” and “Wind and Sun” sold an extreme high price.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sentences and Phrases
WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental.
Novelty= freshness, newness, oddity, originality, strangeness, surprise
Steadfast= steady=stable

John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893.
Celebrate= eulogize= glorify = magnify= laud
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Comment
This report is an introduction to a curious corner of the art market- paintings of clutter and realism. It mainly builds for us a scene that older ranking top-paintings have been always sold extreme high price far beyond estimate.

What catches my eye in this report is a claim from buyer David Mason: This kind of articles is for stock rather than collection in order to avoid the coming inflation. In other words, articles become an speculation. That is tragedy. However, we cannot but accept it.

Moreover, when articles become individual investment, the public lack access to those stunning works at opening place such as museum or exhibition .
I would like to borrow words from Biologist T. H. Huxley and adapt it to this mannered sentence:
"That is the great tragedy of art - the slaying of a beautiful collection by an ugly speculation."

Thomas Huxley quote: The great tragedy of Science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact (Collected Essays)

---

作者: AdelineShen    时间: 2009-12-27 10:50:19

Art.view
Back to the future
Dec 19th 2009
From Economist.com
The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant
WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental. With bad weather coming, much of London may have been preparing to shut down early for Christmas last week. But Christie’s sale of Victorian and British Impressionist pictures on December 16th and Sotheby’s sale of Victorian and Edwardian paintings the next day were surprisingly busy.

Sotheby's

Of the two auctions, Sotheby’s was by far more successful, fetching £4.4m ($7.1m) for works by some of the best-known names of the period, including Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Alfred Munnings, Dame Laura Knight and Charles Spencelayh. The cover lot, Spencelayh’s “The Old Dealer”, sold for a record price for the artist at auction. The buyer was David Mason, a London dealer who joined his father’s firm, MacConnal-Mason, when he was just 17. Mr Mason, who has seen recessions come and go in the 53 year he has been in the business, said afterwards: “Prices today reflect what is happening out there. People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.”

Buyers in every sector of the art market, from Chinese porcelain to Old Masters, now seem to follow a pattern. They are happy to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures, but leave the rest untouched. Nearly 40% of the lots in Sotheby’s sale were bought in. Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate. Some pieces went for as much as four times what the auction house had predicted.

John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893. His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight. Eight years ago Mr Mason sold an 1881 Grimshaw entitled “Prince’s Dock, Hull” to an American collector for £130,000. Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s, that same American saw his Grimshaw sell to an anonymous bidder for £397,250 (including commission and taxes), the third highest price achieved for the artist at auction.

Spencelayh, the son of an iron and brass founder, rose to be a prolific member of the Royal Academy of Arts and a favourite of Queen Mary. His work is, if anything, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s. Spencelayh, who died in 1928, liked to paint fussy interiors. The most sought after are realistic pictures of men, often gathered around a table in a room full of clutter, with glazed jugs, books, umbrellas and pieces of velvet jumbled together. There is usually a pipe or two on the table, and there is nearly always a clock hanging on the wall.

A Manchester cotton merchant named Levy supported Spencelayh from the early 1920s. He offered the artist and his wife a house to live in and bought a number of his paintings. When Levy's widow, Rosie, auctioned his collection in 1946, the picture that fetched the highest sum was “The Old Dealer”, which Spencelayh had painted in 1925. It was sold again in 1973, where it was bought by Richard Green, a London dealer, on behalf of an American collector for about £30,000.

Consigned last week to Sotheby’s by this same collector, it sold for more than ten times that (£337,250 including commission and taxes) to Mr Mason. Mr Green, an earlier owner, was the underbidder. “It has everything you could want: the old man, the clock, the knickknacks,” Mr Mason said afterwards. “It is quite simply the best example of a Spencelayh I have ever seen.” Mr Mason said he bought the picture for stock, with no particular collector in mind.



“On the Cliffs” (pictured above) is one of a series of pictures that Laura Knight painted of women sitting high above the water on the Cornish coast. In one of the earliest examples, “Daughter of the Sun”, the women were naked. That picture did not sell when Knight exhibited it at the Royal Academy in 1912, and Knight later cut it up and sold the pieces after it had become damaged. She continued to be inspired by the Cornish theme in the years before the end of the first world war, after she and her husband moved to London. In “On the Cliffs” one woman is sewing while the other may be threading a needle. Both are strong, calm figures. Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists. But there are no men in any of Knight’s pictures of this period, reminding viewers that war was close at hand.

“On the Cliffs” sold to an anonymous bidder for £646,050, nearly twice the top estimate. Even at that price, many regard the painting as a bargain. In July, Galen Weston, a Canadian billionaire whose family owns Fortnum & Mason, bought the companion picture, “Wind and Sun”. It cost him £914,850.

Comments

It seems that this article is not quite suitable for making up new ideas and giving comments here~

Well, let me talk something about art. By researching for the art section on economist, I found another aspect of art. That is, the commercial side. Paintings are auctioned and sold in the art market like Sotheby's. People are talking about the famous artists and collecters are searching for fashion.

I am not quite famaliar with the commercial side of art. What I am always focusing on is the beauty and meanings inside the art, the strong feeling it can arise from people, and the life of the artists. Issues about art can be devided into several themes: art and the government, artists and their works. Should government support art? I always try to say yes. Arts have spiritual value. Artists express their thoughts of the world through their works. Some works are perfect reflection of the realism and can make people think deeply. Art is also a good way of culture exchange, which can make people know more about the culture of other countries and know each other better. But how much should the government support art? Since the governments should focus more on other issues such as health-care, poverty, education and so on, art seems to be the last government should care about. I think government can try to support art in other ways, wich will not only flourish the development of art,but also need little financial support from the government. Art market might be a goog option. But there are other problems coming from the commercilization of art. Artists might try their best to cater to the taste of their customers. They might no longer create their works for their inner feeling and deep thought, but for the surface value of their work. This trend might damage the development of true art.

I just have some pieces of ideas and collect them together. Anyway, more details and supports about each idea are needed.

---

作者: AdelineShen    时间: 2009-12-27 11:10:14

5# 123runfordream

John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893. His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight.

The explaination of "celebrate" in M-W is as follows:
transitive verb
1 : to perform (a sacrament or solemn ceremony) publicly and with appropriate rites <celebrate the mass>
2 a : to honor (as a holiday) especially by solemn ceremonies or by refraining from ordinary business b : to mark (as an anniversary) by festivities or other deviation from routine
3 : to hold up or play up for public notice <her poetry celebrates the glory of nature>

I think this "celebrate" here is quite fit for the third explaination: to hold up or play up for public notice. John's works show the industry, commerce and conspicuous wealth during Queen Victoria's reign, which make the public think deeply about the dark society that time.

---

作者: pluka    时间: 2009-12-27 11:32:46

COMMENT

I lost my tongue on this topic...

Poor in knowledge of art and auction as I am, I see mainly the changeable and unpredictable prices that sometimes so high-flying as to surpass the top estimate easily. It may be interesting to dig more through the numbers and see why those fluctuations occur.

Contemporary financial background of bidders, of course, influence a lot. As mentioned in the article, with tight budget, collectors are willing to pay high(even higher than at other time) for worthwhile masterpieces while discard other works that count for little. For them, those reputed paintings, porcelains and other brilliant pieces are tantamount to valuable assess with a promising potential of appreciation. Stock them, and you get a good bargain.

What intrigues me, however, is why some pieces out of others gain great fame and adoration. Aplenty of artistis live in obscure for lifetime yet rise to be heros or idols decades or even hundreds years later. The recognition for their works, in my eyes, is more or less a matter of good fortune. Those pieces must first survive the time--not necessarily must they undergo the so-called time-test but may simply be stored in dim and messy rooms, remaining untouched---until one day somebody swept the dust and discovered their beauties. This process involves many uncertain factors such as changes in social values and fads, current worship, and perhaps most important, the status of the appreciator. 


Humm...art is always a difficult topic.

---

作者: 海王泪    时间: 2009-12-27 11:51:08



9# AdelineShen

"Dark social commentaries." Thanks.

Here is some reference.
if you give a close look at these paintings,you will find they are stunning!

Refference:
PRINCE'S DOCK, HULL by John Atkinson Grimshaw


THE OLD DEALER (THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP) by CHARLES SPENCELAYH

News about "Sotheby's London Sale of Victorian & Edwardian Art Includes 100 Works by Leading Artists"
http://www.artknowledgenews.com/2009-12-15-01-12-26-sothebys-london-sale-of-victorian-and-edwardian-art-includes-100-works-by-leading-artists.html

After watching these pictures, what "clutter and realism" means is very clear.

---

作者: 123runfordream    时间: 2009-12-27 12:40:46

6# fancyww

我有一个理解是:艺术作品一般需要经过时间的鉴定才彰显出价值。而在现在的经济条件下，当前的作品价值被越炒越高，that would happen in the future.

---

作者: windandrain2004    时间: 2009-12-27 13:34:14

占楼

---

作者: aladdin.ivy    时间: 2009-12-27 14:19:00

After going over the whole passage, the title- back to the future- confuses me a lot. Because except for introducing some auctions, painters, dealers, and paintings, the content of this report seems irrelevant to its title, which should not be seen in such an article of Economist. But the more it confused me, the more I want to figure it out, and so far there are three ideas about how does this title works come into my mind.

First, the author uses his interesting title as a gimmick to attract reader to read.

Second, “back” works as a none here, and the whole title means from back to the future. As the first sentence said: the taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant, art works of masterpiece would continue worth to collect from past to the future, although it may experienced a period of stagnation.

Third，the author use a oxymoron in this title. However, since every rhetoric used in an article has its own propose, such as expresses a specific kind of feeling or emphasizes at some extent, but if here the title have been used as oxymoron what kind of characteristic it works make me puzzled.

---

作者: hugesea    时间: 2009-12-27 15:29:36

To be frank, I am totally confused by the article since I cannot find any connection between the title and the article.

The article mainly tell us a trend—the taste of clutter and realism is currently buoyant, buyer are happy to pay more than it is really worth for realistic paintings.

Realism emphasizes on the actuality of everyday subjects, depicting them without idealization, and not omitting their sordid aspects, but by no means always discarding classical, romantic or sentimental approaches. Thus, realistic paintings often seem a bit dark, old-fashioned, cluttered, and sentimental.

As described in the article, Grimshaw's paintings depicted the modern world but managed to escape the depressing, dirty reality of industrial towns. His pictures innovated in applying the tradition of rural moonlight images to the Victorian city, recording the rain and mist, the puddles and smoky fog. This is why Grimshaw's paintings seem to be old-fashioned.

Another example: Spencelayh, whose paintings are more old-fashioned than Grimshaw's, was known that he liked to painted fussy interiors. Spencelayh’s paintings are realistic pictures, which often looks cluttered.

“On the Cliffs” is a picture that two women sit high above the water, behind them the sea shimmering and full of light. But there are no male figures in the picture. Why? It is because the painting was transcribed in the years before the end of the WWI. The painting revealed the social reality that the war was close at hand, and all men have gone to frontier.

From the article, I know that realism, cluttered and old-fashioned as it is, is very popular in current art market. But I have no idea why it has any connection with the future.

---

作者: emteddybear    时间: 2009-12-27 16:05:42

clutter:凌乱
curiously：好奇的
buoyant：无忧无虑的
taste ：鉴赏力
sentimental：多愁善感的
porcelain：瓷器
top-ranking ：一流的
prolific ：多产的
fussy ：爱挑剔的
knickknack：小玩意

good things：
1.Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists
2.But there are no men in any of Knight’s pictures of this period, reminding viewers that war was close at hand.


my comments:
After finishing the artical is a commentary, it's mainly about the recently sale of the Sotheby’s , which was surprising busy. What's more, there are three art work are mentioned. I think it attempts to tell us that when contemporary art market seeks the "new", the old-fashion work is also the one of the dealers' best love.Actually, I don't know anything about art, either its economic benefits. I just know that rich people buy art works to keep their wealth.
At present, it's economic crisis. The reason of art works' fervency is quite clearly. People want to invest less and get high repayment. Maybe this theory is true, just like the  housing prices. At present, the housing price is so high that we can't afford it. But some rich people who really don't need so many houses are still puch up the price.
But art work is not entirely the same as house price . For our ordinarmost people, house is the necessity, while art work is not.

---

作者: 敛寒影    时间: 2009-12-27 16:26:33

Comment:

This article aims to tell us that in this contemporary world people searching for new novelty,the value of old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental paintings are remain steadfastly or even more valuable.With the reflection of inflation,it is astute to collect anctic paintings that steadly quality exchanging more money in the future than before.Also a good opportunity for art dealer to earn more from the access selling the paintings twice from the first collector.The author applied the example of illustrious paintings as “Prince’s Dock, Hull” which John Atkinson Grimshaw painted, “The Old Dealer” which Spencelayh painted and “On the Cliffs” which Laura Knight painted bidding up as high as two or four times what the auction house had predicted.

This idea that the art spending would hold their value in the longer term appears in the passage we have read few days before.Like investing assets in the bussiness of real estate,paintings would be an luxurious item to keep the value in the inflation.In my oppinion,the reason is that the paintings bring us the aethetic enjoyment and raise the resonance of people on the issues.Besides,that record the history of an ancient year in the past and the feeling in the painting can not be repeat but taste after seeing it.The paintings brings more value of spritual that never be chaged in the long term,so the prices should be increased rather than degressive.

好词好句：

Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up哄抬 beyond their high estimate.


His works are often dark social commentaries注释，解说词 featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight.



Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists.


if anything  如果没有什么区别的话

on behalf of  代表
a series of  一连串的

---

作者: tequilawine    时间: 2009-12-27 16:28:18



novelty 新颖新奇性n  brass founder 黄铜铸工 prolific多产的 consign把。。。托付给人 代售  

1 They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.
2 Nearly 40% of the lots in Sotheby’s sale were bought in.什么意思？

The trend in art industry may last for while, as we see from the passage, the taste for clutter and realism. And author found some pattern from the trends in this industry, that is , they are happy to pay over the odds for top ranking pictures, but leave the rest untouched.This is just explain the upper one said"They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend."

But what really impressed me in the passage is the painting the company sold intrigueing me to explore more about author and relevant things.
First, i have to admit that personnally i am more prone to be a surrealism arts, since i think it can give people more optimistic vision to dream.As the opposite way pretty in real focusing on giving us impressive boring world, no one can get rid of the inner spirit trying to convey the humanity in that period.

---

作者: jinziqi    时间: 2009-12-27 19:58:59

New words
clutter 凌乱
novelty 新奇
sentimental 情感的
lot 拍卖品
porcelain 瓷器
rig 帆装（船桅和风范等的安装模式）
consign 托运
knickknack 小装饰物
shimmer 微微发亮
idyllic 完美无瑕

Good words
His work is, if anything, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s. Spencelayh, who died in 1928, liked to paint fussy interiors.
on behalf of
said afterwards
Of the two auctions, Sotheby’s was by far more successful.

Good sentences
Prices today reflect what is happening out there. People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.
Some pieces went for as much as four times what the auction house had predicted.

My comment
I am happy to say that I read this article in a few minutes which prove that my reading speed in English has been improved a lot since I began to read an article every day.When I was reading the passage, I ignored those complicated names, but I can know what the author talked about. It described some pictures and then stated some auctions being sold from one to another. Auctions have even become stock, which could make money, just like houses which people are eager to buy one, not only for live in, but also for selling it after years to make money.

---

作者: qxn_1987    时间: 2009-12-27 20:03:10



The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant

Mr Mason, who has seen recessions come and go in the 53 year he has been in the business, said afterwards: “Prices today reflect what is happening out there. People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend. ”（？）（“the dealer can gain the profit from the art market when inflation is happened”   ——C。的解释，赞~）

Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate. Some pieces went for as much as four times what the auction house had predicted.

Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s, that same American saw his Grimshaw sell to an anonymous bidder for &pound;397,250 (including commission and taxes), the third highest price achieved for the artist at auction.

Both are strong, calm figures. Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists. But there are no men in any of Knight’s pictures of this period, reminding viewers that war was close at hand.


Comments:

Art is the process or product of deliberatley arranging elements in a way that appeals to the sense of emotions. Nowadays, people have a tendency to place higher value on it, for it serves as an expression of emotions, feelings, and so on; what’s more, it had been defined “as a vehicle for the expression or communication of emotions and ideas.”

Nonetheless, some of them are bid up beyond their high estimate or true value. And, as the economy is recovering, the dealer are gaining huge profit from the art market. Are these pictures so valuable? I am confused. Admittedly, these pictures are rare, and have their great value, but they should not be over-estimated that don’t accord with their true value.

---

作者: qisaiman    时间: 2009-12-27 20:07:55



buoyant  上涨的 有浮力的
clutter 喧闹 a crowded or confused mass or collection
cover lot
porcelain 瓷器的
prolific 多产的
velvet 天鹅绒
consigned 委托的
under bidder 出价人
idyllic 田园诗般的

summary
the article main deal with a rising interesting on the realism market , that seems
strange during the recession. but after a remark by the bidder, it is easy to understand why . then the article introduce several works by the impressionist , by who the pictures were produced and how it travled from one to another.

comments
it seems that during the recession the clutter and realism art market is blooming.
at the S auction, record prices for works by impressionist occured. just as the remarks by Mason revealed , prices on the art reflected an expectation of the inflation and the rich try to hold the value on invest on the art works those can endure long.
another phenomenon is a paticular interset of the collector on the top-ranking pictures, from which a hint can be readily achieved that  it is no more than another stock.

---

作者: 海王泪    时间: 2009-12-27 20:20:14



Further comment (when C and I are talking about the value of art.)

Why is art piece valuable?
As far as I concern, it has basic value and extra value.

First, art piece has aesthetic value as its basic value. Truly valuable art can provoke our emotion and people are willing to pay for appreciation. Art is signal, it stimulate our brain.
Reference: “How art made world.” (In this video you may learn why we need art.)
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/avTa5pTZsOM/

If you accept that people need art, what confused you must be the extra value determined by growing demand and limited supply. Maybe you doubt if the price of art is too high. But I think it is normally driven by the market force.

Supply of masterpiece is limited for the following two reasons: 1.Existent number is little; 2.Circulating number is small, when people tend to stock them rather than to frequently deal in them. In other words, a thing is valued in proportion to its rarity.

And demand is growing, because more people become richer and richer. Those richer develop greater interests in various luxuries and they certainly can afford art. There must be someone, psychologically, believes that a painting is worth a higher price, then he or she buy it. Such process keeps running. Thus "the art piece’s success in extra value lay in the high prices achieved for the last buyer".

Finally, although the price would fluctuate, the general trend is upward and stable. Hardly could people refuse to believe that art piece can serve as good investment. By comparison with the depreciation in money (inflation), people treat art piece as assets maintaing value. That's why Mr. Mason said in today's Eco:"...inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend." These speculators who hold expectation of future higher price come into being and make great contribution to the current art market.

---

作者: splendidsun    时间: 2009-12-27 21:28:14

My comment:
It is hard to forecast the taste of people in art.  Nowadays, the realism seems more popular than other art styles. Comparing with the contemporary art, the pictures of realism remain the style of old-fashion, cluttered and sentimental. The buyers in all different sectors follow a pattern that would like to pay over the odd for top-ranking pictures. A dealer, Mr. Mason, indicated that the inflation of economy would be the art dealers’ friends, which means that the sale of art markets would prosperous during the inflation. The examples of Spencelayh’s picture “The old dealer” and Knight’s picture “on the cliffs” give us a picture that the buyers tend to bid up the price and pay for them in much higher prices than expected. In my viewpoint, the appearance of this aberrant phenomenon could attribute to the attitudes of people toward art. During the inflation, almost everything would lose its origin value. While people consider the art works are the most steady and valuable things that could keep the buyers’ wealth. As a result, the prices of art works are much higher than that were estimated before.

好句：
1. The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant.
2. Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate.
3. Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s, that same American saw his Grimshaw sell to an anonymous bidder for &pound;397,250 (including commission and taxes), the third highest price achieved for the artist at auction.
4. The most sought after are realistic pictures of men, often gathered around a table in a room full of clutter, with glazed jugs, books, umbrellas and pieces of velvet jumbled together.
5. Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists.
bid up 抬高竞价
fetch=gain money
on behalf of 代表
underbidder 出较低价格的人
Chinese porcelain 中国瓷器

---

作者: dingyi0311    时间: 2009-12-27 21:57:25



Good sentences
Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists. But there are no men in any of Knight’s pictures of this period, reminding viewers that war was close at hand.
His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight



Unknown words
Commentary说明评注
Clutter 混乱
underbidder.出价过低
glazed jugs光滑水壶
sought after搜索追求

My comment
This report are telling us how is the art market is like lately. According to it, the market is still vigorous even in the recession. Many of the work were selled at prices that several times of the expectation, which is completely contrary to the assertion in another report (our second assignment)that the recession will bring the price of art works down. One reason is that a pile of great works are on the auction. The former report illustrated that cause of sliding price of arts works few days ago is different from that happened in 1898 when few people were buying pictures at that time,  the problem is lack of good works. after some good works show up now, the prices can still be stunning. On the other hand,  the price of arts is relatively lower  and thus it is a very good chance to invest in them since the price will increase as the economic recover in the future.

---

作者: 番茄斗斗    时间: 2009-12-27 22:57:03

好词-生词-表达

1.Buyers in every sector of the art market, from Chinese porcelain（瓷器） to Old Masters, now seem to follow a pattern.
2.They are happy to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures
3.the picture that fetched the highest sum was “The Old Dealer”
4.underbidder低价提供者，knickknack小摆设


COMMENT:
Art comes from life and beyond life, as a result, it confuses the outsiders in certain ways. How to judge the value of it and by which way can you appreciate it keep us away. Without revelent knowledge, we are following the trend, objectlessly and unconditionally. Mostly, it shares the same signal with other goods, that is, money it has fetched.

As numerous cases were given from the article, i'm more likely shocked by the doubled or tripled price of a painting at acution. According to Mason, an active buyer, inflation enables the prosperity of the art market. In addition,he determines the art as quality ones, however, i see it in an irony way. Art today, is brewed by outsiders, who are more concerned about its value of potential price rather than of art itself. No wonder Vincent Van Gogh were getting famous long after his death.

---

作者: sunflower_iris    时间: 2009-12-27 23:01:23



The article describes a phenomenon that the taste for clutter and realism is revalued. I interpret “clutter” as disarranged scene of real life, kind of naturalism. But I can’t figure it out at all point.

Besides, the title “Back to The Future” confuse me too. I think the author means that old-fashioned art will come to bloom again. But I disagree with the point of view that they are more valuable than other styles. You can make sure which style you like most rather than determine which one is most valuable.

Furthermore, just as it’s said in the report titled “Suspended Animation”, the dealers buy the art works not only because they like them but also because the works will hold their value for a long term and even increase in value. Some of the buyers buy the works for stock rather than collaction, just as Mr. Mason, what they care about is their asset but not the works’ own value. But it’s not ture that those dealers know little about art, maybe some of them do. While whether the dealers follow the fashion or whether the fashion follows the dealers is still a question, actually, most of the dealers understand art and have good taste on art works. If no, how could they make sure the works will hold their value to protect them from infloation?

---

作者: sunflower_iris    时间: 2009-12-27 23:29:13



25# 番茄斗斗

Vincent Van Gogh's brother was a dealer too. He found the value of Vincent's works, and believed that Vincent would be successful even though few people enjoyed his works at that time. Without his help, Vincent could not leave so many beatiful paintings to the world.

As far as I concern, it's not a tragedy or irony that the dealers buy the art works. From anther perspective, they value the art works of different styles and boost the art market, which can advance the arts.

---

作者: rodgood    时间: 2009-12-27 23:36:20



Useful words and expressions:


Clutter杂乱，混乱，
Buoyant活跃的，上涨的，
shut down关门
follow a pattern
pay over the odds过高的（价格） for
fussy interiors
pipe烟斗
on behalf of
Consign交付，分派，委托

war was close at hand

WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental.

Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate.

His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight.

The most sought after（最抢手的） are realistic pictures of men, often gathered around a table in a room full of clutter, with glazed jugs, books, umbrellas and pieces of velvet jumbled together.


Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light



My comments:

The report depicts a picture of the buoyant market of old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental art. However, behind the prosperity and luxury, what we should put attention on are an inflating economy and the desperation of people to it.

Just as the report says, inflation has always been the art dealers’ friend. Compared to the risk of other business such as real estate, art investment is relatively safe in recent years under the financial crisis. Without doubt that the works in those incredibly transaction are of great art value, but it is really a pity that dealers’ purchase of these exquisite works with such high bid is firstly for the purpose of assets maintaining.

---

作者: domudomu    时间: 2009-12-27 23:52:05

Well, this is also a artical talking about the modern relationship bwtween art and commercial. But this one differs the earlier one.
The report is an explaintion of the curious corner of art  market which is clutter and sentimental. After reading earlier passage about art and aution, I read and get to know more about this issue. Though, a good artical can't be evaluated by it's price. But price is a way to make an art a direct observation.So, money is an audiovision for layman.
As to the paintings, I always focus on the colour, the beauty and the back story of them. But, many commercials now just pay attentionm to the value of money. They regard the expensive things as good things. This remiands me of a famouse book called little prince to some extend. At the begining of this book, the little prince told us a commen phnomenon. If you( a child) told your parents there is a reallu beautiful huose with amazing outlook and a wonderful  garden in front of it , your parents will just nod their heads perfunctorily and say nothing. Because they don't even think it might be a beautiful house. But when you told them the big house is XX squares and worthy XX dollars, they will stare at you and say it must be a very pretty house at once. See this is the sense of worth of adult and of most art buyers now.
Another phenomenon attracts me is some pieces out of dates gain great fame and adoration again. However, in my mind this is a good thing , and it's a way to turn up things down. People in diffrent eras, of course have diffrent aethestic standards. It is also a method to show the positive and progressed part of our society.Just as the work of Vincent Vangogh, it used to be regarded as rubbish in people's eyes, but later, it became one of the most famouse pieces and even till now.
So if you are doing  something about art, you should never give up the special style of your work . It may be not so popular around your circle in this period .But ,by insisting on making it better,one day , your work will be appreciated by public for sure.

---

作者: 番茄斗斗    时间: 2009-12-28 00:27:01

27# sunflower_iris

Thanks to dealers, we have an opportunity to see masters' works. However, dealer himself is a business man rather than a critic. Apple in his eye is the potential value rather than art itself. I have been long informed that Vincent Van Gogh's brother is a dealer, and he can hardly sell Vincent Van Gogh's paintings until his death. Ideas like"why after?" keep haunting me.I'm not familiar with the running system of art market, but what i see in this field is that fate of an artist is determined by merchant rather by expertise.

You may argue, Vincent Van Gogh was not lucky enough to meet the right guy. I'd rather to take my stand from the article above. As the author put it，“They are happy to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures, but leave the rest untouched.” If dealers boost the art market, they shrink it as well. Choosen ones fetch a great amount of money, while the unpicked ones can only stand aside. Who is judging the rules? Merchant only."Mr Mason said he bought the picture forstock, with no particular collector in mind.“To them, art is only a goods to invest, a better investment under the economical crisis.

When animal bronze heads from Old Summer Palace appears in the auction hall, we are lost under mere patriotism. What kind of art they are? Being titled with the heritage of Old Summer Palace alone,enables these kind of heads valve themself millions. Ironical, they are only faucets, even not a delicate decoration comparatively to the other lost heritage. What indeed make it valuable is the merchant, because they are known it by heart, Chinese will buy it someday out of patriotism.

谢谢小九～这样写写好像在写ISSUE，嘿嘿，不过表达的有些还是不够～～

---

作者: 豆腐店的86    时间: 2009-12-28 00:35:45

Back to the future
Dec 19th 2009
From Economist.com
生词
读多遍才懂的句子
好句子，好表达法
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant
WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental. With bad weather coming, much of London may have been preparing to shut down early for Christmas last week. But Christie’s sale of Victorian and British Impressionist pictures on December 16th and Sotheby’s sale of Victorian and Edwardian paintings the next day were surprisingly busy.

Sotheby's

Of the two auctions, Sotheby’s was by far more successful, fetching &pound;4.4m ($7.1m) for works by some of the best-known names of the period, including Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Alfred Munnings, Dame Laura Knight and Charles Spencelayh. The cover lot, Spencelayh’s “The Old Dealer”, sold for a record price for the artist at auction. The buyer was David Mason, a London dealer who joined his father’s firm, MacConnal-Mason, when he was just 17. Mr Mason, who has seen recessions come and go in the 53 year he has been in the business, said afterwards: “Prices today reflect what is happening out there. People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.”

Buyers in every sector of the art market, from Chinese porcelain to Old Masters, now seem to follow a pattern. They are happy to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures, but leave the rest untouched. Nearly 40% of the lots in Sotheby’s sale were bought in. Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate. Some pieces went for as much as four times what the auction house had predicted.

John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893. His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight. Eight years ago Mr Mason sold an 1881 Grimshaw entitled “Prince’s Dock, Hull” to an American collector for &pound;130,000. Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s, that same American saw his Grimshaw sell to an anonymous bidder for &pound;397,250 (including commission and taxes), the third highest price achieved for the artist at auction.

Spencelayh, the son of an iron and brass founder, rose to be a prolific member of the Royal Academy of Arts and a favourite of Queen Mary. His work is, if anything, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s. Spencelayh, who died in 1928, liked to paint fussy interiors. The most sought after are realistic pictures of men, often gathered around a table in a room full of clutter, with glazed jugs, books, umbrellas and pieces of velvet jumbled together. There is usually a pipe or two on the table, and there is nearly always a clock hanging on the wall.

A Manchester cotton merchant named Levy supported Spencelayh from the early 1920s. He offered the artist and his wife a house to live in and bought a number of his paintings. When Levy's widow, Rosie, auctioned his collection in 1946, the picture that fetched the highest sum was “The Old Dealer”, which Spencelayh had painted in 1925. It was sold again in 1973, where it was bought by Richard Green, a London dealer, on behalf of an American collector for about &pound;30,000.

Consigned last week to Sotheby’s by this same collector, it sold for more than ten times that (&pound;337,250 including commission and taxes) to Mr Mason. Mr Green, an earlier owner, was the underbidder. “It has everything you could want: the old man, the clock, the knickknacks,” Mr Mason said afterwards. “It is quite simply the best example of a Spencelayh I have ever seen.” Mr Mason said he bought the picture for stock, with no particular collector in mind.



“On the Cliffs” (pictured above) is one of a series of pictures that Laura Knight painted of women sitting high above the water on the Cornish coast. In one of the earliest examples, “Daughter of the Sun”, the women were naked. That picture did not sell when Knight exhibited it at the Royal Academy in 1912, and Knight later cut it up and sold the pieces after it had become damaged. She continued to be inspired by the Cornish theme in the years before the end of the first world war, after she and her husband moved to London. In “On the Cliffs” one woman is sewing while the other may be threading a needle. Both are strong, calm figures. Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists. But there are no men in any of Knight’s pictures of this period, reminding viewers that war was close at hand.

“On the Cliffs” sold to an anonymous bidder for &pound;646,050, nearly twice the top estimate. Even at that price, many regard the painting as a bargain. In July, Galen Weston, a Canadian billionaire whose family owns Fortnum & Mason, bought the companion picture, “Wind and Sun”. It cost him &pound;914,850.

------------------------------------------------------
sentimental a : marked or governed by feeling, sensibility, or emotional idealism  b : resulting from feeling rather than reason or thought  *a sentimental attachment*  *a sentimental favorite*
Consign to send or address to an agent to be cared for or sold
prolific  marked by abundant inventiveness or productivity  *a prolific composer*
sought seek 的过去分词，寻找·~·· fetch to bring in as a price
shimmer to shine with a soft tremulous or fitful light  : GLIMMER
idyllic   pleasing or picturesque in natural simplicity 田园诗的~
----------------------------------------------------------
comments
After reading the article and come back to the title, it seems even more difficult for me to grasp the writer’s idea. What exactly he wants to convey by the title “back to the future” and what connection lies between the title and context?

Like the previous articles on arts, this one provides examples which indicate the growth of the economy as well. The art market is now witnessing a rejuvenation of old-fashion. Clutter and realism, as genres of old painting, are becoming highly evaluated by bidders. In Sotheby’s sales record, it is these old fashioned paintings which achieved higher price than estimating that help the company survive the winter.

Back to the title, maybe it infers that old-fashion art is getting hotter in the market and it will receive more attentions in the near future.

---

作者: 木虫虫    时间: 2009-12-28 01:20:46

[REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][12.27]https://bbs.gter.net/bbs/thread-1045738-1-1.html

words & expression
new novelty
another curious corner
remained steadfastly踏实不变的 old-fashioned
were surprisingly busy.
Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s  托人代售
The most sought after追捧 are
on behalf of 代表
threading a needle穿针引线
close at hand 就在眼前


The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant
WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new

Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate.

John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893.

His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight.

His work is, if anything, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s.

Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering波光粼粼 and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists




专有名词解释
Christie's is a leading art business and a fine arts auction house.
Sotheby's is the world's third oldest auction house in continuous operation.
Lawrence Alma-Tadema   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Alma-Tadema
Alfred Munnings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Munnings
Dame Laura Knight
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dame_Laura_Knight
Charles Spencelayh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Spencelayh

Cornish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornwall
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E5%BA%B7%E6%B2%83%E5%B0%94



clutter uncountable

• a confused disordered jumble of things
• background echos, from clouds etc, on a radar screen

sentimental
1 a : marked or governed by feeling, sensibility, or emotional idealism b : resulting from feeling rather than reason or thought <a sentimental attachment> <a sentimental favorite>
2 : having an excess of sentiment or sensibility
— sen·ti·men·tal·ly adverb

lot
1 : an object used as a counter in determining a question by chance
2 a : the use of lots as a means of deciding something b : the resulting choice
3 a : something that comes to one upon whom a lot has fallen : share b : one's way of life or worldly fate : fortune
4 a : a portion of land b : a measured parcel of land having fixed boundaries and designated on a plot or survey c : a motion-picture studio and its adjoining property d : an establishment for the storage or sale of motor vehicles <a used car lot>
5 a : a number of units of an article, a single article, or a parcel of articles offered as one item (as in an auction sale) b : all the members of a present group, kind, or quantity —usually used with the <sampled the whole lot of desserts>
6 a : a number of associated persons : set <fell in with a rough lot> b : kind, sort
7 : a considerable quantity or extent <a lot of money> <lots of friends>


comment
At the first sight of this report, I was attracted by the particular title. As the highlight of this article, the interesting title is the epitome of the promising future of old-fashioned art works, which are taken for granted that should be “look back" never exit the stage of high bid.
Recession brings inflation and stock, this trend was reflected in the art market. Dealers and collectors treat art more like a reserve assets while neglecting the charm of art itself. However, it is the prosperity of the auction support artists in some extent in this day and age.

Further more, through this article, I know some famous artist in history, it is a meaningful gain.

---

作者: sunflower_iris    时间: 2009-12-28 01:39:44     标题: TO 30# 番茄



First of all, I agree that dealer himself is a business man rather than a critic. But you know, most dealers have the same point of view with the critics. The same example of Vincent Van Gogh, who did not enjoy his works? Neither dealers nor critics. Maybe you will remember Gauguin Paul, the guy who was cut a ear off by Vincent, his works also were not accepted. The reason was the art circle did not see the value of post-impressionism at that time, but not because the dealers were not far-sights.

Furthermore, I disagree that if dealers boost the art market, they shrink it as well. How do they shrink it? Do not buy any works at all? It’s impossible. They only could buy a style of the works instead of another one. They could change their taste but could not change the proceeding that buy art works. Because they need the works to protect them from the inflation or increase in value as the report was concerned.

Finally, what is the purpose of the artists? To express their emotion, spirit, and show a world of heart to other people of course. But at the same time, they want to be accepted, want to be enjoyed, and also want their works to be sold for earn their lives. Maybe you should say it’s a pity for art, but it’s the reality. And the dealers buy their works can encourge or help them continue their work. What is there against it and why they can not go ahead with it?


PS：It's excited to write a kinda argument. Thanks to 番茄

---

作者: aladdin.ivy    时间: 2009-12-28 11:55:51



10# pluka

I lost my tongue on this topic...

Poor in knowledge of art and auction as I am, I see mainly the changeable and unpredictable prices that sometimes so high-flying as to surpass the top estimate easily. It may be interesting to dig more through the numbers and see why those fluctuations occur.

Contemporary financial background (backgrounds) of bidders, of course, influence a lot. As mentioned in the article, with tight budget, collectors are willing to pay high (even higher than at other time) for worthwhile masterpieces while discard other works that count for little. For them, those reputed paintings, porcelains and other brilliant pieces are tantamount to (这里加个动词会不会好一点，gain) valuable assess with a promising potential of appreciation. Stock them, and you get a good bargain.

What intrigues me, however, is why some pieces out of others gain great fame and adoration. Aplenty (A plenty) of artistis (artists) live in obscure for lifetime yet rise to be heros (heroes) or idols decades or even hundreds years later. The recognition for their works, in my eyes, is more or less a matter of good fortune. Those pieces must first survive the time--not necessarily must they undergo the so-called time-test but may simply be stored in dim and messy rooms, remaining untouched---until one day somebody swept the dust and discovered their beauties. This process involves many uncertain factors such as changes in social values and fads, current worship, and perhaps (the) most important, the status of the appreciator.


Humm...art is always a difficult topic.

评论很生动，好句子用下划线标出了~

---

作者: miki7cat    时间: 2009-12-28 15:31:14

My comment
I’m not sure whether the understanding below is correct of what Mr Mason said, which is “People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.” In my opinion, art, as one of investable assets, would hold investors’ value in longer term, and additionally the old-fashioned ones are proved valuable by having been sold many times and collected by many people, so that people “are happy to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures” , discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. Moreover, it is because inflation will make the prices of art works higher that inflation has always been the dealer’s friend.

Art.view
Back to the future
Dec 19th 2009
From Economist.com
The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant
curious【If you describe something as curious, you mean that it is unusual or difficult to understand.】
buoyant【A buoyant economy is a successful one in which there is a lot of trade and economic activity.】

WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental. With bad weather coming, much of London may have been preparing to shut down early for Christmas last week. But Christie’s sale of Victorian and British Impressionist pictures on December 16th and Sotheby’s sale of Victorian and Edwardian paintings the next day were surprisingly busy.

Of the two auctions, Sotheby’s was by far【You use the expression by far when you are comparing something or someone with others of the same kind, in order to emphasize how great the difference is between them. For example, you can say that something is by far the best or the best by far to indicate that it is definitely the best.】 more successful, fetching &pound;4.4m ($7.1m) for works by some of the best-known names of the period, including Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Alfred Munnings, Dame Laura Knight and Charles Spencelayh. The cover lot, Spencelayh’s “The Old Dealer”, sold for a record price for the artist at auction. The buyer was David Mason, a London dealer who joined his father’s firm, MacConnal-Mason, when he was just 17. Mr Mason, who has seen recessions come and go in the 53 year he has been in the business, said afterwards: “Prices today reflect what is happening out there. People are discounting【If you discount an idea, fact, or theory, you consider that it is not true, not important, or not relevant.】 the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.”

Buyers in every sector of the art market, from Chinese porcelain to Old Masters, now seem to follow a pattern. They are happy to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures, but leave the rest untouched. Nearly 40% of the lots in Sotheby’s sale were bought in. Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate. Some pieces went for as much as four times what the auction house had predicted.

John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893. His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight. Eight years ago Mr Mason sold an 1881 Grimshaw entitled “Prince’s Dock, Hull” to an American collector for &pound;130,000. Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s, that same American saw his Grimshaw sell to an anonymous bidder for &pound;397,250 (including commission and taxes), the third highest price achieved for the artist at auction.

Spencelayh, the son of an iron and brass founder, rose to be a prolific member of the Royal Academy of Arts and a favourite of Queen Mary. His work is, if anything, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s. Spencelayh, who died in 1928, liked to paint fussy interiors. The most sought after are realistic pictures of men, often gathered around a table in a room full of clutter, with glazed jugs, books, umbrellas and pieces of velvet jumbled together. There is usually a pipe or two on the table, and there is nearly always a clock hanging on the wall.

A Manchester cotton merchant named Levy supported Spencelayh from the early 1920s. He offered the artist and his wife a house to live in and bought a number of his paintings. When Levy's widow, Rosie, auctioned his collection in 1946, the picture that fetched the highest sum was “The Old Dealer”, which Spencelayh had painted in 1925. It was sold again in 1973, where it was bought by Richard Green, a London dealer, on behalf of【代表】 an American collector for about &pound;30,000.

Consigned last week to Sotheby’s by this same collector, it sold for more than ten times that (&pound;337,250 including commission and taxes) to Mr Mason. Mr Green, an earlier owner, was the underbidder. “It has everything you could want: the old man, the clock, the knickknacks,” Mr Mason said afterwards. “It is quite simply the best example of a Spencelayh I have ever seen.” Mr Mason said he bought the picture for stock, with no particular collector in mind.


“On the Cliffs” (pictured above) is one of a series of pictures that Laura Knight painted of women sitting high above the water on the Cornish coast. In one of the earliest examples, “Daughter of the Sun”, the women were naked【Someone who is naked is not wearing any clothes.】. That picture did not sell when Knight exhibited it at the Royal Academy in 1912, and Knight later cut it up and sold the pieces after it had become damaged. She continued to be inspired by the Cornish theme in the years before the end of the first world war, after she and her husband moved to London. In “On the Cliffs” one woman is sewing while the other may be threading a needle. Both are strong, calm figures. Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists. But there are no men in any of Knight’s pictures of this period, reminding viewers that war was close at hand.

“On the Cliffs” sold to an anonymous bidder for &pound;646,050, nearly twice the top estimate. Even at that price, many regard the painting as a bargain. In July, Galen Weston, a Canadian billionaire whose family owns Fortnum & Mason, bought the companion picture, “Wind and Sun”. It cost him &pound;914,850.

---

作者: KiKi~淇水滺滺    时间: 2009-12-28 21:47:04



In that former “Suspended animation” article, we learnt the art market in general. We saw the current situation in this market, the contemporary art works are booming these days and how to sell and buy this art works in the market.

This article demonstrates more details about art market. It tells us another corner of favorite art works in this market----the old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental ones. It’s easy to understand. As few master pieces of art works are available because both collectors and museums tend to hold on to what they have, prices of older works keep going up as more people have money to spend. On the other hand, the number of old works can only be reduced rather than increased. We can find it’s a good investment to keep an eye on arts as the price can be times up after a few years. Of course, we should study deeper and be cautious if we want to treat it as an investment.

---

作者: zhengchangdian    时间: 2009-12-29 02:46:29

Comment:

Art has always been a popular topic since mankind created cave paintings to record their daily life. It is believed that the arts reveal the otherwise hidden ideas and impulses of a society. In other words, the purpose of art is to upset the tradition. To illustrate this point of view clearly, here’s a good example. As known to all, the aesthetic conception has adjusted to the wave of change all the time. During the period of Renaissance, the famous painter Botticelli created a languished Venus to express the melancholy of goddess to come to this misery world. From then on, painters began to impute their creations with humanity, especially to depict emotions in the eyes of goddess. After that, Venus with soft and gentle profile symbolized the desire for love in numerous art works. And until the outbreak of Tiziano’s boldness and unrestraint could a voluptuous Venus greet us. In this development of aesthetic perception, one can draw a definite conclusion that the aim of art is overthrow the past.

What’s more, one can gain a new revelation from the selling of “On the Cliff”. It is really amazing to find that a delicate art work can be sold out when it has been cut up and damaged. At the same time the courage of Knight to wreck his own work is also worth celebrating. Maybe this act can be seen as a new way to preserve a work of art. In sum, art has always played an important role in overthrowing the tradition and providing new energy for the future life.

---

作者: zhengchangdian    时间: 2009-12-29 02:50:38

14# aladdin.ivy

嗯，看到你引用了“The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant”，就忍不住想要问一下，这究竟是什么意思呢？

---

作者: zhengchangdian    时间: 2009-12-29 02:57:30

6# fancyww

对于标题，我还是有点疑问的：back to the future，回到未来，感觉好像是一种paradox啊:L

---

作者: kulewy531    时间: 2009-12-30 21:49:19

Back to the future
生词
Dec 19th 2009
From Economist.com
The taste for clutter (jumble) and realism is curiously buoyant(emerge)
WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly(firmly) old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental. With bad weather coming, much of London may have been preparing to shut down early for Christmas last week. But Christie’s sale of Victorian and British Impressionist pictures on December 16th and Sotheby’s sale of Victorian and Edwardian paintings the next day were surprisingly busy.

Sotheby's

Of the two auctions, Sotheby’s was by far more successful, fetching &pound;4.4m ($7.1m) for works by some of the best-known names of the period, including Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Alfred Munnings, Dame Laura Knight and Charles Spencelayh. The cover lot, Spencelayh’s “The Old Dealer”, sold for a record price for the artist at auction. The buyer was David Mason, a London dealer who joined his father’s firm, MacConnal-Mason, when he was just 17. Mr Mason, who has seen recessions come and go in the 53 year he has been in the business, said afterwards: “Prices today reflect what is happening out there. People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.”

Buyers in every sector of the art market, from Chinese porcelain to Old Masters, now seem to follow a pattern. They are happy to pay over the odds(买贵了) for top-ranking pictures, but leave the rest untouched. Nearly 40% of the lots in Sotheby’s sale were bought in. Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate. Some pieces went for as much as four times what the auction house had predicted.

John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous (obvious) wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893. His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging (equipment) and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight. Eight years ago Mr Mason sold an 1881 Grimshaw entitled “Prince’s Dock, Hull” to an American collector for &pound;130,000. Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s, that same American saw his Grimshaw sell to an anonymous bidder for &pound;397,250 (including commission and taxes), the third highest price achieved for the artist at auction.

Spencelayh, the son of an iron and brass founder, rose to be a prolific member of the Royal Academy of Arts and a favourite of Queen Mary. His work is, if anything, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s. Spencelayh, who died in 1928, liked to paint fussy interiors. The most sought after are realistic pictures of men, often gathered around a table in a room full of clutter, with glazed jugs(罐), books, umbrellas and pieces of velvet jumbled together. There is usually a pipe or two on the table, and there is nearly always a clock hanging on the wall.

A Manchester cotton merchant named Levy supported Spencelayh from the early 1920s. He offered the artist and his wife a house to live in and bought a number of his paintings. When Levy's widow, Rosie, auctioned his collection in 1946, the picture that fetched the highest sum was “The Old Dealer”, which Spencelayh had painted in 1925. It was sold again in 1973, where it was bought by Richard Green, a London dealer, on behalf of an American collector for about &pound;30,000.

Consigned last week to Sotheby’s by this same collector, it sold for more than ten times that (&pound;337,250 including commission and taxes) to Mr Mason. Mr Green, an earlier owner, was the under bidder. “It has everything you could want: the old man, the clock, the knickknacks,” Mr Mason said afterwards. “It is quite simply the best example of a Spencelayh I have ever seen.” Mr Mason said he bought the picture for stock, with no particular collector in mind.



“On the Cliffs” (pictured above) is one of a series of pictures that Laura Knight painted of women sitting high above the water on the Cornish coast. In one of the earliest examples, “Daughter of the Sun”, the women were naked. That picture did not sell when Knight exhibited it at the Royal Academy in 1912, and Knight later cut it up and sold the pieces after it had become damaged. She continued to be inspired by the Cornish theme in the years before the end of the first world war, after she and her husband moved to London. In “On the Cliffs” one woman is sewing while the other may be threading a needle. Both are strong, calm figures. Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists. But there are no men in any of Knight’s pictures of this period, reminding viewers that war was close at hand.

“On the Cliffs” sold to an anonymous bidder for &pound;646,050, nearly twice the top estimate. Even at that price, many regard the painting as a bargain. In July, Galen Weston, a Canadian billionaire whose family owns Fortnum & Mason, bought the companion picture, “Wind and Sun”. It cost him &pound;914,850.

Comments:
What I want to emphasis first after reading the article is that, retailing the 3rd paragraph, bidders tend to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures, but leave out the rest. The reason, I guess, is that invest in the top-ranking lots can reduce the risk, though the profit reduces accordingly. The price of top-ranking ones is more stable, for it is commonly recognized by most people. Most of the investors are not devoted collector, but are those who seek shelter for the wealth. Because of that, top-ranking ones are highly evaluated.

Secondly, it is said that 40% of the lots are bought in. This fact just coincides with a former Economists article which says that the business of big auction houses changes from consignment to deals. Obviously, by this method, these auction house has increased their income.

---

作者: 中原527    时间: 2010-1-6 20:02:36



Back to the future
                   红色字体为生疏词汇或不懂句子
绿色为好的表达
紫色comments
Dec 19th 2009
From Economist.com
The taste for clutter and realism is curiously buoyant
WHILE the contemporary art market constantly seeks the new—new names, new imagery, new media or simply new novelty—another curious corner of the art market has remained steadfastly old-fashioned, cluttered and sentimental. With bad weather coming, much of London may have been preparing to shut down early for Christmas last week. But Christie’s sale of Victorian and British Impressionist pictures on December 16th and Sotheby’s sale of Victorian and Edwardian paintings the next day were surprisingly busy.



Sotheby's

Of the two auctions, Sotheby’s was by far more successful, fetching &pound;4.4m ($7.1m) for works by some of the best-known names of the period, including Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Sir Alfred Munnings, Dame Laura Knight and Charles Spencelayh. The cover lot, Spencelayh’s “The Old Dealer”, sold for a record price for the artist at auction. The buyer was David Mason, a London dealer who joined his father’s firm, MacConnal-Mason, when he was just 17. Mr Mason, who has seen recessions come and go in the 53 year he has been in the business, said afterwards: “Prices today reflect what is happening out there. （issue经济类可借鉴）People are discounting the coming inflation and buying quality. They know that inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend.”
Buyers in every sector of the art market, from Chinese porcelain to Old Masters, now seem to follow a pattern. They are happy to pay over the odds for top-ranking pictures, but leave the rest untouched. Nearly 40% of the lots in Sotheby’s sale were bought in. Its success lay in the high prices achieved for those that sold, half of which were bid up beyond their high estimate.
Some pieces went for as much as four times what the auction house had predicted.
John Atkinson Grimshaw is a painter who celebrated industry, commerce and conspicuous
wealth during Queen Victoria’s reign, dying in 1893. His works are often dark social commentaries featuring streets and portsides, full of ships’ rigging and lamplight that seems visually interchangeable with moonlight. Eight years ago Mr Mason sold an 1881 Grimshaw entitled “Prince’s Dock, Hull” to an American collector for &pound;130,000. Consigning the picture to Sotheby’s, that same American saw his Grimshaw sell to an anonymous bidder for &pound;397,250 (including commission and taxes), the third highest price achieved for the artist at auction.

Spencelayh, the son of an iron and brass founder, rose to be a prolific member of the Royal Academy of Arts and a favourite of Queen Mary. His work is, if anything, even more unfashionable-looking than Grimshaw’s. Spencelayh, who died in 1928, liked to paint fussy interiors. The most sought after are realistic pictures of men, often gathered around a table in a room full of clutter, with glazed jugs, books, umbrellas and pieces of velvet jumbled together. There is usually a pipe or two on the table, and there is nearly always a clock hanging on the wall.

A Manchester cotton merchant named Levy supported Spencelayh from the early 1920s. He offered the artist and his wife a house to live in and bought a number of his paintings. When Levy's widow(寡妇), Rosie, auctioned his collection in 1946, the picture [that fetched the highest sum] was “The Old Dealer”, which Spencelayh had painted in 1925. It was sold again in 1973, where it was bought by Richard Green, a London dealer, on behalf of an American collector for about &pound;30,000.

Consigned last week to Sotheby’s by this same collector, it sold for more than ten times that (&pound;337,250 including commission and taxes) to Mr Mason. Mr Green, an earlier owner, was the under bidder. “It has everything you could want: the old man, the clock, the knickknacks,” Mr Mason said afterwards. “It is quite simply the best example of a Spencelayh I have ever seen.” Mr Mason said he bought the picture for stock, with no particular collector in mind.
“On the Cliffs” (pictured above) is one of a series of pictures that Laura Knight painted of women sitting high above the water on the Cornish coast. In one of the earliest examples, “Daughter of the Sun”, the women were naked. That picture did not sell when Knight exhibited it at the Royal Academy in 1912, and Knight later cut it up and sold the pieces after it had become damaged. She continued to be inspired by the Cornish theme in the years before the end of the first world war, after she and her husband moved to London. In “On the Cliffs” one woman is sewing while the other may be threading a needle. Both are strong, calm figures. Behind them the sea, silvery, shimmering and full of light, has the same idyllic quality of water painted at the time by the Scottish Colourists.
But there are no men in any of Knight’s pictures of this period, reminding viewers that war was close at hand.

“On the Cliffs” sold to an anonymous bidder for &pound;646,050, nearly twice the top estimate. Even at that price, many regard the painting as a bargain. In July, Galen Weston, a Canadian billionaire whose family owns Fortnum & Mason, bought the companion picture, “Wind and Sun”. It cost him &pound;914,850.
Comments:
Nowadays, the art market is full of the blundering atmosphere in china. Many paintings ,which have the obvious characters of the great proletarian cultural revolution such as the figure of chairman Mao and the political propagandistic paintings in that period time. Because of the paticularity of the time, the paintings are favor of the collectors. However, there are not few paintings are bid up beyond the auction’s high estimate. As Mr. Mason said that the inflation has always been the art dealer’s friend, including American art market. There are few collectors not regarding painting as a bargain, especially in China. Collecting usually is the privilege of the rich.
Nawdays>nowadays
Atmasphere>atmosphere
Contemporory>contemporary

Main Entry: 2clutter
Function: noun
Date: 1649
1 a
: a crowded or confused mass or collection b
: things that clutter a place
2
: interfering radar echoes caused by reflection from objects (as on the ground) other than the target
3 chiefly dialect :
disturbance, hubbub
Main Entry: re·al·ism
Pronunciation: \ˈrē-ə-ˌli-zəm\
Function: noun
Date: 1817
1
: concern for fact or reality and rejection of the impractical and visionary
2 a
: a doctrine that universals exist outside the mind; specifically : the conception that an abstract term names an independent and unitary reality b
: a theory that objects of sense perception or cognition exist independently of the mind — compare nominalism
3
: the theory or practice of fidelity in art and literature to nature or to real life and to accurate representation without idealization
Main Entry: buoy·ant
Pronunciation: \ˈbȯi-ənt, ˈbü-yənt\
Function: adjective
Date: 1578
: having buoyancy: as a
: capable of floating b
:
cheerful, gay c
: capable of maintaining a satisfactorily high level <a buoyant economy>
— buoy·ant·ly adverb
contemporary
a.当代的，同时代的
n.同时代的人
novelty
n.新奇，新颖，新奇的事物
sentimental
a.
感伤性的，感情脆弱的
Steadfastly
adv.踏实地，不变地
Victorian
n．维多利亚女王时代著名人物
a.维多利亚女王时代的，有维多利亚女王时代特色的
odds
n.可能的机会, 成败的可能性, 优势, 不均, 不平等, 几率, 差别
odd
adj.奇数的, 单数的, 单只的, 不成对的, 临时的, 不固定的, 带零头的, 余的
fetching
a.
动人的，吸引人的，迷人的
Recession
n．撤回，退回，工商业的衰退，不景气
inflation
n.通货膨胀，物价暴涨
sector
n.部门，部分
v.使分成部分，把…分成扇形
odds
n.可能的机会, 成败的可能性, 优势, 不均, 不平等, 几率, 差别
bid up
v.(在拍卖中)竞出高价, 哄价, 抬价
knickknack
n．小玩意儿
anonymous
a.匿名的
conspicuous
a.显著的
if anything 如果有什么区别的话
idyllic
a.
田园短诗的, 牧歌的, 生动逼真的
Thread a needle 穿针引线

---

欢迎光临 寄托家园留学论坛 (https://bbs.gter.net/)

Powered by Discuz! X2