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楼主

发表于 2009-12-27 02:37:14 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

本帖最后由 AdelineShen 于 2009-12-27 02:38 编辑

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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.

Die luft der Freiheit weht
the wind of freedom blows

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prettywraith
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沙发

发表于 2009-12-27 09:05:58 |只看该作者

本帖最后由 prettywraith 于 2009-12-27 18:04 编辑

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

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板凳

发表于 2009-12-27 09:13:10 |只看该作者

本帖最后由 fancyww 于 2009-12-27 10:32 编辑

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.

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emteddybear	+ 1	确实写得比我好很多啊，学习了
AdelineShen	+ 1	I am also confused about the title at fi

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地板

发表于 2009-12-27 09:45:42 |只看该作者

本帖最后由 adammaksim 于 2009-12-27 23:55 编辑

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~

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5楼

发表于 2009-12-27 10:18:42 |只看该作者

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.

我们是休眠中的火山，是冬眠的眼镜蛇，或者说，是一颗定时炸弹，等待自己的最好时机。也许这个最好的时机还没有到来，所以只好继续等待着。在此之前，万万不可把自己看轻了。
——王小波

fancyww
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6楼

发表于 2009-12-27 10:40:49 |只看该作者

本帖最后由 fancyww 于 2009-12-27 10:49 编辑

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。

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海王泪
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7楼

发表于 2009-12-27 10:42:48 |只看该作者

本帖最后由海王泪于 2009-12-27 12:44 编辑

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)

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AdelineShen	+ 1	good analogy about science and art~:)

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AdelineShen
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8楼

发表于 2009-12-27 10:50:19 |只看该作者

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.

Die luft der Freiheit weht
the wind of freedom blows

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9楼

发表于 2009-12-27 11:10:14 |只看该作者

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.

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aladdin.ivy	+ 1	got it~
123runfordream	+ 1	got it.
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pluka	+ 1	understand now,thx~

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Die luft der Freiheit weht
the wind of freedom blows

pluka
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10楼

发表于 2009-12-27 11:32:46 |只看该作者

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.

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横行不霸道~

海王泪
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11楼

发表于 2009-12-27 11:51:08 |只看该作者

本帖最后由海王泪于 2009-12-27 20:10 编辑

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.

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123runfordream
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12楼

发表于 2009-12-27 12:40:46 |只看该作者

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.

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13楼

发表于 2009-12-27 13:34:14 |只看该作者

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14楼

发表于 2009-12-27 14:19:00 |只看该作者

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.

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15楼

发表于 2009-12-27 15:29:36 |只看该作者

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.