Why ?

[Bazile]

Call me a philistine - however i'm struggling to understand what it is about this painting , that makes it worth 74m .

http://www.bbc.co.uk/...ainment-arts-19633293

I suppose your'e all going to direct be to the brush strokes ... ?


Be gentle now , mind

[Wharton]

You're a Philistine (that makes two of us).

[douglas9401]

Aye, we're all in this together (as Philistines, not the other thing)

[jno]

the brush strokes will be part of it. You're evidently judging it by a 3"x2" thumbnail on a website; ideally you'd see the real thing before forming your judgment. Whoever paid £74m for it got the whole full-size original, brushstrokes and all.

[Duncer]

As always, these things are worth what people are prepared to pay for them.

[douglas9401]

I'm a stranger to the world of fine art, is "brushstrokes" code for "a right good rogering"?

[andy-hughes]

I am the first to admit that I do not understand the financial value of art, but I do know that the work appeals to me immensely.

If you view it as the artist intended - that is, it s not the figure screaming, but the figure reacting to the sound of the scream, which is the entire world around him screaming at the state in which it finds itself - it makes a perfect depicition of the world as it was then, and is now.

Would I like it on my wall? Yes I would. Would I pay tens of millions of dollars for it? If I had the money, yes I would.

Do I understand why it is valued at tens of millions of dollars? not a clue!!!

[Zeuhl]

^
Indeed so.

Also:
It expresses an idea and a set of emotions that many people find very moving and powerful
It was extremely influential in the development of art
It is an iconic image
There are only three of them and they're not making any more cause Ed is dead.

[jno]

as an example of its influence on culture...

http://images1.fanpop...-2258019-1024-768.jpg

[FredPuli43]

I'll try!

This must be the second oil version. It was commissioned by a man who made his fortune in coffee, which seems apt as the picture looks like someone who has had too much of the stuff. Not as good as the first version, which was painted to capture the artist's own feelings at that instant.

The picture just captures angst so well ( which may be why students often have it as favourite print!) The painting represents that far better than any more accurate, photographic, rendering of the subject would ever do. Munch himself was a disturbed individual when he painted it and graphically expressed his own state of mind.

If billionaires want to compete for such a significant work, the only example out there, well, the hammer price will be in the many millions.

What is a real mystery is why any Picasso is worth as much as $65 miilion (see link). Picasso never conveys any emotion through most of his work. Mind, if you like ceramics of goats or matadors, he made some good pottery!

[Wharton]

£74,000,000 seems a lot for a munch, I wonder what they charge for a three-course.

[jno]

students often have it as favourite print

What happened to the girl playing tennis with the bare bottom?

(Fiona, her name was.)

[Wharton]

^^^kent her mother

[B00]

Nope, don't geddit either.

My 7 year old can paint better, and has (see my avatar)- now....where can I flog one of her etchings to a gullible i mean art buyer?

[doctordb]

Fred, you'll find plenty of emotion in picasso's work, especially guernica. Art is a matter of taste and the prices people pay for it is irrelevant.

[FredPuli43]

jno,I was trying to give a good impression of students. Tennis girl scratching her bum does not !

[DTCwordfan]

jno - she and the tennis ball were the models for the recent vandalism of the Church fresco by the pensioner in Spain
http://www.topnewstod...3/img_3143257_620.jpg

[FredPuli43]

doc, that's why I didn't say all Picasso's work didn't show emotion. Guernica certainly scores. He's a painter with a sense of humour as well, though he did sometimes seem to be taking the Picasso.

[VHG]

I remember a question in an English exam paper from when I was at school (many years ago)

The question said "explain why a painting of a cottage can be worth far more than the cottage itself".

I could not answer it then, and i still cant.

[FredPuli43]

Yes, VHG,the painting known as 'Willie Lott's Cottage', by Constable, would certainly sell for more than the cottage!

But that's nothing. Art buyers may be rich and crackers, but what of stamp collectors?. One paid $4.8 million for a block of four Chinese stamps, yet they' were buying something mass produced on a printing press, of no unique artistic merit whatsoever. That block only fetched that money because the stamp was withdrawn from circulation as it upset the Japanese, so it had rarity value, which seems to dictate prices.

[emmie]

i can never understand anyone buying any painting for vast amounts of money, it's quite criminal. They will likely be put in a vault, unless it goes to a museum.