Some thoughtsbon the value and importance of art - paintings and books and such.

 I read the other day that the artist Jack Vettriano died last week. I remember buying a print of one of his paintings, probably The Sining Butler, as a present for my daughter. It seems that there is some snobbery about bis paintings, some “experts” consider them too sentimental and populist. Does a paining really have to be the work of some long dead artist from it to be considered “real art” especially as the artist concerned may not have made much money from it in his lifetime? And what is the real value of a work of art if it has to be kept out of sight in a bank vault because it cost so much? 

Here’s a link to some opinions about Vettriano, who was born Jack Hoggan. Did he decide to go professionally by his mother’s name in order to sound more artistic? I wonder.

Here’s a link to another article about a painting, this time a painting that was bought in 1973 by someone’s Italian husband, the Baron de Dozsa. Since his death the widow Barbara de Dozsa syas it belongs to her. It turns out to have been a stolen painting but she claims ownership as her dead husband bought it in good faith, probably for a couple pf hundred pounds. She won’t hand it over to anyone in authority until they pay iher its current value. An expert commented: ““Her husband could not have paid more than a couple of hundred back in 1973. It’s only worth maybe £60,000 to £80,000 now. She refuses to cooperate unless she gets paid the full value, but she can never sell the painting. No legitimate auction house will ever touch it … the Carabinieri have it on their database and will never take it off. As soon as that painting goes to Italy, it’s going to be seized.”

Note that it’s ONLY worth maybe £60,000. Everything is relative. 

In any case I think’ I”d still rather have the Vettriano, even if he’s not so “recognised” an artist. 

Thinking of the value and importance of works of art (books, painting, whatever), here is a poem by Michael Rosen, on the subject of a Jerusalem bookshop which has been raided for the second time in a month and the owner detained:

The Israeli security forces are arresting books again.

It's not enough to arrest bookshop owners.

They need to put the books in prison too.

The time has come to lock up books.

After all, how can the authorities

risk having books they disapprove of

sitting on shelves in a bookshop in Jerusalem?

It's not enough to lay waste to Gaza

and kill tens of thousands of people.

It's not enough to intimidate and kill

people in the West Bank.

It's time now to kill books

and kill the ideas in books.

Anyone drawing parallels 

with other book-destroying activities 

from the past

will be pilloried for dishonouring the Holocaust.

In fact,

objectively speaking

this poem, as it has progressed

has now become antisemitic. 

And my sister posted this, by someone called Richard Winterrowd, giving two different ways of seeing (or not seeing) empathy:

Elon Musk to CNN: ‘The fundamental weakness of Western civilisation is empathy, the empathy exploit’, Musk said. ‘There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilisation which is the empathy response’

Empathy, he said,has been “weaponised”.

Now read he attached, below:

GM Gilbert was the c psychologustvwhominterbiewdNazis on trial at Nuremberg. His words are as valid today.

“I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants. A genuine incapacity to feel what their fellow men feel. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”

There it is.

Life goes on. Stay safe and-well,everyone!