As a twaddle-monger for many years before switching to my current gig I believe I retain a good ear for it. I was persuaded along to ‘Art Basel’ in Hong Kong recently and a noisier nest of twaddle-mongers it would have been hard to find (except at another gathering of contemporary art camp-followers taking place simultaneously perhaps?).
The paper highlighted today from Marshall (Xiaoyin) Ma et al is a welcome breath of science into the discussion about what makes a great painting. For better or worse you’ll have to agree with me here a ‘great’ painting is one that’s ‘worth’ a lot of money.
The mechanics of the experiments the researchers undertook to reach their conclusions may have interest to those with a greater appreciation for the subject than me; but the meat of the piece is the conclusion
Blue paintings do well, so do red ones and blue and red ones often do best of all depending on where in the painting the blue is located. In statistical terms a 1-standard deviation increase in the blue content of a picture enhances its value by 10.6% (that’s over U$50k BTW). A 1-standard deviation increase in the red content of a picture enhances its value by 4.2%.
Perhaps the most interesting finding from this work is how culturally consistent the findings were. Test subjects were brought in in Shanghai, the Netherlands and the U.S. and no discernible difference in preference was observed.
So, the next time I find myself among the stentorian clack of the red-corduroy-pants-set I’ll know how to respond. If pictures are to be judged by their perceived worth a remark like ‘Hmmm, not really blue enough for my taste’ should suffice as the most really informed comment in room.
You can access the paper in full via the following link Colors and Auction Value.
Happy Sunday.