Apollo’s Refraction - Part 1
by Scot Kelly
Apollo, along with his other titles, is the god of light, music as well as the god of truth. I propose to refract this light (and truth) into a broad classification that may help in our attempts at art valuation. Because this is a blog and not a research paper, I will keep this short and at a high level. Hopefully it will also spur some spirited discussion on the subject.
Now how does any individual value art? I submit 3 broad categories below with 2 influencing wrappers (discussed later):
1. Intuition
2. Emotion
3. Rationality
The first category includes any intuitional response to an art piece based on the aesthetics (color, light, form, texture, etc.) that appeals to an individual.
The second category contains an individual’s emotional responses to an art piece which may derive from a connection to the subject matter, the artist, the story behind the art piece, where the individual viewed the art piece or even what the individual was doing (or what was going on in his or her life) at the time of viewing the art piece.
The third category encompasses all of the rational (or irrational and misguided as the case may be) thought equations that we as individual art buyers, art collectors, art investors, art dealers, etc. create and try to solve in attempting to judge the value of an art piece.
The 2 influences that I mentioned above are cultural and environmental.
In the next segment, I will give some examples of each of the categories and further elucidate how our culture and environment color each of the category responses.