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Universi^ Micrcxilms International 300 N. Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Ml 48106

1320611

RASMUSSEN, JOHN ALAN

CONDITIONS FOR A CONTEMPORARY

THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY M.A. 1983

University Microfilms

Internetionel 300K Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. M i 4B106

Copyright loss by

RASMUSSEN, JOHN ALAN All Rights Reserved

CONDITIONS FOR A CONTEMPORARY

ART GALLERY

by

John Alan Rasmussen

submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of The American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

The Requirements fo r the Degree

of

Master of Arts

in

Arts Management

Signatures of Committee:

Chairman: S'

Dean of the College ^

Date

1983

The American University Washington, D.C. 20016

AJdSElCAll UN1YE351TY LIBRARY ^ { THE CONDITIONS FOR A CONTEMPORARY

ART GALLERY

BY

John Alan Rasmussen

ABSTRACT

This study of the contemporary a rt gallery analyzes the condi­

tions that allowed the to emerge as a mediator between the

a rtis t and the public in H ellenistic Greece, Renaissance Ita ly , seven­

teenth-century Holland, and nineteenth-century America. Each period

was examined for similarities in the social position of the ,

their sources of income, and the characteristics of the art they pro­

duced. I t was found that there were comparable social, economic, and

artistic conditions in each period. Painters and sculptors had made

the transition in status from craftsman to artist, the patron was

replaced at least in part by the collector, and a rt was made fo r the market as well as by . The gallery w ill

play an important mediating role between the artist and the public as

long as these conditions continue to exist. fo r Elsie Y. Hull

with special thanks to Sheldon Rapoport and Bonnie Anthony TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT i i

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... i i i

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Chapter I. CRAFTSMAN TO ARTIST ...... 4

I I . PATRON TO COLLECTOR...... 13

I I I . ART FOR THE MARKET...... 28

CONCLUSION...... 37

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 39

1 V INTRODUCTION

This study of the contemporary a rt gallery is lim ited to four geographical areas in four distinct periods of history: Hellenistic

Greece (the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. and the rise of the Roman Empire in the f ir s t century B.C.), Renaissance

Italy (fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Florence and Rome), seventeenth- century Holland (Delft, Antwerp, and ), and nineteenth-century

America (New York, Boston, and Philadelphia).

Each period was examined fo r s im ila ritie s in the social, economic, and a r tis tic conditions that made the emergence of the contemporary a rt gallery necessary. While they have been examined separately, these conditions are naturally inseparable from each other in their effect on the artist and his relations with his sources of economic support.

There are essentially two types of art galleries: galleries that specialize in recognized a rt of the past, and contemporary art galleries that specialize in the work of living . There is often some overlap between these two types. The firs t type is generally more profitable because the prices are higher and there is less risk to the co lle cto r's investment. The recognized art of the past has a somewhat assured place in and there is a clearly limited supply.

I t is a known conmodity. Two outstanding examples of a rt dealers who had th is type of gallery were Damasippus in fourth-century B.C. Rome,^

^Joseph Alsop, The Rare Art Traditions (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), p. 195. 2

and Lord Duveen in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century

America.

The contemporary art gallery, on the other hand, sells the work

of livin g a rtis ts and has a seemingly endless supply. The gallery is

made up of a dealer, who has a more or less permanent location where

he displays works of art to potential collectors; a group of artists, who produce the work and either sell it to the dealer or leave it on

consignment; and a group of collectors, whose purchases of a rt support

the gallery. The most important effect of the contemporary art gallery

is the transformation of the work of living artists into a saleable commodity, changing its aesthetic value into an economic value, so that

it is possible for the artist to live by the sale of his work in the absence of a patron.

The most famous dealers of contemporary a rt had galleries that played important roles in the support of avant-garde movements. As

Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler remarked, " I t is great painters who create great art dealers. Each great period of had its dealer." In Paris, from 1890 to 1930, the Impressionists had Durand-Ruel, the Post-

Impressionists had Vollard, and the Cubists had Kahnweiler. These deal­ ers believed in their artists when they were not fashionable and supported them fin a n cia lly through d iffic u lt times.

They were famous, however, because they were not characteristic of their profession. All three dealers began with capital supplied by their families and were able to support their galleries and artists through years of l i t t l e or no art sales. A ll three formed galleries

2 Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, My Galleries and Painters, trans. Helen Weaver (New York: The Viking Press, 1971), p. 32. 3 around a group of innovative a rtis ts when there was no market fo r th e ir work. All three, at least in the early years of their galleries, more closely resembled patrons than merchants. These galleries were not

self-supporting until after a market had been established for their products.

There have been other contemporary a rt galleries, most notably in New York between 1940 and 1970, that also shared these characteris­ tic s , but they have been rare. In addition to a private income, the innovative contemporary art dealer of today is likely to need a wealthy collector in a high income bracket investing in his gallery. In exchange, the collector has the privilege of buying a rt cheaply and w riting o ff the gallery's losses on his income tax. It is reasonable to believe that patrons in other periods of history were receiving the social equivalents of tax write-offs.

The previous examples of galleries, innovative at least in their formative years, are not characteristic of the contemporary art gallery.

When a contemporary a rt gallery supports a group of innovative a rtis ts , instead o f having a group of a rtis ts supporting the gallery through the sales of their work, :he dealer more closely resembles a patron than the owner of a business. When contemporary art galleries have emerged as viable alternatives to systems, their role has not normally been that of innovator, but of mediator. They came into existence because certain social, economic, and artistis conditions made them necessary and profitable. CHAPTER I

CRAFTSMAN TO ARTIST

The f i r s t condition fo r a contemporary a rt gallery is that society must make a distin ction between the craftsman and the a rtis t.

Any discussion of the social standing of the artist as opposed to that of the craftsman is going to be over-generalized, for not a ll a rtis ts seek to ascend the social ladder from craftsman to a rtis t. The person­ a lity and achievement of each a r tis t is individual and no single example can cover the social position of every a rtis t.

The distinction that is typically made today between a crafts­ man and an a r tis t has at its base a distin ction between the production of one kind of object and another. A craftsman produces useful objects: dishes you can eat from, chairs you can sit on, and so forth. An artist, unlike the craftsman, makes essentially nonutilitarian objects. A is appreciated for its unique qualities, not for any practical function i t might perform.

J. J. P ollitt, in The Ancient View of Greek Art, points out that the ancient Greeks had no word fo r what is now called " a r t." There was no distin ction made between the work of a craftsman and the work of an a rtis t. Both were expressed by the Greek word techn^, meaning

"rational production."^ This distinction that was made in fourth-

^J. J. P o llitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art (London: Yale University Press, 1974), p. 32. 5 century B.C. Greece had prim arily social consequences. It allowed artists to be considered members of an intellectual profession as opposed to the less elevated position of craftsmen. The f ir s t evidence of this rise in social standing is the presence of a signature on the artist's work.

Some believe that certain of the undecipherable markings found on Neolithic pottery are rudimentary signatures.^ While there is no way of knowing if these really are signatures or if anything like a trade in art objects existed in Neolithic times, it is certain that signatures do not appear again on a rt objects except on rare occasions until the sixth-century B.C. in Greece.^

The presence of a signature gives a clear indication that the work of a rt was regarded as d is tin c t from the productions of other cra fts­ men. By the Hellenistic period the writing of artists' biographies was also becoming commonplace. These were the f ir s t of th e ir kind and gave further proof of the artist's new status as a creative indi­ vidual

Prior to the fourth century B.C., the social and economic stand­ ing of the artist in Athens was slightly above that of a slave. Art was seen as a mere handicraft to be judged according to how closely i t adhered to the standards of the cra ft and the often detailed

'^Alsop, The Rare Art Traditions, p. 238.

^Rudolf and Margot Wittkower, Born Under Saturn, the Character and Conduct of A rtis ts : A Documentary History from Antiquity to the French Revolution, 2d edl (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1969), p. 2.

^Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz, Legend, Myth and Magic in the Image of the A rtis t (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), p. 5. stipulations of the patron.^ The artisan was uneducated, ill- p a id , Q and forced to travel frequently from c ity to c ity in search of work.

One way fo r an a rtis t to win acceptance as an inte lle ctua l was with theoretical writings that demonstrated a wide range of knowledge.

Although the earliest known theoretical treatise on painting was the m id-fifth century B.C. study of perspective by Agatharchus, the most g important period of artists' writings was in the fourth century B.C.

The craftsmen-artists had obtained access to education and they began to show themselves to be members of an inte lle ctua l profession. The old belief that art was just one craft among many was no longer tenable.

The social position of the artist declined somewhat after the f ir s t century B.C., fo r Roman a rt was ju st as anonymous as medieval art. The cultivated public of the Roman Empire lost interest in the ide ntity of any a rtis ts but the most famous masters of Greek a rt. Con­ temporary a rtis ts were no longer signing th e ir own works and th e ir names are no longer found in later Roman texts.

Beginning in the eleventh century in Florence, medieval a rtis ts signed th e ir works. The signature was an obvious indication that the a r tis t knew his own value and the value of his product and was not con­ tent to work anonymously for the glory of God.^^ Certain writers of

^Wittkower, Born Under Saturn, p. 3.

^Arnold Hauser, The Sociology of A rt, 2d ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1951), 1:116.

^ P o llitt, The Ancient View of Greek A rt, p. 23.

T^Alsop, The Rare Art Traditions, p. 270.

^^Wittkower, Born Under Saturn, p. 8. 7 the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries aided artists' efforts to be­ come recognized as creative individuals. Seeking to emulate what they believed had been a common practice in the golden age of Greece, these writers began to praise individual artists in a way that was completely at odds with the medieval tradition of painting and as the 12 work of craftsmen in no way d iffe re n t from other craftsmen.

During the Middle Ages the Ita lia n population became concen­ trated in cities like Florence and Rome and social and professional organization of workers became necessary. The urban working population 1 1 organized guilds. Sculptors had to be members of the Arti dei

Fabbricanti, because they worked in stone, and painters had to join the Arti dei medici, Speziali e Merciani, because they worked with pig­ ments. The guilds provided protection fo r native workers from foreign competition on the a rt market and offered guarantees to buyers that only "guild-approved" products up to high standards of craftsmanship would be supplied. They set up guidelines on the fixing of prices and provided fo r impartial assessors to settle arguments over price.

In the fifteenth century artists began to rebel against the guild system and its refusal to recognize the difference between crafts­ men and a rtis ts . The medieval craftsman was a wage earner and a rt.

1 9Nikolaus Pevsner, Academies of A rt, Past and Present (London: Oxford University Press, 1940), p. 31. 1 3 Wittkower, Born Under Saturn, p. 8.

^^Pevsner, Academies of A rt, p. 43.

T^Martin Wackernagel, The World of the Florentine Renaissance, Projects and Patrons, Workshops~and , trans. Alison Luchs (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 303-4. 8 the artists maintained, could not be paid for as if it were merely the productions of manual laborJ®

Anthony Blunt describes, in A rtis tic Theory in Ita ly 1450-1600, the a r tis t's struggle to raise his social position from craftsman to inspired artist as taking place on two fronts. The practical front was the struggle against the old organization of the guilds which lumped artists and craftsmen together. The theoretical front was the effort made by artists to have painting and sculpture included among the

Liberal Arts.^^

Mary Garrard points out, in her article "Artemisia Gentileschi's

Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting," that painting, sculpture, and architecture had not been included among the Liberal Arts in the

Middle Ages. The fifth century allegorical treatise of Martianus

Capella established the Trivium (Dialectic, Rhetoric, and Grammar) and the Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astrology) as the seven arts. When painting and sculpture were occasionally present in Liberal

Arts cycles on the porches of medieval cathedrals, they were used to represent the Mechanical Arts, or what later was called the crafts.

In their efforts to have painting and sculpture included among the Lib­ eral Arts, Renaissance a rtis ts were prim arily concerned with elevating themselves up from the low social standing of craftsmen. In th e ir

^^Wittkower, Born Under Saturn, p. 10,

^^Anthony Blunt, A rtis tic Theory in Ita ly 1450-1600 (London: Oxford University Press, 1956), p. 55. ift Mary D. Garrard, "Artemisia Gentileschi's Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting," The Art B ulletin 62 (March 1980): 99-100. 9 writings they were careful to emphasize the intellectual elements in th e ir a rt. Knowledge o f mathematics, in the form of perspective, was held to be essential to the a rt of painting.

Primarily because of the successful efforts of Leonardo and

Michelangelo to elevate the position of the artist in society, painting and sculpture were finally admitted to the Liberal Arts in the early 20 sixteenth century. By the time Vasari proposed the establishment of an a rt academy in Florence, the Accademia del Disegno, in 1562, the 21 guilds had lost most of their importance. Rome followed soon after by transforming the Guild of St. Luke into an art academy in 1577. It had meanwhile become clear that a rtis ts s t i l l needed an in s titu tio n for guarding their interests and educating young artists, but the academies were to treat as scientific subjects to be taught theoretically as well as practically, while the guilds had always had 22 the preservation of a technical tradition as their goal.

Vasari's intention was never to make the academy the new artists' guild, but this was essentially what happened in Florence and

Rome. The academy freed the a rtis ts from the restrictions of the various guilds they had belonged to only by uniting them in a new guild.

The social position of painters, sculptors, and architects may have risen slightly, but there was never the fundamental change envisioned by Vasari. Despite the advances made by individual artists like

^^Blunt, Artistic Theory, p. 49.

^^Garrard, "Artemisia Gentileschi's Self-Portrait," p. 100. PI Pevsner, Academies of A rt, p. 44.

^^Blunt, Artistic Theory, p. 57.

^^Pevsner, Academies of A rt, pp. 44-50. 10

Leonardo and Michelangelo, a rtis ts at the beginning of the seventeenth century were not much better o ff than they had been before 1562.

The idea of the academy spread north across the Alps to Paris and Antwerp. In Paris, by the middle of the seventeenth century, the

Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture was established with royal support and given exclusive privileges over the guilds. I t soon evolved into a virtual dictatorship over the arts, thus allowing Louis XIV and his court to usurp the independence of the individual artist for which purpose, less than a hundred years e a rlie r, the f ir s t academy had been founded. While subordinating the guild system that s t i l l existed, the new system le ft even less freedom to the painter and sculptor than visite d under the rule of the guild. There were numerous commissions available, but they were commissions to satisfy the precisely defined taste of the court of Louis XIV.

In 1665, the Antwerp academy was established, but its character was very much d iffe re n t from that of the Académie Royale. In Paris the Académie constituted a direct attack on the powers of the guild, while the Antwerp Academy received the gu ild 's encouragement and sup­ port. In Paris, the honored members of the Académie had a higher social position than their foreign colleagues, but they were servants at court and had no a r tis tic freedom. The a r tis t in Holland enjoyed almost com­ plete freedom from guild interference in his creative efforts, but in­ stead of serving the taste of a royal patron, the Dutch a r tis t had to pr please his new c lie n te le —the bourgeoisie.

^ ^ Ib id ., pp. 82-83.

Z^Ibid., pp. 127-37. 11

While Holland was establishing it s e lf as the center of the

world's art market, the Dutch East India Company was exploring what

la te r became New York State. In 1626, Peter Minuit purchased Manhattan

Island from the Indians and built a fort at the lower end of the island.

This settlement, known as New Amsterdam, eventually became the center

of the a rt market in the twentieth century. Between the seventeenth

and the nineteenth centuries the entire process of transition from

craftsman to a r tis t was repeated again in America.

The neglect of the in America in the seventeenth

and eighteenth centuries was due to the fact that American cultural

values had been transplanted from England. In most northern countries

at this time, with the exception of Holland, the artist had not yet 27 achieved any sig n ifica n t status in the eyes of the middle class.

Before the establishment of the Royal Academy in London in 1768, the

English nobility had scarcely been aware of their native artists as OQ anything more than face painters. In the colonies, and later in the

United States, the artist was at best considered a craftsman, provid­

ing objects of use to the populace.

For well over a century, painting in the new country was almost

entirely limited to portraiture. The products of the portrait limners were not considered objects of a rt but were viewed as the products of

Francis Henry Taylor, The Taste of Angels (Boston: L ittle , Brown & Co., 1948), p. 251. 27 Joshua C. Taylor, The Fine Arts in America (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979), pp. 3-4. o p Josephine Gear, Masters or Servants? A Study of Selected English Painters and Their Patrons of the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1977), p. v. 12 craftsmen, not Intrinsically different from chairs or sets of candle­ sticks. In many instances the name of the sitter survives, while the oq id e n tity of the a r tis t does not. This anonymity was indicative of the medieval position of the a rtis t in America.

It was not until the early nineteenth century that art insti­ tutions, reflecting an understanding of art as an intellectual as well as technical activity, began to be established in the United States.

The aims of these institutions were to stimulate an interest in the visual arts among the public and to provide professional training for on young a rtis ts . The f ir s t book on American a rt, William Dunlap's

Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States, was pub­ lished in 1834.31

From the f ir s t , in stitu tio n s lik e the American Academy of Fine

Arts in New York, the Pennsylvania Academy of Art in Philadelphia, and the Athenaeum Gallery in Boston restricted the majority of their exhi­ bitions to plaster casts of antique sculpture and whatever European could be acquired. A rtists began to look elsewhere fo r ways to exhibit th e ir work, both to achieve professional recognition and to find a source of financial support. The contemporary a rt gallery then began to make its appearance in America.

3^Neil Harris, The A rtis t in American Society, 2d ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 7.

3*^111 lian B. M ille r, Patrons and Patriotism: The Encouragement of Fine Arts in the United States, 1790-1860, 3d ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1974), p. 88. qi Taylor, The Fine Arts in America, p. 34. CHAPTER II

PATRON TO COLLECTOR

The second condition fo r a contemporary a rt gallery is the pres­ ence of the collector, in addition to the patron, as a major source of economic support for the artist. Historically there are long periods of overlap between patronage systems and market systems created by the collector, yet in principle it is easy to distinguish between the two.

Patrons are those persons responsible, in d ivid ually or co lle c tiv e ly , fo r commissioning and paying fo r works of a rt. I f they wish, they can exert detailed control over the works whose production they support.

In an e ffic ie n t patronage system a rtis ts and patrons cooperate to pro­ duce work, the patrons providing support and direction, the artists 32 creativity and execution.

Peter Burke distinguishes five main types of patronage in his book. Tradition and Innovation in Renaissance Italy, A Sociological

Approach. In the "household" system, the a r tis t is a member of a house­ hold for a number of years, attending to his patron's artistic needs.

In the "made-to-measure" system, a relationship exists between the patron and the a r tis t only un til the work of a rt is delivered. In the "market" system, the a r tis t produces "ready-made" objects to be sold on the market either d ire c tly or through a dealer. In the "academy" system.

32 Howard S. Becker, Art Worlds (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1982), p. 103.

13 14 the government controls the arts through an organization composed of obedient artists. The "subvention" system involves a university or

foundation paying an artist while he is working, making no claim on the finished product.

The th ird type of patronage Burke describes, the market system,

is in this paper considered to be the province of the collector and

not the patron. Joseph Alsop, in his book The Rare Art Traditions, developed a test for true art collecting, as opposed to patronage:

1) The potential usefulness of a work of art is never a serious consideration for the true art collector, as compared to the work's inherent qualities as art. 2) An art collector is concerned only with buying something fo r the production of which he has been in no way responsible, even i f he buys the work of his contemporaries. 3) To be successful, an art collector must be a connoisseur, or must hire connoisseurship. 4) . . . [The collection] of art made for functional contexts and known purposes . . . pries loose whatever is collected from its former functional context, and deprives it of significant social purpose.34

In w ritin g about the contemporary a rt gallery, A1sop's last test for a true collector is not applicable. What is produced for the contemporary a rt gallery is "ready-made" and is intended from the out­ set to be appreciated primarily for its own sake and not for any other function or purpose.

There are many possible relationships between the a rtist and the c lie n t. At one end of the scale the painter is l i t t l e more than a servant living in his patron's house and working exclusively for him 70 Peter Burke, Tradition and Innovation in Renaissance I t a ly . A Sociological Approach (London: Fontana, 1974), p. 97.

3^Alsop, The Rare Art Traditions, pp. 89-100. 15 and his friends; at the other end of the scale is the situation most often found today: the a rtis t paints a picture and exhibits i t in the hope of finding a casual purchaser, usually with the help of an art dealer. In generalizing about the conditions that existed in a par­ tic u la r period i t must be remembered that at any given time there were probably many different variations in the numerous ongoing relation­ ships between artists and clients.

In Classical Greece, private patronage of a rtis ts was a ll but unknown. The city-state was the only large-scale patron for works of 35 a rt and a rtis ts competed strenuously fo r those few commissions. The change that came about in the economic position of the artist in fourth- century B.C. Greece was a direct result of the conquests of Alexander the Great. When he died in 323 B.C., Greece was united and the country rich with the gold of Persia.

As individuals began to accumulate greater wealth, they in­ creased th e ir purchases of a rt, thereby raising its economic value and 37 the economic position of the artist. Private patrons were now com­ missioning individual works of a rt fo r the embellishment of th e ir homes rather than for the glory of the gods or the state.

The f ir s t evidence of art collecting was found among the Greeks, OQ possibly as early as the fourth century B.C. Art collecting probably

3^Hauser, The Social History of A rt, p. 116-17.

3®Alsop, The Rare Art Traditions, p. 190.

3^Hauser, The Social History of A rt, p. 117.

OQ John Boardman, Greek A rt, 2d ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 179.

3^A1sop. The Rare Art Traditions, p. 28. 16 began in earnest wi^h the Hellenistic monarchs who, in an attempt to acquire a reputation for culture, began to systematically collect the broken pieces of the classical age.^^ Arnold Hauser believes that the most significant change to occur in the artist-patron relationship was the emergence of the middle class as a new and substantial clientele for works of art.^^

It is only after the Hellenistic period with its international capitalism that we can talk of an art market in the actual sense, of a free artistic trade in goods with a constant supply and a cor­ responding demand, fluctuating prices, and available cash. The period which creates the firs t museums, research institutes, and libraries also creates for the trade in works of art new bases of mediation between production and consumption.42

The new point of interchange between the artist and the collector was the art dealer, and the town of Sicyon became the gathering place 43 for art dealers. One can only speculate on the nature of the art dealing that went on in Sicyon and the kinds of spaces the dealers used to display th e ir wares. Probably no major Greek a rtis t would have jeopardized his new social standing by being so commercial as to sell his works through art dealers at this time. It is not known how much of the a rt sold in Sicyon was the work of re la tive ly unknown contempo­ rary a rtis ts , how much of the business was re ally a trade in "old masters," and how much of it was the by then lucrative practice of selling copies.

“^^Taylor, The Taste of Angels, p. 15.

^^Hauser, The Social History of A rt, p. 105.

Arnold Hauser, The Sociology of A rt, trans. Kenneth J. North- cott (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 509. AO Taylor, The Taste of Angels, p. 15. 17

Imitation of the masterpieces of the classical period character­ izes much of the art of the H ellenistic period.This was carried on in the same lo c a litie s and by the same a rtis ts who were producing original works. A fter the sack of Corinth in 156 B.C. the Romans began im itating the practice of the H ellenistic kings in building th e ir own galleries and collections.^® The demand fo r accurate copies of the better known masterpieces of the classical period grew progres­ sively and Greek sculptors and painters produced new versions of older works of art to satisfy the'eager collectors. By 80 B.C. the copying of ancient masterpieces became a highly organized industry using com­ mercial mass production techniques.

In the f ir s t century B.C. the Roman a rt market produced the f ir s t important a rt dealer known by name. Demasippus was a Greek who 4R sold Greek masterpieces to wealthy Roman collectors. A whole quarter of Rome near the Villa Publica was devoted to art dealers, booksellers, and antiquarians. Again, it is not known if these art galleries exhibited or sold the works of contemporary a rtis ts , but the w ritings of the s a tiris ts make reference to the contemporary belief that forgeries

J. P o llitt, The Art of Greece 1400-31 B.C. Sources and Documents (Englewood C liffs , N .J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965), p. 204.

^®Hauser, The Social History of A rt, p. 105.

^^Boardman, Greek A rt, p. 223.

^^Cornelius C. Vermeule I I I , Greek Sculpture and Roman Taste (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977), p. 39.

^^Niels von Holst, Creators, Collectors and Connoisseurs (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1967), p. 24. 18 and rigged auction sales were very much a part of the business conducted ...... 49 in this vicinity.

In the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. the practice of art col­ lecting gradually disappeared and became almost unknown in the Europe of the Middle Ages. The primary source of patronage fo r the a r tis t throughout most of this time was the Roman Catholic Church. According to Rudolf and Margot Wittkower, in Born Under Saturn, the Character and Conduct of A rtists, the numerous small Italian courts gradually increased th e ir patronage of the arts and by the thirteenth and fou r­ teenth centuries, a master a rtist had increased employment opportunities: apart from joining the guild and becoming the head of a workshop, he could enter into the service of a royal patron and become a court a r tis t. Court a rtis ts enjoyed a degree of economic security and were exempt from membership in the guilds, but they remained the servants of their masters and had to paint or sculpt whatever their patrons wished. Both of these choices demonstrate the medieval tra d itio n of the craftsm an-artist liv in g on in Ita ly through the seventeenth century.

While the patronage system remained predominant, there were trends developing within the workshops that were to make possible the emergence of the collector. I t had long been customary fo r the heads of workshops to keep unfinished pictures of Virgins, Crucifixions, or

St. John the Baptist in their shops, to be finished according to a

49 Taylor, The Taste of Angels, p. 23.

5®Wittkower, Born Under Saturn, pp. 17-18. 19

client's specifications at an agreed-uponprice.The creation and

sale of uncommissioned works of art gradually became more and more com­

mon. Evidence of this can be found in a March 1387 letter from

Boninsegna di Matteo, the principal business associate at Avignon of

the Florentine art agent Francesco de Marco Datini. Contained in the

letter are the rules for agents to follow, in particular the rule of

buying when a painter needs money so as to get the lowest possible price.52

As ready-made works of art were becoming more common in the

fifteenth century, merchants specializing in the sale of these works

CO of art also began to appear. What is s till not known is how often

fifteenth-century artists created uncommissioned works, whether for

the purpose of simply pleasing themselves or in the hope of selling

i t on the market. There is evidence that Michelangelo occasionally

undertook a work for his own pleasure.5^ Neri di Bicci, the head of a workshop in fifteenth-century Florence, sold the paintings of work­

shops besides his own, had agents selling his work outside Florence, and kept a stock of ready-made works for sale.55 These examples were probably not exceptional during this period.

5^Burke, Tradition and Innovation, p.132. 52 D. S. Chambers, Patrons and Artists in the Italian Renaissance (Columlria, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press,1971), p. xxxiv. 53 Burke, Tradition and Innovation, p.133.

5^Wackernagel , The World of the Florentine Renaissance,364. p.

55chambers, Patrons and Artists, p. xxxiv. 20

The market increased in size during the sixteenth century.

Isabella d'Este of Mantua is reported to have bought the works of living a rtis ts from other people. She also employed part-time agents to com­ mission works as well as to make offers fo r ready-made paintings.

Working in Florence at this time was one of the f ir s t fu ll-tim e a rt dealers known by name: Giovanni Battista della Palla, whose most famous client was Francis I of . It is not known if he had a gallery, but he did sell the work of living artists. According to Vasari, there were great p ro fits to be made selling to the King of France. "The merchants," Vasari said, received four times what they paid Andrea del

Sarto for a painting.

I t became more and more common in the sixteenth century fo r people to purchase paintings and sculpture to decorate their private homes.57 I t is logical to expect that recognized masters would begin to paint for the new collector's market as well as for patrons. When the Duke of Urbino bought from Titian a p o rtra it o f a "woman dressed in blue" in 1536, he was obviously buying a ready-made painting out of T itia n 's studio rather than commissioning a p o rtra it of an unknown woman.58 If Titian occasionally did sell paintings on the market, as th is evidence suggests, i t is important to point out that he probably handled the sales himself and did not go through an art dealer.

While transactions between famous artists and important patrons and collectors were mainly direct ones, art dealers did play an

55Burke, Tradition and Innovation, pp. 133-35.

57a 1sop , The Rare Art Traditions, p. 44.

58Burke, Tradition and Innovation, p. 136. 21 important role in the careers of young and unknown artists. When they are mentioned, i t is usually in connection with a painter lik e Cara­ vaggio who was new to Rome and was unable to establish himself rapidly in the patronage system. The public exhibition of paintings, which can be seen as a way of advertising for the collector's market, occurred frequently but, with few exceptions, public exhibitions were regarded 59 by artists and patrons as the last resort of the unemployed.

In seventeenth-century Rome, according to Francis Haskell in

Patrons and Painters, once an a r tis t made his reputation there would be no question of his ever working again for a dealer unless he was in the most desperate of circumstances. Dealers had a bad reputation, not only because of instances of greed and dishonesty, but because i t was fe lt that the whole business of dealing with the liberal arts was degrading and somehow humiliating to the arts them selves.The same argument was used by the Greeks two thousand years e a rlie r in re le­ gating the visual artist to the rank of artisan because they, unlike poets and seers, were paid for their productions.®^

The Accademia di St. Luca in Rome forbid its members to engage in dealing on pain of expulsion, complaining "It is so serious, lament­ able, indeed intolerable to everybody to see works destined for the decoration of Sacred Temples or the splendor of noble palaces, exhibited in shops or in the streets like cheap goods for sale." In 1633, it

5^Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), p. 120.

® °Ibid., pp. 120-21. fi 1 Kris and Kurz, Legend, Myth and Magic, p. 113. 22

obtained papal authority to impose a special tax of ten scudi a year

on a ll a rt dealers. The tax was reduced in 1669 and by 1674 there were

at least a hundred a rt dealers in Rome, most of them installed around

the Piazza Navona.®^

In fifteenth-century Hoi land,the collector's market had devel­

oped considerably further than in Italy. The trade in works of art was not confined to a few commission agents, but formed a regular occu­

pation. The Guild of St. Lucas, created in Delft in about 1435,

included;

. . . all those earning their living here by the art of painting, be it with fine brushes or otherwise, in oil or watercolors; glass- makers; glass sellers; faienciers; tapestry-makers; embroiderers; engravers; sculptors working in wood, stone, or other substance; scabbard-makers; a rt-p rin te rs ; booksellers; sellers of prints and paintings, of whatever kind they may be.63

The Antwerp art dealers also joined the Guild of St. Lucas, which in­ cluded jewelers, pawnbrokers, gilders, and picture framers. In Amsterdam, art dealers joined the booksellers' guild and publishers associations.®^

The guilds made no distinctions between painters and dealers and it was very common to find artists not only trying to sell their own works but also buying and selling the works of others.®®

The primary patrons of fifteenth and early sixteenth century

Dutch a rtis ts were churches and civic authorities. By the seventeenth

®^Haskell, Patrons and Painters, p. 121.

®5john Michael Monti as. A rtis ts and Artisans in D elft, A Socio- Economic Study of the Seventeenth Century (Princeton: Princeton Uni­ versity Press, 1982), p. 75.

®^Taylor, The Taste of Angels, p. 268.

®®Hauser, The Sociology of A rt, pp. 511-12. 23 century Dutch artists had few opportunities for large-scale, public commissions or salaried employment with a private patron.®® Since the

Reformation, churches were no longer commissioning works of a rt, leaving civic organizations as the only source of public patronage. Sculptors, because of the time factors and the expense of the materials involved, were forced to depend on these dwindling commissions for support, while painters had no choice but to work fo r the market.®7

The growth of the co lle cto r's market more than compensated for the decline of public patronage. Buying pictures had become a popular form of investment in which even comparatively poor people could become involved. There were few middle-class homes that did not have an o r i­ ginal painting hanging on the wall.®^ Soon, however, the market became saturated with small easel paintings. The restrictions imposed on the art market by the painter's guilds in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen­ turies had already demonstrated that the a rt market was somewhat over­ supplied. The guild's main purposes had been to protect the artists within their jurisdictions from foreign competition, to regulate the number of members allowed to practice, and to control the art trade.®^

With the decline in patronage and the rise of a co llector's market, the guilds lost control and the tenuous balance between production and consumption was upset.

®®Wittkower, Born Under Saturn, p. 20.

®^Montias, A rtists and Artisans in D e lft, pp. 183-84.

®®Hauser, The Social History of A rt, 2:217.

®^Ibid., p. 219. 24

For the f ir s t time in the there was too much art and too many artists. Even artists with established reputations were forced to have a second job apart from painting and many chose art-dealing, including leading painters like Rembrandt and V e rm e e r.

This could not have happened in France or Ita ly where a strong academy or guild system maintained control over the a rtis ts .

The growth of a market for contemporary art requires the pres­ ence of a wealthy middle-class urban population. According to L illia n

B. M ille r, in Patrons and Patriotism, the small amount of wealth colonial Americans had accumulated was tied up in lands and goods and could not be made available for "luxuries" like art. The rural middle- class American did not effectively support the cra fts, le t alone the fine arts.71 Private patronage of artists was restricted to an occa­ sional portrait.

By 1800 the seaports of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia had become major urban centers. In 1816, L. P. Clover opened a looking- glass and picture frame store on Fulton Street in . Such store owners often acted like art dealers, exhibiting the work of

American a rtis ts and directing customers to the a r tis t's studio. Lo­ cated in the c ity 's mercantile d is tr ic t, the a r tis t's studio was run ju s t lik e any other business. A rtists issued price lis ts beforehand and did th e ir best to- please th e ir customers. Most American a rtis ts working at this time did not mind th e ir tradesman's status, but

7®Pevsner, Academies of A rt, p. 135.

7 lM ille r, Patrons and Patriotism, p. 4. 25

objected strenuously to their exclusive dependence on portraiture, and 72 they f e lt i t was degrading to th e ir profession.

The Napoleonic Wars brought large p ro fits to American merchants

and farmers because of the decimation of European agriculture and the

interruption of European shipping. American merchants accumulated fo r­

tunes which they were eager to reinvest in American enterprise, but 73 they also became interested in cultural a ffia rs . This combination

of economic growth and increased interest in a rt produced by 1830

America's firs t wave of art collectors.

These new collectors were content for a time with the work of

native a rtis ts , but soon the American a r tis t found himself in competi­

tion with foreigners. They looked on uneasily as the profits of gal­

leries specializing in European art soared and other galleries began

pushing aside American a rtis ts in favor of the higher p ro fits to be

made selling old masters and foreign contemporary works.

Angered by what they considered the blatant commercialism of

the a rt ga lle ries, they developed the Art Union in the 1840s as a device

for eliminating the dealer's profits. It became a great resource for

the a r tis t, but i t was put out of business in 1852 fo r violating the

New York State lo tte ry laws. The number of commercial dealers m ulti­

plied in the 1840s, but most of them, lik e Goupil, Vibert and Company of Paris handled only foreign works.

72 Harris, The A rtis t in American Society, pp. 64-66. 73 M ille r, Patrons and Patriotism , pp. 6-7.

7*^01 iver W. Larkin, Art and Life in America, 2d ed. (New York: Holt, Reinhart & Winston, 1960), p. 151

7®Taylor, The Fine Arts in America, p. 141. 26

Samuel P. Avery had an important gallery fo r American a rtis ts , showing the works of painters lik e Asher B. Durand, Frederick Church, and John F. Kensett, but decided to stop handling American painters in 1875 and sent out the following announcement:

To the Art Public Samuel P. Avery, in anticipation of certain changes in his busi­ ness, and intending hereafter to devote himself to the importation and sale of works of a rt of the highest class only, has determined to make a Public Exhibition and Sale of his entire collection of exclusively foreign paintings.76

By the end of the nineteenth century there had been an invasion of America by European a rt dealers. Michael Knoedler came to the United

States from France in 1848 as a representative of Goupil; Duran-Ruel opened its New York gallery in 1886, Duveen started in Boston and in

1884 moved to New York, and Wildenstein arrived in 1901.77 wealthy

American collectors had discovered and developed a taste fo r European masterpieces that the dealers were only too happy to satisfy. The lead­ ing dealers were not concerned with the problems of American a rtis ts and could not be bothered with the small amounts involved in selling 7ft contemporary American a rt.

S t i l l, a market fo r contemporary American a rt continued to exist and even to grow in the nineteenth century. By the 1850s Boston had more than a dozen establishments that sold picture frames and looking glasses and were increasing their exhibition spaces to attract collectors.

The Boston firm of Williams and Everett handled painters on a regular

76 Announcement, 1875, Archives of American A rt, Samuel Putnam Avery Papers.

77German Seligman, Merchants of Art (New York: Appleton- Century-Crofts, Inc., 1961), p. 18.

78Russell Lynes, The Tastemakers (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1972), p. 197. 27 basis and guaranteed an income to several a rtis ts in exchange fo r exclu­ sive market rights. Like Boston, Philadelphia had a number of art 79 dealers, but none with a gallery of any size.

Both Boston and Philadelphia were in sig n ifica n t as a rt markets when compared with New York City. New York galleries aggressively took over the art market in America. One of th e ir innovations in the busi­ ness was the A rtist's Reception, which succeeded in uniting the social, economic, and artistic ambitions of the artists. It spread rapidly to other c itie s and in 1859 the Cosmopolitan Art Journal in Boston f e lt compelled to warn young a rtis ts to beware of "Reception reputations," stating that a rtis ts gave receptions "purposely to hear themselves praised by pretty women and long-bearded men." True artists, it con­ cluded, "are not in want of such nurseries of conceit." By 1860,

Philadelphia and Boston had ceased to be alternatives for artists work­ ing fo r the market. With few exceptions these c itie s retained only on local artists lacking national reputations. This situation remained unaltered through most of the twentieth century.

7®Harris, The A rtis t in American Society, p. 261.

BOlbid., pp. 262-66. CHAPTER I I I

ART FOR THE MARKET

The third condition for a contemporary art gallery is a contem­ porary a r tis tic production fo r the market. Art produced fo r the market generally has four main characteristics. First, it is highly portable and is valued fo r its own sake and not as a part of some other context.

Second, i t resembles previous work done by the same a rtis t. This is the pictorial equivalent of a signature. Third, the styles of the period are continuously changing, providing something new fo r the collector to collect. Fourth, it has primarily a s till life, landscape, or genre subject that more immediately satisfies the untrained eye of the middle- class collector whose aesthetic is often limited to an appreciation of resemblance. This la s t characteristic was true until the second half of the twentieth century.

Production fo r the market implies a conception o f the work of a rt as a commodity, and of the a r tis t as a particular kind of commodity producer. There are examples of a rtis ts in every period who struggled against or effe ctive ly ignored the market, but for the contemporary a rt gallery to exist there must be a large percentage of a rtis ts work­ ing fo r the market. I t is often argued that this condition is created by the contemporary a rt gallery. While galleries may perpetuate th is condition, contemporary art galleries only appear when the kind of art allowing them to exist is being produced.

28 29

In Egypt and Ancient Greece a ll works of art were either r e li­ gious icons, cult images, or the planned decorations of specific archi­ tectural settings. Art objects were not valued for their own sake but as a decorative part of a much larger whole. The intended purpose and setting determined the form and content of paintings, re lie fs , and . The Greek painted vase was the one a rt form which was the exception. Although vase paintings were s till limited by the shape of the vessel, as dictated by its intended function, the Greek painted vase was highly portable and an active market fo r vases existed from a very early age in both Greece and Etruria. Niels von Holst states, in Creators, Collectors and Connoisseurs, that paintings and reliefs 81 began to be placed in frames in Athens during the late archaic period.

The use of a frame makes the artwork a movable object and empha­ sizes its independent existence. While no Greek panel paintings have go survived, with or without frames, their existence can be inferred from the found in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Buried under ash, pumice, and volcanic mud in 79 A.D., the murals were uncovered in the 83 eighteenth century. In their painted representations of interior spaces, the murals often depict framed panel paintings adorning the walls. According to Gilbert Picard, in Roman Painting, Roman muralists often strove to imitate Greek easel paintings for the same reason that people who cannot afford old masters hang reproductions in th e ir

®^Von Holst, Creators, Collectors and Connoisseurs, pp. 21- 22.

® ^P o llitt, The Art of Greece 1400-31 B.C., p. 154. go John Ward-Perkins and Amanda Claridge, Pompeii A.D. 79 (New York; Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), pp. 11-12. 30 apartments.®^ The Greeks had persuaded the Romans that perfection in easel painting had been reached by the masters of the fourth century

B.C., thus the Romans tirelessly copied those paintings in their murals, recording th e ir frames as well.®®

A flourishing art market depends on periodic changes of fashion to create a demand for new work. In the fourth century B.C., and for the first time in the history of art, many different styles of art successively became popular and continued to exist concurrently. The dissolution of Classical standards into a m ultiplicity of styles resulted from two changes in the a r tis t's clie n te le . While the Classical a r tis t, working within the rigid framework of the Greek city-states, could reasonably assume that his patrons and his audience shared many common tra d itio n s , the a r tis t a fte r Alexander the Great worked fo r men of varied ethnic, social, and political backgrounds.®® The kings and their courts, 87 fo r example, favored a more opulent "baroque" style of a rt.

The second change was the emergence of the middle class as a substantial clientele for works of art. The Classical tradition in art became mixed with the genre and naturalism preferred by the bour­ geoisie. P ortraits, landscapes, and s t i l l - l i f e paintings were almost 88 unknown before the fourth century B.C. As Francis Haskell pointed

®^Gilbert Picard, Roman Painting {Milano: New York Graphic Society, 1968), p. 47.

®®Ibid., p. 98.

® ® Pollitt, The Art of Greece 1400-31 B.C., p. 196.

®7Hauser, The Social History of A rt, 1:105.

®®Ibid. 31 out, in Patrons and Painters, . . a desire fo r the more picturesque aspects of 're a lity ' in a rt has linked the uninitiated connoiseurs of many diffe ren t c iv iliz a tio n s , and has been met by a rtis ts ranging from the sublime to the abysmal."®^

Arnold Hauser provides a sociological explanation fo r the phenomenon of rapidly changing and coexisting styles appearing to be present whenever there is a rise in art for the market, stating.

The connection between this dissolution of classical standards and the changes of structure of the social strata who buy works of art and determine public taste is plain to see. As these strata be­ come progressively less uniform, the more diverse are the styles which spring up concurrently.90

During the Middle Ages every work of art was again seen as just one part of a larger whole. As early as the fourteenth-century portable devotional pictures began to be made fo r private homes and even for travelers. By 1430, frames emphasizing the independent existence of the painting or re lie f began to reappear in Florence. In addition to painting large altarpieces for churches, a rtis ts were now producing 0 9 small, framed paintings fo r the home.

P o rta b ility provides an obvious impetus to the development of an a rt market. Linen canvas stretched over wooden frames was f ir s t used in Italy for paintings of religious subjects to be carried through 93 the streets in processions. Venetian painters began to use linen

on Haskell, Patrons and Painters, p. 132.

®®Hauser, The Social History o f A r t, 1:104.

®^Alsop, The Rare Art Traditions, p. 44. Qp Von Holst, Creators, Collectors and Connoisseurs, p. 61. no Ralph Mayer, The A rtis t's Handbook of Materials and Techniques 3d ed. (New York: The Viking Press, 1973), p. 250. 32 canvas in the sixteenth century as a substitute fo r wooden panels that could not withstand the damp climate of Venice. The reduced bulkiness and weight of a canvas support greatly increased a painting's port­ a b ility .

Peter Burke, in Tradition and Innovation in the Renaissance, detected evidence of commercial considerations in the kind of a rt produced in Florence and Venice in the firs t half of the sixteenth century.

Although working within the framework of the patronage system, the a rtis t was forced to consider a wider public as his clientele. For the artist th is meant a tra de-off between greater freedom and greater economic insecurity.

For the work of art, it may well have meant a greater variety of subject matter and a more deliberate individualism of style, the exploitation of the artists' unique qualities in order to catch the eye of a purchaser. . . .94

By the seventeenth century in Ita ly , Classicism, Mannerism,

Anti-Mannerism, and the Baroque were all competing for the collector's attention. Into this diversity came the bamboccianti, a term of deri­ sion derived from the nickname of their deformed leader Pieter Van Laer.

I t is significant that Van Laer came to Rome in 1625 as a mature a rtis t who had grown up in Holland. A tradition of "realist" painting was firm ly established in Holland and found an eager clie n te le in the widen­ ing middle class. By the time Van Laer le ft Rome in 1639, he had proved that the demand for little genre paintings was substantial. The bamboccianti were the objects of intense c ritic is m because they were thought to appeal to the crowd rather than the connoisseur. Salvator

Rosa, whose paintings were often confused with the works of th is school. QA Burke, Tradition and Innovation, p, 136-37. 33 considered being thought of as a bamboccianti an outrageous in su lt.

He looked upon himself as a serious painter of moral "histories" forced to indulge in landscapes because of his clients' lack of sophistication.

They only wanted his landscapes, and small ones at that, "always they want my small landscapes, always, always, my small ones."^®

John Montias, in Artists and Artisans in Delft, A Socio-Economic

Study of the Seventeenth Century, stated that the Dutch clientele for works of art, composed mainly of members of the affluent middle class, created a market demand that turned fashion in subject matter away from mythologies drawn from classical lite ra tu re to re a lis tic landscapes, still life, and genre.The Dutch merchants, master craftsmen, and wealthy burghers were avid art collectors but rarely had a trained taste, recognizing hardly any criterion of artistic quality other than resem­ blance. To satisfy the taste of the amateur collectors a painter had to adapt himself to th e ir lim ited aesthetic or lose his share of the market.

The necessity of working for the collector's market in the seven­ teenth century is responsible for the specialization of painters accord­ ing to d is tin c t genres. One painter restricted himself to the repre­ sentation o f animals, another to the production of moonlit landscapes.

I f a painter gained some success with peasant scenes, he lim ited himself 98 to peasant scenes u n til they were no longer in demand. This phenomenon

®®Haskell, Patrons and Painters, pp. 132-42.

®®Montias, A rtis ts and Artisans in D e lft, p. 332.

®7pevsner. Academies of A rt, p. 136.

9®Ibid., pp. 134-35. 34 is called "trademark painting," in which different versions of the same subject or d iffe re n t variations of the same compositional formula are continuously painted. By this method the a rtis t hoped to secure a steady market.

The demand for pictures from an untrained public was at firs t a great advantage fo r the a rtis t. I t allowed him to work freely accord­ ing to his own ideas, without having to follow the directions of a specific client. This freedom later became a danger. It led to an overproduction which depressed the market. The plight of Rembrandt van Rijn was a classic example of the conflict between the great artist and the bourgeois public. He was successful as long as his a rt remained understandable to the burghers of Amsterdam, but when his work became

g o introspective, his clients deserted him.

In eighteenth century America domestic portraiture constituted almost the whole of American a rt, but after the Revolutionary War por­ traiture began to take on a public responsibility by memorializing the heroes of the Revolution and the leaders of the new government. Benjamin

West had shown that the principles of history painting could be applied to current history to great effect. He encouraged John Trumbull to devote his career to recording the great events and heroes of the new republ ic.^®®

Unfortunately, the American public showed no interest in elevated history painting, and without government commissions, there was almost no way for an artist to get his serious paintings before the public.

9®Ibid., p. 136.

^®®Taylor, The Fine Arts in America, p. 32. 35

John Trumbull stated the problem in an address to the American Academy

of Fine Arts in New York in 1833:

The governments . . . of our nation, or of the separate states, cannot be looked up to by the arts with any hope of protection . . . the church offers us as little hope as the state; and the fine arts . . . are in this country thrown for protection and support upon the bounty of individuals and the liberality of the public.’^*

In the absence of private or public patronage, some artists

turned showman and travelled their "serious" paintings to small towns and c itie s and charged admission to th e ir exhibitions. In the 1820s, a rtis ts like William Dunlap, Robert Weir, Rembrandt Peale, and Samuel

F. B. Morse exhibited their paintings in this way. Taking an exhibi­

tion on the road was a financial risk and often the artists could not even meet th e ir expenses. Collectors were becoming very interested

in works by old masters and even commissioned a rtis ts to make copies of major paintings in galleries abroad, but they were ju s t not ready 102 to support exercises in European-style art by American painters.

Other American a rtis ts in the f i r s t decades of the nineteenth century took a d iffe re n t approach and became intent on reproducing what they saw with th e ir own eyes: a view of a c ity , boats in the water, an attractive stretch of countryside. Originating in England in the early eighteenth century, painters specializing in this type of work were called view painters to distinguish them from the more "serious" romantic landscape artists. This tradition manifested itself in America late in the eighteenth century and its fundamental objective was literal representation with the maximum amount of detail.^®®

^®^Miller, Patrons and Patriotism , p. 87.

^®®Taylor, The Fine Arts in America, pp. 33-34.

T°®Ibid., p. 46. 36

In 1825, Thomas Cole had three views of the Hudson River for sale at $25.00 each in a New York frame shop. Only twenty-four, he had successfully transformed the tra dition of the view painter into an expressive a rt form. Realistic genre painting, f ir s t given form

in America by John Qui dor, also developed from an essentially non-art tradition begun in England with the moralistic satires of William

Hogarth.Both re a lis tic landscapes and genre scenes, however, really had th e ir origins in seventeenth century Dutch painting.

Coupled with an intense nationalism that pervaded America dur­

ing the firs t half of the nineteenth century, the creation of a native art form attractive to the tastes of the middle-class American brought with i t the promise of success in the marketplace. The contemporary art gallery could now assume a greater and greater responsibility for the delivery of the a rtis t's work to the public.

James Thomas Flexner, History of American Painting, Volume Three: That Wilder Image (The Native School from Thomas Cole to Winslow Homer, 2d ed. (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1970), pp. 5-21. CONCLUSION

In Hellenistic Greece, Renaissance Italy, seventeenth-century

Holland, and nineteenth-century America, the conditions were present

that made the emergence of the contemporary a rt gallery possible. I t

is not known how closely the galleries in Greece and Ita ly would have

resembled the galleries of today, but it does seem evident that some

form of contemporary art gallery was mediating between the a r tis t and

the collector in those times.

The three conditions necessary fo r the contemporary a rt gallery

can be summarized. The f i r s t condition requires that society make a

distinction between the craftsman and the a r tis t. The art market depends on a perceived scarcity of unique objects, and whenever society fails

to make a distinction between artists and craftsmen this scarcity cannot

exist. A craftsman produces work that is appreciated fo r how closely

i t adheres to the standards of his c ra ft and the specifications of his

patron. Given equal ta le n t, the work supplied by one craftsman should be as good as another. When society makes a d istin ctio n between cra ft and art, the artist can be appreciated as an individual with a unique

vision and a finite production.

The second condition requires the presence of collectors who

purchase art objects, rather than patrons who commission work d ire c tly

from the a rtis t. When, because of social and economic changes in a

society, the number of individual patrons declines, the artist must

37 38

think in terms of markets instead of individuals. The contemporary a rt gallery can reach the a rtis ts ' market much more e ffe ctive ly than the individual artist.

The third and final condition requires the creation of art for the market. This a rt is portable, "ready-made," and valued fo r its own unique q u a litie s. A rtis ts have th e ir own "trademarks" in the kinds of subjects, compositions, or techniques they employ that distinguishes th e ir work from the styles of other a rtis ts . Art fo r the market must appeal to the tastes of an essentially middle-class clientele favoring s till lifes, landscapes, and genre subjects, although since the 1950s abstract paintings have also become collectable.

Throughout most of h isto ry, in Egypt, Ancient Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, and the Early Renaissance, most a rt was made fo r a specific purpose and a specific location. Even in the Renaissance, most of the art was created according to the specifications of a patron.

The patronage system, however re s tric tiv e of a r tis tic freedom i t may have been, did not stop the creation of great art.

The contemporary a rt gallery, and the a rt market that supports

i t , also imposes lim itatio ns on the a r tis t's freedom. Despite these lim ita tio n s , the market system has not prevented great a rtis ts from creating their masterpieces. Artists continue to create, often in spite of the systems evolved fo r th e ir support. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Al sop, Joseph. The Rare Art Traditions. New York: Harper & Row, 1982.

Archives of American A rt. Samuel Putnam Avery Papers.

Beaufort, Madeleine F idell. A Measure of Taste: Samuel P. Avery's Art Auctions 1864-1880. Research Reports and Record of A ctivi­ tie s , June 1981-May 1982. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art Center fo r Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, 1982.

Becker, Howard S. Art Worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.

Behrman, S. N. Duveen. New York: Random House, 1952.

Blunt, Anthony. A rtis tic Theory in Ita ly 1450-1600. London: Oxford University Press, 1956.

Boardman, John. Greek A rt. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.

Bowra, C. M. The Greek Experience. 5th ed. New York: Mentor Books, 1964.

Burke, Peter. Tradition and Innovation in Renaissance Italy, A Sociological Approach. London: Fontana, 1974.

Chambers, D. S. Patrons and A rtists in the Ita lia n Renaissance. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1971.

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