The puzzle of art assessment, moving from traditional to NFT. What comes next?
Analyze how the evaluation can be helpful when we understand the process in a significant context.
Evaluation of art history has always touched the point of a combination of objective information and subjective opinion. The most important part of the appreciation involves human judgment that requires a certain amount of knowledge and what we believe is related to the right trend time. The economic impact and the significant development also make history discover something to the current status. Also, evaluation is the center of art in terms of how those specific eras have definite conclusions concerning standards in art and the appreciation of the multiple sources of pleasure in art. It has gained knowledge of scientific fields such as astronomy, anthropology, sociology, comparative religion, and cultural history. I hope this information will help the reader learn and understand the historical phenomena of growth and how the appreciation of humans in the art based on that specific period comes from. Moreover, how it can be adapted to predict the future trend more effectively.
“Examining how traditional and NFT artworks share similar structures: What do they have in common?”
Determining the prices and the valuation is similar. For example, it can be the artists’ scarcity of their work, the representative’s name, the situation of the economic and social behavior during that period, and the common and standard trend in that community. Cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation are connected. People’s appreciation can be learned, and it quickly transforms into appropriation. It influences what you have been taught, judgment, perspective, and what is supposed to be what it should not. Sharing beliefs or the way of life is always a good opportunity to learn more about other cultures and appreciate perspectives different from your own. However, it can be criticized in other cultures. This can be understood on where the appreciation and judgment came from and why it constantly changes from time to time since the dynamic of culture never stops changing.
Defending “authenticity” from time to time.
During the 1930s, the great German philosopher Walter Benjamin published the essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” He stated the” authenticity” of the artworks by arguing that mechanical reproduction devalues an object’s aura or the “uniqueness.” This is because the mechanical reproduction for instant printing was produced from the factory or not in the same specific time and location as the original artist. This quote can be an ironic example in the digital artwork’s era, as the NFT doesn’t have physicality in perception. However, this blockchain process still keeps the concept of “aura of authenticity” in terms of the links or files that the artist created and is still directly sent through the only buyer who purchases that work. The key difference between traditional art and contemporary art in terms of NFT files is traditional art focuses more on artist knowledge that they have been told, culture, and science from the past in a very conservative way. In contrast, contemporary work refers to reacting with something in the present or anything based on the artist’s desire to express their ideas and purely aesthetic concerts. As a result, this evidence showed how the people give the importance of the value that it depends on people’s perception in that period and the popularity of education.
“Renaissance, the rebirth, and the black death”.
Studying the historical context and the movement of the period is critical to how people appreciate evaluation from time to time, especially leading contributors and important influences from the history of Western art. For example, Renaissance art led to the rise of Modernism art into this current time; contemporary art has undoubtedly made its mark on history, especially the available techniques and media, political reflection, and social influences of the time. In many ways, the crucial backbone of traditional art’s appreciation came from the importance of the school of philosophy and the creation of religion. As we can see in the Roman Catholic Church was a vibrant central hub for the artist that resulted in a tremendous outpouring of architecture, painting, sculpture, and decorative crafts in medieval and Renaissance Europe. In the French word for “rebirth,” the European Renaissance era began in the 14th century, in the French word for “rebirth” signifying how Europe came out of the dark ages. During this period, the Europeans were the age of exploration, leading to Europe’s global power and discoveries, including art, culture, technology, music, and innovations such as paper, printing, and gunpowder. Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were the leading artists during that time. Both were similarly influential and shifted the status of the artists and how people believed in art in society. Artists began to earn respect and stand out from the community they joined and their styles and innovative techniques, and suddenly a higher fee. The Renaissance revealed that people believed good material made good art, and only royalty people could see and admire it. In general, people value the bigger work and how the price costs, followed by paintings that were less expensive sculptures. The architecture required the most significant financial investment. When the church, the biggest patron throughout the Renaissance, wanted to raise money for a major commission, they taxed Christians throughout Europe. And this is the majority of the masterpieces artists like Michelangelo’s get paid to do the painting at the ceiling for the Sistine Chapel.
Many historians interpret that the Renaissance is rather than a historical period but more an intellectual and cultural movement. But as the quote of “what goes up must come down,” the economic fall of the Florentines and Romans and “The Black Death” was a bubonic plague pandemic that helped set the stages for the Renaissance as the deaths of many prominent officials caused social, political upheaval in Florence. Many people took advantage of opportunities for greater social mobility to become patrons of artists as a popular way for such newly powerful families to demonstrate their wealth. While this pandemic also significantly shifts the question, the church emphasizes the afterlife and focuses more on the present movement.
“Impressionism, the industrial revolution, and art for art’s sake”.
Throughout history, artists have been creating controversies about how art has affected society in many ways from time to time. After the end of the Renaissance, the industrial revolution changed economics and culture. The birth of modernism and modern art rapid changes from manufacturing and technology innovation began around the 18th century. Impressionism (1850–1895) was the beginning of the modern age and one of the modernism examples, as the technique of brushstrokes was significantly different from techniques during the Renaissance. The brushstrokes during the impressionism techniques are heavy, which represent the modern age of movement and spontaneity, capturing the essence of the object rather than the subject’s details while including the scientific knowledge of how the eye perceived was not necessarily what the brain understood, as mainly seen in Monet’s artwork. This significant movement gave the appreciation context as the Impressionist artist moved away from the desire to lecture and teach creating art for art’s sake as seen in the artwork taking place “en-Plein-air” or outside to capture the real-time color changing and the natural movement.
“The postmodern world, art is something you piss on”
During the 20th century, another controversial event changed the art world’s aspect; the Fountain from Marcel Duchamp is quintessential ‘readymade,’ an everyday object that is somehow turned into an artwork primarily as a concept rather than a concept as an object. His vision greatly challenged the prestige of all the art institutions during that time. His artwork gave meaning to the conventional ideas of art with boldness, as the idea is to show anything that artists are considered valuable enough to be an artwork. What matters is how inferior it is to be an art. It is not an art object but rather an artist’s idea. Duchamp sent the urinal to a New York Society of Independent Artists’ gallery exhibition under the anonymous “R.Mutt,” which proclaimed accepting any kind of work.” As a result of the fact that the other committee rejected the work, this event turned out to have received more public attention than the exhibition itself. Duchamp’s concept of choosing this urinal implies that art is just something one can do anything with. Duchamp just wanted to deny the visual beauty but instead turned to think more about the meaning-in selecting the urinal. Duchamp’s message was clear: “art is something you piss on.” This becomes the world’s first art conceptual piece intentionally meant to create something society disagrees with while turning into the sharpest criticism. This case is an excellent example of how people appreciate objects from influence, especially in the period of the postmodern world. Duchamp’s work has become an exemplar of a new means of inquiry and symbolically addresses the broader assumptions of culture’s aspects and values accepted by the community. This example explains how the valuation of objects is decided by appreciation and gratitude towards the community’s belief standard, which requires the right place, time, and context to affect the ecosystem.
“The emergence of NFTs”.
Fast-forwarding to December 31, 2019, the event marks the birth of the COVID-19 pandemic, which changed the relationship between the market economy, state, and society worldwide. Meanwhile, the aftermath of great disasters always offers opportunities. This example can be the digital market as NFT. The NFT is part of COVID-19’s effect on contemporary art in the 21st century at the most mainstream platforms in the online art market. Digital art and NFT have been around but never quite entered the mainstream art market. However, in the COVID-19 era, more cultural experiences and markets are forced to be online while the NFT solved that problem by provenance on the blockchain. Quantum created the first NFT on May 3, 2014. Before the crypto art market exploded, These Tokens in NFT represent original and unique artworks traded through the Ethereum blockchain, similar to a cryptocurrency. These artwork token values are certificates of authenticity for a digital asset such as pictures, games, music, video, or GIFs files. While NFT offers a wide variety of artworks in multiple forms for users to trade, content creators still rely on their reputation and current trendy topics to gain public attention. One of the functions of these NFT content creators is to create opportunities for the creators to network in the art society. As the NFT market grows, the NFT trader’s community continues to grow as well. These growths enable the new artist to expose their artwork to more buyers and allow art collectors to become exposed to more artwork.
“The connection between arts and the audience”
One might assume that people’s appreciation of the NFT comes from connecting to the platform that engages in commerce to buy and sell NFT. These are essential expressions of emotion that value either NFT or traditional art. In traditional art, people emphasize how the artwork tells the visual, textual interpretation of community, history, cultures, and economic impact in that era. The artists have sought to connect with their audience through many different channels and designed to convey a message. This connection significantly gives value in understanding various aspects of present-day issues, human identity, governmental systems, and even society reflection. The book The Psychology of Art Appreciation by James Feibleman, The Journal of General Psychology 1946, 35,43–57 said that” the works of art have two kinds of uses, individual and social. Social use is concerned with the relations between the institutions of art and other institutions” while the individual use is “the apprehension, enjoyment, and appreciation of art.” In his journal, Feibleman refers to the expression of gratitude that can give us a reason to benefit from expressing this. As one’s memories mostly are made from one’s past experiences, one’s brain as an individual is interacting with the perceiving significant social reaction, how other people say, observing the expression, and keen to pay more attention. Each of these functions relies on a unique sense of the brain, which means the brain generates an initial emotional response to social stimuli how one receives the message and interprets it to one’s understanding. At this point, it is evident that one’s brain has a deep connection with something one feels related to and reacts back. This is why the feeling of being emotional with something one is similar to. It may come from his or her experience from family, friends, community, location, or activity. One of the researches by Kraphix, “The Art & Gallery News, Articles, Science is Examining Your Brain on Art,” on January 17, 2017, said about the mystery of emotional and physical reactions while looking at the artwork. Neuroscience research explained that while viewing art, a major increase in a brain’s data signal wave connectivity is linked to a human’s decision-making and sustained attention. The human mind that appears in behavior also works the same way as the person sees art, in the effect of “appreciation.” While expressing the sense and receiving it, the human brain releases dopamine and serotonin, the two crucial neurotransmitters responsible for human emotions.
“Having one item implies ownership of the entire community.”
As the artworks build the expression of appreciation from an individual’s perception, there is also the community to be part of it. The art appreciation also came from the community’s trends and social context issues socially and economically. The behavior and emotionality of individual preference are considered from the context of whether a social order reflects, meaning that people are deciding based on collective decision-making. Looking at the different kinds of art forms such as fine art, music, dance, which are part of the cultural life of those community geographic regions. These contexts have been shaped into what the world people see today. In terms of the art industry community, the major can be seen from art history, collectors, galleries, museums, or auction houses, which play an essential role in the global ecosystem and shape contemporary art in this 21st century. The formal analysis of each institution is a powerful tool to understand why people appreciate and give value to the artwork, both ravishing and critiquing. The third market such as art fairs, museums, galleries, and auction houses has a significant impact on the art market and also is the primary standard of the value of the artwork, as the example of Duchamp’s case, the reasons Duchamp’s artwork was reputed because Duchamp chose to put the urinal and other readymade work into the gallery which enhances and change the status of the work into meaningful artwork. As a result, the location has a powerful impact on the artwork, especially in the correct specific period and the name of the reputation. As the NFT is transforming the art world, considering many sectors, the art and tech market thrived under the pandemic conditions from 2019–2021, which gave the fast-forwarded impact of technology adoption in the traditional art markets.
“NFT, Web3, Gamify, what’s next?”
In summary, community support, collaboration with industry influencers, and enriching experiences, interactions, and exposure to the market all contribute to enhancing the value of NFTs. However, recent data from DappRadar shows a continuous 29% drop in NFT prices and a 23% decrease in sales compared to the previous month influenced by various factors, including market sentiment, economic conditions, and shifting trends. Even well-established projects like CryptoPunks, the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Apes, and Azukis have experienced a significant 62% decline in the past month (from Forbes Digital Assets “NFT Market Meltdown: How Can Investors Best Position Themselves?” by Shimron; Jul 11, 2023), signaling a decline in the metaverse trend throughout 2023.
Looking ahead, it’s possible that multimedia platforms and the art market will innovate further and incorporate new technologies. One promising trend is the integration of NFT into Web3 gaming, where investors can benefit from owning in-game assets and digital player identities. These digital assets create a social buzz, with high demand and supply, especially on platforms like Twitter, Discord, Telegram, and Reddit, which are vital channels in the NFT ecosystem.
Historically, evaluations in the art world have followed patterns that reset and improve after major events like economic crises or pandemics. Recovery from such disasters typically leads to positive outcomes, driven by the analysis of past experience and developments.
While art appreciation continues to have a profound impact on individuals and society as a whole, and emotions remain a central element in how people perceive and engage with art, both historically and in the future. Accordingly, even though artwork will be transformed to the next future trend, emotions will play an essential role in how people think and behave from ancient until now. It’s always exciting to anticipate what the next big thing in the art scene will be, which can be quite a mystery. However, in the grand scheme of things, it’s essential, deeply rooted in every aspect that shapes the global economy and how people will proceed.
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