Old Masters go south?
What’s happening at the Old Master Evening Auction right now
It may sound opinionated (and it certainly is), yet this is one of the questions that came into my mind as an old master enthusiast after I looked through the catalogue of Sotheby’s Old Master Evening Auction.
To put you briefly in the picture, those pre-Christmas evening sales once used to be the most anticipated events of the year, sort of a loud season finale in the world of old master art [if you feel unsure about this traditional terminology, check out my quick guide here].
During this ‘most wonderful time of the year’, the masterpieces by household names worthy of the best museums’ walls miraculously float to the surface for a short while to then once again hide from the public’s eye in private collections for years or even decades to come.
The luckiest of us have the pleasure of observing them in the flesh in London (or other important art capitals during the traditional pre-sale roadshow), and no admission ticket is required for examining paintings down to very details online thanks to the high-resolution images the auction houses made available well in advance.
A while ago, I wrote an entire ode to auction sales as new museums.
These days, the selection tends to be rather… err, fluid (as many other things today, right?).
Well, certainly, there is this Titian with a high estimate of almost $15m which made tons of headlines and is featured in every promotional material one could even imagine. Yet, are there any other pearls you could immediately think of without looking in the catalogue?
Indeed, this Venus and Adonis is the one of the few pieces with an estimate exceeding a million dollar mark. Quite a underwhelming selection compared to the usual fanfares of the Contemporary art sales.
Out of 38 lots at Sotheby’s, almost a fifth isn’t even an old master in common sense. The sale is crowned by the early 20th-century pieces from the Nordic school of art — a rather unusual inclusion in this category, to say the least.
Don’t take me wrong here. I do have a soft spot for the Nordics myself. And Harald Sohlberg (1869–1935) is considered the iconic painter for Norwegians, for example (his Winter Night in the Mountains, 1914 even won an official public vote and was selected Norway’s national painting #1 in 1995).
A perfect choice for the Impressionist & Modern art auction! Instead, it gets chosen to ‘spice up’ the otherwise dull old masters?
This trend isn’t new. Remember the notorious Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci (the attribution accuracy has been disputed for all these years). A c.1500 piece, it was presented at the Contemporary art auction in 2017 and made it to the headlines with a record $450m hammer price.
Back then, such generosity from Abu Dhabi investors created an illusion, that Old Masters are back on track and the rant about their sad loss of attractiveness for the new generation of art collectors wasn’t worth a dime.
Yet the whole idea of a Renaissance piece requiring a place in the light of Contemporary artworks to attract due attention is pitiful on its own merit.
And here we come to the days when the entire Old Master Evening Sale doesn’t look hot enough without the supporting influx of some fresh modernists.
And, although, there are still many great works to discover for general art lovers and seasoned art professionals alike, it appears like something [a huge lot of things, frankly] has irresistibly changed for ever in this usually conservative segment of the art market.
The question is whether it’s for worse, or yet there is actually something for better?
Without beating about the bush too much, I’ll lay this card on the table from the very beginning — it looks like the old masters are not interesting, boring, and perceived as too old-fashioned and elitist to fit into the current woke agenda of the 21st century.
Moreover, seems like they are now able to make it to the headlines only in connection to the freshly cooked tomato soup poured on one of the masterpieces of the past to attract attention to the things ‘that really matter’.
Sounds harsh, right? I am certainly not the person to think like that, yet sometimes exaggeration is the right method to imagine the art world we are heading to.
The clue to solving this first-world problem (I have to put this stupid caveat here, since the whole thing doesn’t matter that much compared to climate change, poverty, wars, and human/animal rights, and I totally understand this) lies in careful decomposition of its nature.
Obviously, old master art per se didn’t change in the last decades as it didn’t in the last centuries and will not do so in the future. That is its strong part, actually.
It’s a constant, unattainable evidence of our existence and evolution as humankind, our unbreakable tie (if only the tomato soup does not get replaced by knives and acid) with the past and future, something that puts people of today in the conversation with our predecessors living centuries ago.
Could it be, that it is us who are changing then? It looks like we get less interested in getting in-depth knowledge of things and are more fixed on the daily issues and easy-digestible content that doesn’t require additional mental effort (while appreciating art seemingly does require at least some prior knowledge of its history).
Perhaps, that’s why old masters are being perceived by many as an equivalent of stiff-upper-lipped substance that is too elitist and unrelatable for the crowd.
Until now, the usual reaction to such a suggestion from the art world might be sniffing in contempt — “you either understand this and appreciate it, or we just pretend you do not exist and carry on.”
Is it a viable strategy? Doesn’t look so.
The alternative solution might be some constant and sometimes daunting and seemingly useless attempts to ‘modernise’ the ‘old-looking part’ of the greatest artists of the past. Borrowing some attention from the booming contemporaries, reinventing presentation and exposition according to the ever-changing reality of today.
That’s what is actually done by the best museums and art auction houses already to bigger or worse success.
Such efforts are often criticised by the conservative art public. “It doesn’t look genuine, they say, the folks are trying to cater to the vulgar tastes of the masses in vain…” Well, at least, they ARE DOING something.
Surely, one day, we’ll find better ways to face the challenges the future holds. Yet this won’t happen without doing the best we can already today.
Moreover, many of us forget (and some even don’t know), that some 30–40 years ago, the works of Italian Baroque stars like Guercino or Guido Reni were bought for a tiny fraction of their spectacular value today, and the names of Sofonisba Anguissola or Artemisia Gentileschi were only heard by some serious specialists in this particular epoch. And look, where all of the marketing efforts rightly brought them today!
So, while the current old master sales are clearly living through its next crisis, hopefully, a much brighter future is already there round the corner.
[Perhaps, it’s not, yet is there a point in trying our best at all then?]
