Remember the otherwise miserly american oil billionaire J Paul Getty? I said otherwise because he spent millions of dollars on art! Think about the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. What motivated him?
There are several theories regarding this phenomena. It dates back at least to the first century CE. The Roman rhetorician, Quintilian, thought that those who professed to admire what he considered to be the primitive works of the painter Polygnotus were motivated by ‘an ostentatious desire to seem persons of superior taste’. This theory still finds many supporters.
Many consider financial gain, one can sell art, sometimes reaping huge profits. You can get large tax deductions for donating art to museums. Some collectors have figured out how to keep their artworks close at hand while still getting a tax deduction by donating them to private museums that they’ve set up on their own properties. More nefariously, some ‘collectors’ buy art as a form of money laundering, since it is far easier to move art than cash between countries.
But most collectors have little regard for profit. For them, art is important for other reasons. The best way to understand the underlying drive of art collecting is as a means to create and strengthen social bonds, and as a way for collectors to communicate information about themselves and the world within these new networks.
Collectors are not only interested in creating social links; they are also motivated by the messages they can send once these social networks are created. We all know that art is a powerful way for the artist to express thoughts and feelings – but collectors know that art can serve as an expressive vehicle for collectors too. Many thus carefully curate their collections, purchasing only artworks whose display backs up a claim that the collector wishes to make.
Almost always, this claim is about the identity of the collector. From the beginning of art-making, we have believed that artworks capture and preserve the essence of their makers and even their owners. As identity can derive from lineage, owning artworks is therefore also a way for an owner to communicate with the past.
Great art needs to have something to offer to the audience. Great art seems to have always a quality that allows it to transcend the artistic tradition in which it is based. It is almost like even if you don’t fully understand it; you know that it has a lot to say.
