Self-Portrait with Death playing the Fiddle

Last Wednesday Thoughts on Art we were left wondering about the monetary value of painting. As materialism tends to conquer more and more space among our values, it is an intuitive generalization to look for the price tag when it comes to art, and from it speculate about the quality of the piece. Today we've grown skeptical about objective beauty, opinions are wide and dispersed, and with the democratization of culture every perspective counts - the ones looking for elements in pieces of art, that can serve as an argument to the superiority of one piece over the other, are perceived by the society as snobs, arrogants that think their opinion is more worthy. So with the lack of objective elements to fundament discussion, the price tag bias emerge. We might be too much focused on the individual when he says "50 Shades of Grey are objectively worst than Anna Karenina", and overlooking the role of the artist. Nietzsche once said that "Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit." - that romantic approach to art, as the embodiment of an impetuous artist, that does not do only what he is capable of doing, but what he is not capable of restraining, is beautifully expressed in this painting by Böcklin. And I couldn't agree more with this perspective. Regardless of snobbism, it is good to remember that to much blood has been shed over money, and ever fewer turns into paint...

- Artur Deus Dionisio