Art patronage and collections isn’t a new thing. Royalty and the wealthy have long funded and sponsored art often to add to their prestige and power. The duality between the art collector and the artists can be vastly different. The term ‘starving artist’ has often been associated with artists in relation to how many artists were poor and destitute. Many artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, one of the most famous artists in the world, didn’t become famous until after his death. He only sold a few paintings during his lifetime and was a victim of poverty and mental illness. His paintings now are some of the most expensive in the world. The irony does not go unnoticed.
It can be argued that art collectors are capitalists
and view art as a means of power and capital. The bidding wars between
collectors at auctions determine the artwork’s worth. Collectors also can
directly affect a piece of artwork and its legacy. When the collector purchases
the artwork, they have control over it. They can hide it away from the public,
which can drive up the price. They can dismantle and sell pieces of artwork to
make a higher profit. They can also have positive effects on society. A famous
example would be when in 1994, Bill Gates spent 30.8 million dollars on Leonardo
da Vinci’s Codex Leicester. This journal is filled with Leonardo’s writings,
more than 360 drawings and diagrams and is the only one still in private hands
(Tindera, 2021). The rest of Leonardo da Vinci’s journals are in museum
possession. Gates could have chosen to sell each page individually which would
raise the price, but he chose to keep it whole. Gates also loaned out the Codex
Leicester to museums and has digitalized portions of the Codex to allow for accessibility
for people to experience it through windows screen savers and wallpapers. Gates
loaned the Codex Leicester to Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy in 2019 for the
500th anniversary of its creation. Besides the purchase of the Codex
Leicester, Gates spent over 100 million dollars for image rights from the louvre,
Hermitage, London’s National Gallery, and the Detroit Institute of Art and
scanned one million images into digital form to provide more accessibility for
viewers to experience artwork (Freeland, 2023, p.32).It is great that Bill Gate’s
choses to share his art collection with the public, but it is still owned by
him and he has power over how it is shared and displayed. He could decide one
day to sell off pages or hoard it away from the public. He is still a capitalist,
and his expensive purchases of these artworks deem their worth and symbolize his
power and success. Art collectors are a mixed bag, and not everyone is like Bill
Gates. He is part of a system where art
is viewed as revenue. Purchases like his can be very helpful and will hopefully
influence other wealthy collectors.
References
Freeland, C. (2003). Art Theory: A Very Short
Introduction. Oxford University Press Academic UK. https://tiffin-bookshelf.vitalsource.com/books/9780191579325
Tindera, M. (2012, January 1). Bill Gates Owns One Of
Leonardo Da Vinci’s Manuscripts. Here’s How Much It’s Worth. Forbes. Retrieved
April 4, 2024, from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2021/11/21/bill-gates-owns-one-of-leonardo-da-vincis-manuscripts-heres-how-much-its-worth/?sh=231823d940c7
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