In The Globe and Mail, this past week, it had been said that Canada recovered its second art piece from the New York art gallery. The specific piece was called the "Bronze Henry Moore," which is valued at $80, 000. Reading though the article, even though it may have been highly interesting to read about the 350, 000 missing art pieces in the data base, the only thing that kept wrapping around my mind is why the dollar value is more important then the art itself? In today's modern society, people make it seem as if artist create art for the main purpose of money, which in my opinion is wrong. A true artist creates art to send a message and that message should not have a dollar value connected anywhere near it. If one of my art pieces were stolen the first thing that would come to my mind is the amount of work, effort and meaning I put into it and not the amount of money I have lost. I have noticed that as society become more advanced, the need for money becomes more essential and this is also being shown in art. Going back to the 16th century, when the Mona Lisa was first invented, people did not look at art and ask how much it is worth. They did not look at the Mona Lisa and wonder how much the artist would sell it for. People analyzed art and in doing so asked questions to themselves such as, why a painting of a women sitting on a chair is so famous. If we look at this same artwork in today's society we see how we focus less on the meaning of the art and more on its value. We see movies of people who spend years trying to steal art for money rather than observe it and embrace the message they are sending to the viewers. I am not saying that art is worthless because that is indeed not true, but what I am saying is that as we grow older and we become more advanced we are ignoring the meaning of a lot of things and are putting the dollar value of art over everything else.
This leads me to another question, if art is worth more does that make it better? How do we determine how much art cost? If I make art at home with a paper and pencil does that mean it is not good? All these questions and controversies occur due to the fact that we put art and money together, when they do not belong together. Just because I make art at home does not mean it is worthless. Art should not be ranked in any way, shape or form seeing as all art is good depending on how you look at and understand it.
