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Daniel Chazen It's amazing how changes in society can affect the way art is marketed. White and White's analysis of the institutional changes in the French art market from an Academy System to a system based on dealer and critic is very interesting in that, in hindsight, the change seems to have been inevitable because society is more powerful than a single institution, even a prestigious one like the Academy was in France. On the one hand, it would have appeared that the Academy's power in influencing and essentially controlling art based on a painting's academic qualities would last forever. But on the other, as early as the eighteenth century, attendance at art exhibitions already included many common people, such as "footmen and servants" (White, 79). By the nineteenth century, social mobility increased to the point where people of lower economic backgrounds became interested in "serious art" (White, 78). Yet, the Academy was not sensitive to the social and economic realities that required a "larger market for paintings" and the building up of an artist (White, 94). So the art exhibitions needed to promote the artwork to new markets – promotion that became based on the dealers and critics who used to be subsidiaries of the Academy system. The change from an academic system to a dealer-critic system, in my opinion, was not only inevitable, but also made sense and was crucial for everyone involved, especially aspiring artists. In order to engage in promotion to a growing market, the dealers and critics had to "look at artists more than individual paintings" (White, 98). The dealers wanted to make money from the growing market and the critics wanted to advance their reputation. The academic focus of a painting gave way to the needs of a much broader market and less known artists, which meant more people and more money and necessarily involved a dealer-critic system. I think Fletcher and Helmrich describe it best when they write "the rise of the dealer-critic system was the product of human action and interaction" (Fletcher & Helmreich 343). One very interesting example of the dealer-critic system is with dealer David Croal Thomson and critic Harry Quilter in late 18th century London. Thomson used connections between the press and the market to promote the artists he represented, while Quilter was against that. As a dealer, Thomson saw the press as a means of marketing the goods from France for which he had access. However, Quilter, the critic, saw the increasing partisan criticism and the connections between the press and the market as a threat. The art market relies on cooperation between different, yet closely related, agents to be successful. That is why I find it very telling about the large overlap between the role of dealer and critic that Thomson was able to occupy both positions simultaneously, particularly given that each role is important to one other. While a market based on a dealer-critic system requires both a critic and a dealer, they do seem to work hand in hand, and it is possible for one person to take on both roles. However, if the same person is acting as a dealer and a critic for the same artist or piece of artwork, it seems that the integrity of each role would be severely compromised. But the question then is for the lesser-known artist who has not yet received any critical acclaim - can or should the artist's dealer also act as his or her critic? What do you think? |
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Kwame Nana-Atoo The reading starts by talking about the changes that took place in the art world as well as the French society. But first I would like to talk a little bit about the academic system of the French. The academic system was structured in such a way that it became very akin and didn't give way for more expressive feelings. Due to this there was an autocratic procedure of choosing works where-by the social status of the artist was used in choosing works of art. Also artist of the academic system focused not on making money from their art, but focus more on the art-the love of it, so it could not mature to a level of being paid. What led to change is the art the love for the art and the art market grew. Even though White states that these changes are not clear that they were the radical change for the French society, in comparison to modern art world, they are likely to have been the cause. There was an increase in wealth and growth in the size of the class to the extend that it created a broad market for art and made all members of the society interested in art. As the love for art became common to even the layman, artists developed the idea of making money and earning profits easily from selling. Since artist stravelled a lot, there was an increase in landscape paintings which depicting scenes from important historic events like the revolutionary etc. a development of hierarchy in the artist became necessary where there was a differentiation between new artists and professionals. These were made possible due to technological advancement. While these changes occurred, there were adaptions to the art market as artist found genre painting in the forefront complemented by landscape paintings. As these paintings started to penetrate the market of bourgeoisie buyers the academic system began to guard its notion of high art. The new system saw artist being the main focus than the painting. Paris was dominated by international artist and high clientele, which raised standards and increase production while recruiting new artist. The rise of the new system was greatly affected by the function played by the dealers and critics. The dealers acted as patrons as they made advance payments to artists like a monthly salary. In so doing they recognized and encouraged new social markets for art. The critics on the other hand played an important role in studying what was going on in the impressionist society and bringing it to the notice and awareness of the public. Durand-Ruel created a new role for the dealer. He recognized the speculative potential of purchasing unknown or unrecognized painters and persuaded others that this could be a profitable investment. He was generous toward initially unsuccessful artists, sometimes assuming the role of their patron. And finally, he also made use of new strategies, such as seeking control over all the works by an artist to gain a monopoly, or making informal contracts with the artists to bind them to him. Even though, Durand --Ruel, can be realized as being the dealer who recognized the Importance of the impressionist I feel he did some things to fulfill the express request of some of his important and faithful customers, like buying the works of Cezanne. He wasn't an effective promoter of the impressionist movement as he did not seem to have provided a continuous support for his artist. This said I would recommend that his role in the American art market as most important American collectors were introduced to impressionism through him. The idea of fueling the demand of the consumer was through the help of Monet's involvement with George Petit. Because Monet wanted to exhibit in the annual exhibitions of Petit, which was an international show that brought artist who had significant reputation in the art and targeting foreign tourist, it helped them in gaining reputation in impressionist exhibitions even though it brought little financial returns to the dealer. The successful attack by a network of artists, dealers, critics and collectors added a lot of sociological insights to the well known heroic art history stories that highlighted the Salon des Refusés, Manet's Pavilion and the series of self-organized group exhibitions outside the Salon in the 1870s and 1880s as the decisive events in a struggle between academic art and the revolutionary "painters of modern life". The new system was supported by a highly functional new ideology in intellectual as well as in economic respect. The one-man exhibitions gave the dealers a chance to gain publics interest in so doing they were free the mass of salon paintings. As negative reviews came up from the "salons", more attention was drawn to the artist through the compliments of critics. As the market grew, the once lonely artist began to gain recognition and encouragement from the dealers, critic and buyers thus providing a form of social support for the artist. Analytically, the critical change that the Impressionists initiated in 1874 was the breakdown of the Salon's monopoly of the ability to present fine art in a public setting that critics and the public would accept as legitimate. In making a correlation between the old system and the dealer critique system, I find the story of Francois Bonvin to be a very good example. To me it is quite surprising that he did not sell any of his works until ten years later after he completed not. It was through this that he began to make connections to the market. However, it wasn't until his exhibition at Martinets galleries that he began to form a circle of dealers and probably gain some fame. Interestingly, even though Durand-Reul was his dealer, his choice of painting theme did not sit well with well-wishers and buyers that in the later period of his career, his works got little attention from critics. In conclusion, I believe that the old system could have been saved if the academic system had been less rigid in ideology and structure much honor given to the industrial art. The dealer-critic system provided more widely and generously for a larger number of artists and particularly for the young untried painter than did the Academic arrangements. |
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June Shin The political and social changes in France in the 19th century brought about social mobility, and the rise of the bourgeoisie marks one of the most important characteristics of the period. Under a new government, state commissions and aristocratic patronage decreased while pubic sales through the market system thrived more than ever before. Technical developments such as lithography, paint tubes, and prepared canvases also contributed to forming the new wind in the art world. Lithography made it easy for art to be widely distributed and naturally the market was enlarged and broadened. The invention of Paint tubes and prepared canvases gave physical mobility to the artists, who were no longer confined to the walls of their studios. It also lessened the gap between professional amateur artists, causing a dramatic increase in the number of painters. The newly risen bourgeois class preferred landscapes and genre paintings over history paintings because they were looking for affordable, pleasant paintings that could be hung in their homes. Naturally, the favored size of the canvas shrunk. The expanded market and the change in artistic taste and preference gave rise to a new system that Cynthia A. White calls the art dealer-critic system. In this new system, the dealer wanted to profit by opening up a larger market for the artists and the critic wanted to build a reputation as an intellectual whose opinions mattered. The third actor, the artist, wanted a steady flow of income. The dealers paid the artists "salaries" while artists produced the promised works in return. I would say that an art dealer was like a scout for talents. The dealers were monopolists, trying to buy as many paintings of the chosen artists as they could. Since one dealer is likely to have been in possession of most of their works, the artists must have been dependent on the dealer. But all three actors were dependent on each other. It seems that the dealer-critic system was based on faith. Artists had to trust that the dealers would promote and sell their paintings at a good price, the dealers had to have faith in the artist's talent, style, and works to be able to promise the buyers of the paintings' value. The buyers had to have faith in the dealer's judgments on which paintings to invest in. Also, the new system shifted the focus from the individual paintings to the artists. Out of needs on all actors-dealers, critics, artists-the focus needed to be on the career of the artist, not on individual works of art, for once the artist's fame was established, his works would sell. But this long-run market value of the painters was constructed by the cooperation of the critics and the dealers. It seems that, if the new system allowed the artists to break away and be independent from the traditional Academy, they were now dependent on this new system instead for the sales of their paintings. Because now with this new system there were no ideologies or styles that were enforced and on which judgments were based, the role of the art critics became an especially important one. They were to render the new types of painting understandable and provide a basis on which artworks could be judged. However, they were not always favorable to the independent artists, as can be seen in the famous example of the Impressionists. The term Impressionism, which we use today without any negative connotation, was coined by an art critic Louis Leroy, who ridiculed the Impressionists' new, unfamiliar painting style. John Ruskin is also known to have given biting comments to Whistler's painting. So it doesn't seem that the dealer and the critic necessarily and deliberately collaborated, but the dealer-critic system worked because it met the needs of all and because the preexisting system of the Academy failed. The dealer-critic system was flexible whereas the Academy was rigid and unable to cope with the increased number of painters in the 18th century France. The dealer-critic system came to control the communication on which the Academy depended. The new system provided for the overflowing number of artists many of whom the Academy rejected or never reached because they were outside of Paris. There were simply too many artists doing different things. The Academy demanded ideological and stylistic conformity, and there were no categories into which different types of painting could be divided and under which the artists in each field could flourish. Styles different from the "ideal" preferred by the system were suppressed, rejected, and reviled. Moreover, it is through the dealers that an artist like Francois Bonvin who had not had professional training at such institutions as the Ecole des Arts-Beaux could get opportunities to exhibit and sell his works as well as official notice and consistent state commissions. When religious genre painting, in which he specialized, fell out of favor in the government, the dealers kept Bonvin at work. An important contribution the dealers made is that they paved way for the international flow of artworks. London was a great city for commerce and many French felt that their works had a better chance of being sold in the British art market than in the French counterpart because the British artists had already been catering to the market demand with their still lifes, genre paintings, landscapes, and portraits. Very different from France, there were numerous different groups and societies of artists in England, and the British artists had been exhibiting in groups or alone, apart from the Royal Academy's annual exhibition, a British equivalent of the Paris Salon. It was thanks to the dealers in London that such artists as James McNeil Whistler, Fantin-Latour, and Alphonse Legros were able to sell many of their works in England. Also, an art dealer Gambart regularly showed French, Belgian, and Dutch paintings in his gallery, which became known as the "French Gallery." Another important dealer was Durand-Ruel, a French. He organized regular exhibitions of the Impressionists' works as well as one-man exhibitions in his gallery in Paris. In London, when the British were no more than scornful of the Impressionists' radical style, Durand-Ruel continued to have Impressionist exhibitions, until the Impressionist paintings began to receive favorable reviews.The dealers like Gambart and Durand-Ruel not only brought the market to the artists but also made international exchange of art possible, all of which were done for their benefits as well. Thus, it seems that the dealer-critic system was a win-win structure for all. However, I cannot help but think that the dealer was still at an advantage to the artist because if the artist had to communicate with the buyer through the dealer rather than directly with the buyer himself and the dealer had a monopoly over the artist's works, it could be possible and probable that the dealer had a control over how much he would pay the artist. So this relationship between dealer and artist doesn't seem to have completely broken away from but rather stayed very attached to the old patronage system. Do you think that this a reasonable assessment to make? |
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