Buy The Object, Not the Marketing

I clicked onto one of the decorating shows on satellite today, just as the narrator mentioned the price of a painting displayed: $7,800.

I blinked. The “painting” in question looked to be about three by four feet and, as best I could tell, consisted of a canvas covered with a slightly textured cream-and-gold wash, the kind of thing you’ll see on a lot of “faux” finished walls nowadays. No shapes, concrete or abstract, no hint of a form or pattern. Seventy. Eight. Hundred. Bucks. I’m sure the designer bought it in a very classy gallery and I’m sure the artist is the kind of person the “A-list” people rave about over cocktails.

But I couldn’t help thinking about a lady named Anna Boch who many years ago paid a fairly small amount of money for a work by a painter who reportedly sold only that one painting during his entire lifetime. He sometimes gave away paintings to friends, he sometimes traded them for food or art supplies, but no designers vied to hang his paintings on their client’s walls, no art critics gushed about his talent, and no gallery threw lavish parties to exhibit and sell his works.

Anna Boch bought “The Red Vineyard” not because the artist was famous, not because it was for sale in a upscale art gallery, and certainly not because someone told her the painting was a good investment. She bought the painting because she liked it. She looked at the object itself—not the marketing or hype associated with it, because there was none—but at that painting itself, and she bought it because she thought it was beautiful, or interesting or simply emotionally compelling. It is a truly magical painting, vibrant and yet very tranquil, with it’s vivid reds and gold and it’s glimmering stream. A very beautiful painting. I imagine Anna Boch was happy with her purchase.

And I imagine Vincent Van Gogh was grateful for the 500 francs.

Yep. Vincent Van Gogh. The great Impressionist painter whose major works nowadays sell for $50 million and up. But who was so underrated and ignored during his lifetime that he sold just that one painting. (Which now hangs in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Go online and see it.)

My point? If you have $7,800 worth of money to spare and and undifferentiated gold-colored wash on cream-painted canvas truly makes your heart sing, feel free to buy it with my blessing. I don’t presume to dictate what you should like or pay your hard-earned money for.

And neither should anyone else, including designers, “trend-setters,” salespeople, the media, peer pressure, fancy labels or the folks who create the very persuasive marketing that permeates our lives.