4 ms·

Odd use of the word 'rare'. Each painting is unique and is thus exactly as rare as any other painting. Or does it refer to the artist's total number of works?

King-Aaron 9y ago
It would likely be referring to a painting that not many people would have seen publicly. You're right, the Mona Lisa is a "rare" painting by definition, as there is only one of it amongst however many works of art exist. But because it's well known and seen publicly a lot, you wouldn't call it 'rare'. Though by my own definition, it means the scribbles on the side of my notepad are equally (if not more) rare. So disregard my comment as 5.30pm without enough caffeine nonsense.
- Retric 9y ago
  You could describe Mona Lisa as rare based on age. ~99% of existing paintings are probably younger, and ~99% of paintings painted in the same year are likely heavily degraded if not destroyed. Or even just having a vastly higher value than most things. After all few objects are worth significantly more than 100,000,000$. Or even just "A Rare example of a great masters work." which seems perfectly reasonable to me.
a_humean 9y ago
If you are being unkind, then yes he is making what seems to be a type of category error. Dummett or Frege might decribe it as using a second order predicate as a first order predicate. Entirely grammatical, but nonsensical. He probably just means valuable or unique(as a kind of painting whether by authorship or other kind). Title in a previous version might have been "Rare Gottfried Lindauer painting is stolen...", but was shortened.
jmkni 9y ago
Rare might not refer to the painting itself. For example, if an artist had most of their work destroyed, any remaining paintings would be a rare painting by that artist. Or if a historically significant figure had only been painted by a small number of people, any painting of that person could be described as rare. It's probably fake anyway!
elorant 9y ago
Rare in the context of art could mean one of two things. Either there are very few existing works of an artist, or a work has disappear from the market and no one knows where it's gone. It could be in a vault in a private collection and no one has seen it in public for ages (which in some cases could be centuries).
- vidarh 9y ago
  To complicate it, for many subjects there are multiple very similar paintings by the same artist. Sometimes so similar they're often confused. E.g. Edvard Munch's "The Scream" [1] exists in four different versions that are all referred to by that name (as well as 45 litographs). Other times simply because the artist painted the same subjects a lot. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream
amouat 9y ago
Agreed. I think they mean it's rare in terms of subject matter and style. If you want a painting of a fruit bowl, that's easy to find, but this, not so much...
hakanensari 9y ago
Listers are not exactly gallerists (I presume?) so probably meant valued, valuable by rare. Is that not what Picasso translates to in the public imagination? On a different note, how can you buy without confirming authenticity?
mseebach 9y ago
The relevant metric for deciding if something is rare (in this context) is the number of available substitutes, including by other artists, not uniqueness. A snowflake is unique, but not rare. The artist concerned here "is considered as one of New Zealand's leading artists" and has a "unique painting style", and so there are very few paintings that are like his, and (probably crucially, although I'm not familiar with the specifics) plays a role in New Zealand national identity. You can get plenty of expressive landscape paintings, in the sort of style of an unimaginative Van Gogh, produced by hundreds of artists throughout the 20th century, and most are perfectly pleasurable to look at, but you've never heard of the artists, and the works are easily available for hundreds to a few thousand dollars -- because they are not rare, it doesn't particular matter which of the many available paintings you end up buying, as long as you enjoy looking at it.
dang 9y ago
Ok, we've derarified the title above.

King-Aaron 9y ago

It would likely be referring to a painting that not many people would have seen publicly. You're right, the Mona Lisa is a "rare" painting by definition, as there is only one of it amongst however many works of art exist. But because it's well known and seen publicly a lot, you wouldn't call it 'rare'. Though by my own definition, it means the scribbles on the side of my notepad are equally (if not more) rare. So disregard my comment as 5.30pm without enough caffeine nonsense.

Retric 9y ago
You could describe Mona Lisa as rare based on age. ~99% of existing paintings are probably younger, and ~99% of paintings painted in the same year are likely heavily degraded if not destroyed. Or even just having a vastly higher value than most things. After all few objects are worth significantly more than 100,000,000$. Or even just "A Rare example of a great masters work." which seems perfectly reasonable to me.

a_humean 9y ago

If you are being unkind, then yes he is making what seems to be a type of category error. Dummett or Frege might decribe it as using a second order predicate as a first order predicate. Entirely grammatical, but nonsensical. He probably just means valuable or unique(as a kind of painting whether by authorship or other kind). Title in a previous version might have been "Rare Gottfried Lindauer painting is stolen...", but was shortened.

jmkni 9y ago

Rare might not refer to the painting itself. For example, if an artist had most of their work destroyed, any remaining paintings would be a rare painting by that artist. Or if a historically significant figure had only been painted by a small number of people, any painting of that person could be described as rare. It's probably fake anyway!

elorant 9y ago

Rare in the context of art could mean one of two things. Either there are very few existing works of an artist, or a work has disappear from the market and no one knows where it's gone. It could be in a vault in a private collection and no one has seen it in public for ages (which in some cases could be centuries).

vidarh 9y ago
To complicate it, for many subjects there are multiple very similar paintings by the same artist. Sometimes so similar they're often confused. E.g. Edvard Munch's "The Scream" [1] exists in four different versions that are all referred to by that name (as well as 45 litographs). Other times simply because the artist painted the same subjects a lot. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream

amouat 9y ago

Agreed. I think they mean it's rare in terms of subject matter and style. If you want a painting of a fruit bowl, that's easy to find, but this, not so much...

hakanensari 9y ago

Listers are not exactly gallerists (I presume?) so probably meant valued, valuable by rare. Is that not what Picasso translates to in the public imagination? On a different note, how can you buy without confirming authenticity?

mseebach 9y ago

The relevant metric for deciding if something is rare (in this context) is the number of available substitutes, including by other artists, not uniqueness. A snowflake is unique, but not rare. The artist concerned here "is considered as one of New Zealand's leading artists" and has a "unique painting style", and so there are very few paintings that are like his, and (probably crucially, although I'm not familiar with the specifics) plays a role in New Zealand national identity. You can get plenty of expressive landscape paintings, in the sort of style of an unimaginative Van Gogh, produced by hundreds of artists throughout the 20th century, and most are perfectly pleasurable to look at, but you've never heard of the artists, and the works are easily available for hundreds to a few thousand dollars -- because they are not rare, it doesn't particular matter which of the many available paintings you end up buying, as long as you enjoy looking at it.

dang 9y ago

Ok, we've derarified the title above.