Paintings--from Impressionism to Cubism"
BY: DAVID W. GALENSON
University of Chicago
Department of Economics
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection:
http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=193630
Paper ID: NBER Working Paper No. W7407
Date: October 1999
Contact: DAVID W. GALENSON
Email: Mailto:sogrodow at midway.uchicago.edu
Postal: University of Chicago
Department of Economics
1126 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637 USA
Phone: 773-702-8258
Fax: 773-702-8490
ABSTRACT:
For 35 leading painters who lived in France during the first
century of modern art, this paper uses textbook illustrations as
the basis for measuring the importance of both painters and
individual paintings. The rankings pose an interesting puzzle:
why do some of the greatest artists not produce famous
paintings, and why do some relatively minor artists produce some
of the most famous individual paintings? The answer may lie in
an important difference in approach between experimental and
conceptual painters. Experimental artists work incrementally,
their innovations appear gradually, and they generally do their
best work late in their careers; conceptual artists innovate
more suddenly, produce individual breakthrough works, and
usually do their best work early in their careers. This paper
demonstrates that artistic success can usefully be quantified,
and that doing so increases our understanding of the working
methods of modern painters.
JEL Classification: J31