Last Sunday after lunch my wife and I go to an art sale held in one of the Holiday Inn convention rooms. I was expecting to see art on the walls, on partitions, on easels. Instead I see rows of chairs placed back to back with paintings, unframed, resting in stacks of six or seven. As my wife and I peruse the paintings, I recognize a painting that seemed to be modeled very closely to an actual painting. I mean, a famous painting by Matisse or someone. Then I see a painting done in a surreal style, not only similar to Dali, but just like Dali though not as well done. Then I see Starry Night (all told over five versions of the painting) and I finally understand how the ad could claim a $50 price tag for famous paintings.
I was amazed when I first saw the ad that it couldn’t possibly be the original paintings and yet it didn’t say they were prints or lithographs, but “original oil paintings.” I was hoping to find something for my office, but I was equally eager for the solution to the mystery.
They had many renditions of Paris streets, complete with coffee shops and bistros. Pretty well done, to tell the truth. Others—not so much. By the seventh stack, when I saw my umpteenth Van Gogh sunflowers knock-off, I began formulating my theories of origin.
“They must have warehouses of people just cranking out these paintings,” I tell my wife.
No self-respecting painter would want to work for a company that makes copies of famous paintings. On the other hand, there aren’t many self-respecting painters eating and paying their rent on time. Sometimes you sell out a little bit, so you can still say you’re making your living by your art. However, it’s still selling out. It was wrong somehow; it betrayed Art.
We were halfway through before I came up with another, less sinister, theory.
“These were painted by art students,” I say.
I saw a few paintings that weren’t as well done. They looked like paintings I might have seen in my old high school. This was more of a relief. There was no evil corporation trying to make a buck selling pseudo-art to ignorant homeowners who couldn’t care less if the painting speaks to them because all they want to do is match the color scheme of their living room. No, these were art students trying to pay their way through college by selling something that was an assignment in their methods class. If a company wants to buy their homework, why not sell it to them.
I was looking for something that perhaps dealt with music, but more imporantly spoke of the pretentious angst an artist—musical, literary, or visual—feels as he wrestles with his work. I was looking for something unique. By definition, I was in the wrong place. Though I did find a few gray scale paintings of european street corners that I thought were intriguing. Then I found a large painting of an old man with beard, walking with a bass viol. I liked the character of the old man, already imagining a back story. I had a sense of who he was and where he was walking to. It was a sad story. Luckily, their was happiness in his life also, in his bass which was a salmon color, the only warm color in the whole painting.
He was the only copy of that painting we saw in the whole room. At first we were excited that we found something unique. Then we realized it could also mean that all the other copies were already purchased. It didn’t matter. I confidently bought it after repeatedly reassuring my wife I did, in fact, like it. How could I not? It matches my office decor.