$17 million for Monet painting/Waterlilies don't come cheap

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NEW YORK (CNN) -- A large painting of waterlilies by French artist Claude Monet sold for nearly $17 million Thursday night at Sotheby's, capping a two-day auction of impressionist and modern art that grossed $315 million.

About a third of that total resulted from the $104 million winning bid Wednesday for the Pablo Picasso painting "Boy With a Pipe," which set an all-time auction record.

The Monet, "Le Bassin aux Nymphéas," from 1917-19, is a 6-foot horizontal canvas originally commissioned by the French government. It depicts the gardens at Giverny, outside Paris, where Monet rented a house in the 1880s.

"Monet has this idea of making these calming pictures for the city dwellers that just are these watery environments of colored sensations," said David Norman, Sotheby's co-chairman for impressionist and modern art.
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http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/05/07/monet.auction/index.html

You know this pisses me off. It's a great painting, but there are great paintings - or at least a few very good paintings - sold on ebay everyday ... that can be had for a hundred bucks. I buy wonderful little pieces for $10-25 all the time. It's because a bunch of rich assholes that don't know anything, or even care about art (at this level we're talking about investors, not afficianados sp?), that this grotesquely conspicuous consumption occurs. I hate collectorism.

As a guitarist, I've watched this in the "vintage" instrument market for three decades. I'm sorry kiddies, a brand new off the shelf Strat is a far superior instrument to any 50s-60s guitar Fender ever made. I build guitars, and have for 25+ years. I know shite from shinola. There is no magic in an old instrument just because it's old. People are conned into believing there is because of collectorism. Everybody's BSing, trying to get more money when they sell. Smash 'em all, I say. Great art should never be detroyed, but factory made guitars are not art.

Sorry about the guitar rant. Please don't derail the topic. Start a new thread, if you must.

they see it as an investment. It's a pity, really. Those who can afford it rarely have the capacity to truly appreciate it.