Aesthetic, Art-Historical and Economic Values in Painting: Empirical Study

Abstract

Three different types of data are analyzed together for the first time: technical and economic characteristics of the works of one hundred artists (19-20th centuries) from the auctions database, scores of art-historical values of these painters by C. Murray and aesthetic estimates collected via specially designed website PollArt1000. The short survey of the contemporary art was performed to test some findings on another material. Comprehensive statistical analysis of that data presented, which resulted in scoring of best and worst works, establishing correlations between many variables, typology or respondents and more. The conclusions quantify different relationship between many important aspects of art as a social phenomenon, such as a power low distribution for prices; novel models of aesthetic and art prices; complex relations between prices and aesthetic variables and others. Particularly, it is shown that that tastes of people are inclined to figurative and innovational rather than to abstract and conceptual art. A lot of pictures illustrate this and other findings.