The Economics of Art

The trip to Hampi from college was extremely special and harboured many cherished memories. One such memory is that of an evening outside the Virupaksha temple there. Come evening, the temple, bedecked with lights and thronged by devotees, assumes a festive look. As outside any famous temple, there was a multitude of peddlers selling snacks, trinkets and other memorabilia. We stopped at one selling little statuettes and other pieces of artistically moulded metal. While picking up our purchases, the usual dose of bargaining that accompanies any purchase in such places ensued.

On the conclusion of our buying there, I remember arguing it out with a friend of mine, Balaji, on how it was ok to bargain for something being sold, even if it is art. On the one hand, mundane arguments of how bargaining keeps a leash on overcharging went on, and on the other, it was held that while one cannot place a price on art in the first place, bargaining is downright sordid. The the result was one where each member stubbornly stuck to his own.

The business of making documentaries on India and screened herein has hit it big in recent times. And quite a few of these have seemingly good looking women hosts, who are Indian more often than not and strike you as being particularly dumb in matters Indian. On one such documentary, an Indian anchor with a British accent was touring Orissa. It then went on to show an old man painstakingly painting thin, closely spaced lines on a small wooden toy with deft strokes of a brush. This got me thinking as to how much effort goes into making every small toy that is present in the heap of toys lying outside temples to be sold to customers.

The toys, by lying in these heaps, have their value severely undermined. Let us compare them to paintings that a "great artist" like M F Hussain doles out. Just because of the setting, one is valued at least a million times better than the other. I admit that my knowledge on contemporary painting isn't equal to one who can speak so disparagingly of Hussain. But I'm sure that the ratio I've put forth is still absurd, even when looked into by an MF Hussain Fan Club founder. The same goes for performing arts. Writers seem to have it a little easier than the rest of the artistic fraternity.

A true work of art touches you so deep that it evokes an almost primitive feeling which cannot be described, for descriptions are, by nature, man-made. It is this that puts a true artist on a pedestal that raises him beyond the scope of other things man-made, such as those of Economics. In the days of yore, there were kings who recognised this valued position of art, rising beyond economic worth. This is why art flourished in those days, patronised by the Kings, to give us masterpieces like Hampi and brilliant performing arts like Bharatanatyam and Carnatic Music. Today, Economics rules us all, and it doesn't take too kindly to art, although nowadays, it is coming to be seen as an art in itself.

Which brings me back to bargaining. My father once encountered a farmer who was selling a bunch of freshly picked lady's finger. He gave the latter how much ever was quoted and brought home the bounty. On finding out my father had paid the farmer slightly more than the market price, my mother called him naive and I seemed to think she was right. My father held that he couldn't refuse to give to a man whatever he asked, for something grown of his own hands. Horticulture, by virtue of its closeness to nature, started off as an art until the machinations of modern machinery have uprooted these links. Today, I am wholly sympathetic with my father and concede to Balaji in that I will never again bargain for a work of art.