THE COST OF ART.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 91, 7 June 1911, Page 5

THE COST OF ART.

A French art critic has bson making some interesting calculations nt tr.a actual money value represented by the paintings shown at the varices art cxhihi'Jons which have been held in Paris this year. He csciniai.es act 80,000 the number of new nici'iires he in asked to look ■ at. Judge, and criticise per annum. He considers them tor the moment from an economic point of view. How much actual outlay in materials does this prodigious output of paintings represent? if 80,000 pictures he hung, at least as many have been rejected by hanging committees. How much capital has been sunk in these 1(50,00() canvases? The art. critic in question, turned statistical economist, supposes that the average surface of these 160,000 canvases must lie about Oft. square. Now, such a canvas, with its wooden chassis, costs about 21s; the frame, without which no exhibition will bang it, is worth at the lowest CL What does the colour laid on cost? A tube of cadmium yellow is worth ss, one of yellow ochre (id. The art critic, in eonelm.ion, put (lie average cost of the points on the canvas at £2. He adds to this an average of four models’. sittings at Is per sitting—a very moderate estimate both for the number' of sittings and for the charge. Finally each canvas works out at a minimum cost of 26. Tine SO,OOO pictures hung in the exhibition per annum are, therefore, worth ;C(i ((),- 000 for the matei inis alone, canvas, frame, and paints. If as many more pictures arc painted as are exhibit'd, ri• prodigious le.ta 1 of nearly C1.000,000 is reached as the amount of anu|ial exi)"mim;re in actual materials by French painters. The art critic confesses himself amazed by his own isiics. How do ilie scrubby art students in eordmoy ami hum- he''-, who mend Is 2d on an exceptionally r.'cierelie dinner. manage among flu m to serap:> together this lingo sum ? Let no one say, lie concludes, Pint devotion to art is dead in Franco.