How your eyes
trick your mind
Look closer at optical illusions, says Melissa Hogenboom, and they can reveal how you truly perceive reality.
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Visual, or optical, illusions show us that our minds tend to make assumptions about the world – and what you think you see is often not the truth.

Throughout history, curious minds have questioned why our eyes are so easily fooled by these simple drawings. Illusions, we have found, can reveal everything from how we process time and space to our experience of consciousness.

Scroll down our interactive guide to find out why.
Early illusions
Illusions have a long history, going as far back as the ancient Greeks.
In 350BC, Aristotle noted that “our senses can be trusted but they can be easily fooled”.
He noticed that if you watch a waterfall and shift your gaze to static rocks, the rocks appear to move in the opposite direction of the flow of water, an effect we now call “motion aftereffect” or the waterfall illusion.
Tracking the flow of the water seems to “wear out” certain neurons in the brain as they adapt to the motion. When you then shift your gaze to the rocks, other competing neurons over-compensate, causing the illusion of movement in the other direction.
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Mind shift
The real boom in studying illusions began in the 19th Century. A school of scientists who studied perception – among many other things – created simple illusions to shed light on how the brain perceives patterns and shapes, which kick-started the early theories on how our eyes can play tricks on our mind.
The Ebbinghaus illusion, for example, revealed that our brain makes judgements about size using adjacent objects – and this can be manipulated. The orange circles here are actually the same size.
In-depth view
Around the same time, the Ponzo illusion illustrated that context is also fundamental for depth perception.
It shows that identically sized lines can appear to be different lengths when placed between converging parallel lines. This shows how our sense of perspective works. Like a train track, the slanted lines make us believe the top line is further away.
This confuses the brain, and it overcompensates, making the line appear bigger – as it would have to be in real life to produce those kinds of proportions.

Ebbinghaus

Ebbinghaus

Ponzo

Ebbinghaus
One-track mind
For similar reasons, this may be why the lines in the Muller-Lyer illusion appear to be different lengths. The arrows at each end are tricking the brain into thinking the lines are nearer or further away.
Confused? To understand why, consider how two walls meet the ceiling at the top of a room: you’ll see three lines converging. The brain uses these lines to gauge perspective and distance in 3D space – in other words, that the point of the corner is further away than the lines converging towards it.
One theory is that the arrows on either end of the line in the Muller-Lyer illusion trick the mind into thinking it is looking at a similar 3D scene – for example, the arrows on the middle line are similar to a wall-ceiling corner. This nudges the brain into thinking the line is further away, and again, it overcompensates, making it appear longer than the other lines.
Tall story
That isn’t the only way simple lines can warp the way the mind processes the world – and there isn’t always a simple explanation. In the late 1800s, Hermann von Helmholtz first demonstrated that a simple square made up of vertical lines looks shorter and wider than a square made up of horizontal lines.
This is why wearing horizontally striped clothes will make the wearer appear taller and slimmer – contrary to fashion advice.
Researchers suspect the reason is to do with the way we estimate “filled space”, but they’re still not sure why it happens.



Helmholtz

Muller-Lyer
Early illusions like this appeared at a ground-breaking time for the study of perception, says illusion historian Nicholas Wade from the University of Dundee in Scotland.
“They were of interest theoretically because they went against the prevailing view that you could understand vision if you understood the way in which an image is formed in the eye.
“The phenomena were small but reliable; they were experimentally tractable and it generated this incredible boom of variations on simple figures.”
Yet this period also saw a series of misguided attempts to find a ‘unifying theory’ of illusions. The literature on illusions is “littered with over-interpretations”, says Wade.
As researchers would later discover, our reactions to illusions can be even more complicated than the early pioneers realised.

20th Century
The 20th Century saw little in the way of a breakthrough in the field of illusions.
But the quest to understand how we process the world continued, and this resulted in some exciting findings about perception.
For example, advances in technology allowed David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel to discover that certain neurons in the brain’s visual cortex fired only when objects were orientated at certain angles – so, for instance, specific neurons fire when you look at a square and a triangle. The finding earned them a Nobel prize in 1981.
Yet where scientists left off, artists moved forward...

In the 1960-70s illusions inspired a style called optical art, or "Op-Art". Victor Vasarely is widely regarded as the father of this movement, and some of his work is studied by scientists today. For example, research using his “nested squares illusion”, similar to the image below, suggests that the brain identifies shapes using corners rather than lines.
21st Century
Fast forward to the early 2000s and there was a resurgence in illusion research, including looking at the strange way our brains process time.
One school of thought suggests that some illusions highlight the way the brain constantly tries to predict what will happen. The theory goes that many illusions show that we try to predict the future to compensate for the slight delay between an event and our conscious perception of it.
The light from these words you are reading has to reach your eye, before a signal travels to the brain to be processed – this takes time, which means the world you perceive is slightly in the past. Mark Changizi, a theoretical neurobiologist, believes the brain may make predictions about your surroundings in order to “perceive the present”.
The light from these words you are reading has to reach your eye, before a signal travels to the brain to be processed – this takes time, which means the world you perceive is slightly in the past. Mark Changizi, a theoretical neurobiologist, believes the brain may make predictions about your surroundings in order to “perceive the present”.

Zoetropes in the 1800s tricked the brain into seeing motion where there is none
In a study Changizi worked on with Shinsuke Shimojo, of Caltech’s experimental psychology lab in California, they wrote that a whole class of classic “coffee-table” geometrical illusions fit with this theory, such as the Hering illusion.
The Hering illusion, says Changizi, features radial lines that give the illusion of movement, similar to the scene we see as we move forward in the real world. Our brain has therefore evolved to treat these radial lines or streaks as if they are motion, he says.
“In real life when those mechanisms are working well, when you’re moving forward, then those radial lines happening on the back of your eye really are due to real-life motion. The reason they are only misperceptions in the lab is because radial lines trick your brain into thinking there’s motion.”


Hering

Hering
Today, illusion research is booming once more. Technology advances now allow scientists to peer inside our brains as we look at illusions, and to begin to understand the underlying mechanisms going on inside our head.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) allows researchers to analyse how the neurons in our brain respond to individual illusions.
Square eyed
For example, a brain-imaging study of people looking at the Necker Cube, right, showed that the brain can “flip” between two different views, as it attempts to translate a two-dimensional drawing on a page into a three-dimensional cube. In other words, it confirmed that the brain is tricked into perceiving the cube as a 3D object.
Competing neurons
Or consider the Hermann grid: we see grey dots in the intersections between the white and black grid even though they are not actually there. But look directly at one of the grey dots and it disappears. Based on brain-scanning research, one explanation is that our neurons are competing with each other to see the light and dark parts of the image.
However, these recent advances do not mean that all illusions can be explained. Even this explanation for the Hermann grid – an illusion which is more than a hundred years old – has been disputed, since it can’t account for the fact that the effect changes when the grid has curved lines instead of straight ones.

New illusions
While we know that different areas of the brain deal with colour, form, motion and texture, how the brain encodes and combines this information into a coherent picture remains poorly understood.
What’s more, new illusions, and variants on old ones are appearing all the time. Vision researchers hold an annual competition, now in its 10th year, to find the best new illusions. One of the judges is visual neuroscientist Susana Martinez-Conde from the Barrow Neurological Institute in Arizona. The contest has a selfish motivation of sorts, she says: she wants to keep an eye out for interesting new illusions that will help her to study the brain.
2014’s winning entry is a novel take on the 19th Century Ebbinghaus Illusion. This new version is dynamic, which makes the effect much stronger. “It’s like the Ebbinghaus effect on steroids,” says Martinez-Conde. Just like the original, the illusion highlights that the brain always perceives the size of objects in the context of those that surround them. But if you continually vary this context, then the effect gets even stronger, she explains.
“Many of the newer illusions are takes on the classical versions as the technology has now opened the doors to revisit them," she says.


Martinez-Conde is now building on the work of some of the 19th Century researchers. It was Helmholtz, for example, who first realised that our eyes make rapid movements called saccades.

To experience them, gently put a finger on your eye lid and move your eye. You will see that the world will start to appear jittery, like a series of snapshots. We don’t notice our eye darting about like this because our brain smoothes things out when constructing what we see.

Martinez-Conde realised that these saccades might help to explain why we see movement in this image, the snake illusion.
This is known as apparent motion. The snake illusion occurs because there's so much information hitting different parts of our retina at the same time. All this detail is sent to our visual cortex at once, and the resulting confusion tricks the brain into thinking that movement is taking place.
This also happens in the real world when we're in a fast-moving object like a train, for example. Sure enough, fMRI scans have shown that the same neurons that respond to movement are responding when we look at the image above. Martinez-Conde and colleagues found that suppressing these saccades in people momentarily stops the illusion. Why? She thinks it’s because, with every saccade, the retinal image is “refreshed”, and this overwhelms the visual cortex again with a new scene. If you stop the eye movement, however, the brain adapts and the apparent motion stops.


All of this research points to one thing: our visual system remains too limited to tackle all of the information our eyes take in. “For that our brain would need to be bigger than a building, and still then it wouldn’t be enough,” says Martinez-Conde.

And so our minds take shortcuts. Like betting for the best horse in a race, our brain constantly chooses the most likely interpretation of what we see.

Seeing, then, is certainly not always believing.

My art makes the invisible visible

That what cannot be said might be shown . Ludwig Wittgenstein (philosopher, mathematician).
My art makes visible that what is invisible. That what might be (verbally) ineffable might be shown (revealed, made effable visually and through music).
My work could be labelled many things such as figurtive, non-figurative, symbolic, expressionistic, impressionistic, modernism, post-modernism, post-minimalism, etc. In fact it shows (the processes and results of) making marks on paper (canvas, board, carton or whatever support is used).

how night inspires great painters 

 

 

  Ulrich de Balbian

The nights are drawing in. Autumn evenings are getting duskier, mistier, cooler. Early mornings are darker. Soon we’ll be living large parts of our lives under a nocturnal cloak.

As the dark deepens it unleashes imagination and stories of ghosts and witches; dreams and nightmares populate the night. Autumn is the time when they creep out of the lengthening shadows, ready for Halloween. As the world gets darker it also gets more interesting. That is what many artists find, anyway.
Louise Bourgeois, Insomnia, 2000.
Night thoughts … Louise Bourgeois, Insomnia, 2000. Photograph: Christopher Burke/ © The Easton Foundation

A timely exhibition at the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, called Towards Night, surveys “the nocturnal” in art from the Romantic nights of Caspar David Friedrich and JMW Turner, through the dreamlike nights of Edvard Munch and Marc Chagall, to night scenes and thoughts by the likes of Louise Bourgeois and Peter Doig.

In Doig’s painting Echo Lake, which features in the show, a shadowy forest is reflected in dark water, with a strip of luminous shore bisecting the picture horizontally. Darkness is the realm of possibility and danger, folklore, fear and desire. A policeman stands on the edge of the lake, looking into the dark.

It is no coincidence that many of the artists listed above are from northern latitudes, where winter nights can be long and dark. Doig himself was born in Scotland and spent a lot of his youth in Canada. Friedrich, from northern Germany, and Munch, from Norway, are artists whose imaginations turn towards magnetic north, even towards the Arctic itself – and towards the night. In his 1893 painting Vampire, for instance, Munch fleshes out one of the darkest of all night terrors.

The night and its strangeness are the north’s great gift to European art. Mediterranean art is sunny; it loves light. From the pure blue skies of Italian Renaissance paintings to the sunshine of Cézanne, glorious daylight fills the Mediterranean eye.
Black Barn, 1997 by Amanda Vesey.
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Labyrinth of mystery … Black Barn, 1997 by Amanda Vesey. Photograph: © Amanda Vesey. Courtesy of Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne

The night is full of terrors, from witches to loneliness, yet it is a labyrinth of mystery and beauty

It took northern European artists to reveal the wonder of darkness. Geertgen tot Sint Jans’s painting The Nativity at Night, a very early Dutch masterpiece from about 1490, uses the inky darkness that surrounds Mary and her child to set off their illuminated holiness. This moving idea, of the nativity in the dark as a glowing moment of fragile humanity pitched against the shadows, would still be a powerful Dutch theme in the age of Rembrandt.

Yet northern artists were also driven to look beyond the consoling hearthlight, into night’s most dreadful depths. The German Renaissance artist Hans Baldung Grien was obsessed with depicting witches at their midnight sabbaths. Centuries later in his painting The Night, the German expressionist Max Beckmann unveils a Weimar Berlin night of madness and depravity.

Vincent van Gogh, a northern artist who found himself in the south of France, painted one of the eeriest of all night-life scenes after he fell out with a cafe owner. He told the owner he was going to get revenge by setting up his easel in his cafe and portraying its sleazy atmosphere. The night drinkers and prostitutes enjoyed Van Gogh’s portrayal of their haunt, watching him paint it as a kind of performance art. The result is The Night Café, with its lurid green and red tones and sense of futility and desolation. Edward Hopper captures that same nocturnal desolation in his small-hours painting Nighthawks.
Edward Hopper’s 1942 painting Nighthawks.
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Nocturnal desolation … Edward Hopper’s 1942 painting Nighthawks. Photograph: The Art Institute of Chicago. Friends of American Art Collection, 1942./BBC

The night is full of terrors, from witches to loneliness, yet it is a labyrinth of mystery and beauty. The strangest and most marvellous art experience I have had this year involved going into total darkness equipped only with a torch. After clambering over slippery, sharp surfaces and through narrow, claustrophobic apertures, we finally reached a pitch-black gallery where spotlights were turned on to reveal the art. This was not an installation at Tate Modern but a cave in the Pyrenees. Here, deep underground, ice age artists drew bison and ibex with charcoal 13,000 years ago. Why did the ice age artists explore such deep, dark places? Why is the oldest art in the world shrouded in permanent night? It has to be that our imaginations crave darkness. Only in the dark can we forget the banal distraction of daylit reality and enter a visionary realm of dreams. Art is a creature of the night.

Towards Night is at the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, until 22 January.

21st Century Contemporary Painting Ulrich de Balbian

21st Century Contemporary Art – Video paintings Ulrich de Balbian

https://youtu.be/3YFxloFEqCI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YFxloFEqCI
https://youtu.be/3YFxloFEqCI

21st Century Contemporary Art – Video paintings Ulrich de Balbian

https://youtu.be/3YFxloFEqCI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YFxloFEqCI

https://youtu.be/3YFxloFEqCI

Why Stoicism Is Having a Cultural Moment

Stoicism is apparently popular again — at least, that’s how it appears, given the spate of recent popular books, articles and events on the topic. There’s Julie Beck’s essay from The Atlantic on the benefits of thinking about death like a Stoic, Oliver Burkeman’s book on the “negative path” to happiness that includes a chapter entitled “What Would Seneca Do?”, and, perhaps most notably, an article that appeared in the New York Times, which created a sensation and which the author, Massimo Pigliucci, is now developing into a book. There are also Stoic meet-ups occurring in cities all over the world; the New Stoa, an online community of modern Stoics who offer courses and publish a magazine; a blog called Stoicism Today; and “Stoic Week”, a yearly social event/science experiment, in which participants live according to Stoic principles and submit data about their experiences to be analyzed for changes in quality of life.

The level of enthusiasm this philosophical revival has produced for an ancient belief system is surprising but also inspiring. These manifestos and popular expressions don’t just celebrate an academic engagement with Stoicism; they advocate using it as a practical tool in our everyday lives. They are a far cry from the criticisms of Stoicism as a cold, harsh school of thought, where suppression of emotion and a Vulcan-style detachment from the world is paramount. And yet, all this positive press made me wonder: what exactly is Stoicism’s appeal for us moderns? What’s behind the desire to rehabilitate a way of life once championed by hard-bodied soldiers and toga-clad politicians? Why is being a Stoic so cool right now?
The self-help trends of mindfulness and gratitude

Anyone even glancingly aware of the world of self-help cannot have failed to notice that the practice of mindfulness, or “living in the moment while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations”, is all the rage these days. Celebrities, tech gurus, and sports stars are publicly swearing by “getting centered”, “being fully present” and “unplugging” through practices such as meditation, yoga, or even visualizing a dot for sixty seconds.

Most practitioners of mindfulness understand its origins to lie in the Eastern spiritual traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism; however, the Western world also had a longstanding tradition of mindfulness. That tradition is Stoicism.

Ancient Stoics were all about living in the moment, a goal achieved by cultivating self-control and self-awareness through meditative practices, though not necessarily of the om-chanting variety. They “thought about thinking” by considering their emotions from a rational perspective, reflecting on the ethics of their decisions, and constantly reminding themselves that while they had no power over what happened in life, they did have power over their responses to it. The slave-turned-philosopher Epictetus summed up this idea in his Stoic handbook, the Enchiridion: “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views they take of them” (5). His advice? “Don’t expect that events to turn out the way you want, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will get on well” (8).

Today’s mantras of mindfulness sound strikingly similar to those of Epictetus, and many activities that Stoics undertook to achieve equanimity are similar too. Take, for example, the premeditatio malorum, a methodical visualization of the worst-case-scenario for any situation. Here’s how Seneca describes it: “We need to reflect upon every possibility and to fortify ourselves against whatever hardships may come about. Run through (meditare) them in your mind: exile, torture, war, shipwreck” (91.7–8). He goes on to explain how, if we do this regularly, we can minimize our fear of life’s misfortunes and prepare to face them. The extreme version of this practice is, of course, imagining our own or a loved one’s death. So Marcus Aurelius exhorts us to “Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly” (7.56).

Part of the premeditatio’s charm for us is that it exposes the limitations of purely positive thinking, which was one of the last big self-help trends (remember the book The Secret?), by turning it on its head. For the intelligent and sophisticated among us, it’s not enough to hope and wish for the best. To find success and contentment, we instead must grapple with all possible outcomes, especially the bad ones. (This tendency likely explains the growing popularity, especially in the business world, of a variation on the premeditatio — the project premortem.) The practice of premeditatiooffers us an efficient way to generate not only a deep state of mindfulness, but a keen sense of gratitude as well.

Gratitude is another big trend in self-help, where it’s often envisioned as the result and benefit of mindfulness. People are advised to keep gratitude journals, give compliments, and do volunteer work, all to increase their feelings of appreciation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, cultivating gratitude was also important to the Stoics, and the link between it and mindfulness was not lost on them. (One need only look to the first book of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations — history’s first self-improvement journal? — where he thanks his family, friends and teachers for all they’ve done for him.)

To enhance their sense of gratitude, ancient Stoics also utilized practical techniques, such as voluntary discomfort (cold showers, foregoing sweets, et cetera). Or they would deliberately engage with what they called “externals” or “indifferents”, such as money, fame or even good health (which are desirable but not necessary), only to remind themselves that all they really needed to have a good life was virtue. These exercises in reverse psychology are more extreme than journaling or volunteering, but the same spirit and the same goal — achieving eudaimonia, or happiness with one’s lot in life — informs both the ancient and modern practices of gratitude.

For both Stoic philosophers and modern mindfulness advocates, it’s not enough to endure life’s ups and downs; we should appreciate and enjoy all that it brings. Seneca encapsulates the sentiment well in his essay On the Happy Life: “The happy man is content with his present lot, no matter what it is, and is reconciled to his circumstances; the happy man…allows reason to fix the value of every condition of existence” (7.6). Ancient Stoicism may seem far removed from us in time and space. But Seneca’s words, which echo those of modern-day gurus like Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle, clearly demonstrate that when it comes to helping ourselves, Stoicism’s aims and message may be more resonant than ever.
The rise of the New Atheism movement

Since the early 2000s, a number of outspoken critics of traditional religion have received a great deal of media attention. The rapid rise of these “New Atheists” reflects a broader trend of growing disenchantment with organized religion. Many people are sympathetic to New Atheist critiques of religion as dogmatic, outmoded, politicized, and violent; they’re also compelled by the efforts of New Atheists to use scientific inquiry as a means of debunking religious beliefs. Much ink has been spilled lately, for example, trying to disprove God’s existence through scientific methods and logical arguments (see the work of Richard Dawkins and Victor Stenger).

These efforts have inspired people at all points on the skepticism spectrum to search out systems of belief that lack the ideological baggage of the world’s dominant religions. And in their search for a new life stance, one place they quickly end up is secular humanism, which, according to the International Humanist and Ethical Union, “stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethics based on human and other natural values in a spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities.” Those who dig deeper into the history of humanism soon find themselves standing on Stoicism’s stoop, since much of what humanism champions — rationality, freedom, virtue, naturalism — serves as the foundational principles of ancient Stoic philosophy as well.

To people who are leaving behind organized religion, Stoicism’s emphasis on reason as the law (or logos) that shapes and guides the universe is refreshingly simple. (It may also explain why you’re constantly hearing the phrase “Everything happens for a reason” uttered by everyone from your mom to Barack Obama.) Ancient Stoics believed that, as part and parcel of the universe, we humans have our share of reason within as well (see Marcus Aurelius, Medit. 7.9; Musonius Rufus, Frag. 38). And by using our reason to guide us, we can understand the nature of reality and perceive the truth. Amazingly, this is all that’s required to be a good person and live an ethically correct life. So Seneca says, “Virtue is nothing else than right reason” (Ep. 66.32). Right reason is the path to contentment: “If you accomplish the task before you, following right reason with diligence, energy and patience…if you can hold to this, without fear or expectation, and find fulfillment in what you’re doing now… you will live a happy life” (Marcus Aurelius, Medit. 3.12).

That being reasonable is all that’s required for a good and happy life is a very freeing concept for those who have attempted to live according to the arcane rules and odd prohibitions of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam — and for those who just aren’t sure what to believe. You don’t have to have all the answers; you just have to think rationally and do what’s right. That’s what Epictetus recommends: “Isn’t it enough to know the nature of good and evil, the limits of desire and aversion…and to use these as rules to administer the affairs of life, without troubling ourselves about things above us? For these things are perhaps incomprehensible to the human mind” (Frag. 7.175).

The Stoics’ acceptance of both our capacity to live rightly and our inability to understand all also underlies their theology, including their conception of God. As a philosophy that evolved over time, there is no fixed dogma or text that defines “Stoic belief” on this topic. (Of course, many Stoic beliefs, including that of a unitary god with multiple aspects, were absorbed into Christian doctrine. This makes them strangely familiar to us and may also, ironically, make them all the more appealing too.) However, for most ancient Stoics, God, or more appropriately, Zeus, certainly did exist. He was a singular entity, equivalent with Reason, which encompasses and directs all of Nature or the Universe for a purpose.

Some Stoics were devout worshippers of this god: see, for example, Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus or Epictetus’ famous declaration, “If I were a nightingale I should sing as a nightingale, if a swan, as a swan: but as I am a rational creature I must sing to God” (Discourses, 1.16). Others were less certain about the nature of the divine. The debate continues to this dayamong modern philosophers, but almost all Stoics seem to agree that in the end what you think you know about God doesn’t really matter — you still can and should pursue the good and live virtuously. As Marcus Aurelius puts it, “Things are either isolated units [atoms], or they form one inseparable whole. If that whole be God, then all is well; but if aimless chance, at least you need not be aimless also” (9.28).

This flexible agnosticism is another attractive feature of Stoicism for modern adherents. You can retain the spiritual elements of the philosophy while remaining outside the confines of proper religion, or you can adapt it to suit even the most die-hard non-believers, all while maintaining its integrity as a belief system. Pigliucci nicely sums up the allure of this “best-of-both-worlds” quality in his NYT essay: “There is something very appealing for me as a non-religious person in the idea of an ecumenical philosophy, one that can share goals and at the least some general attitudes with other major ethical traditions across the world.”

Stoicism offers its modern-day devotees a sort of New Atheism “lite”, seemingly untainted by the clashes that define contemporary religious (or anti-religious) thought. It doesn’t demand adherence to an all-or-nothing view of God, or project a sense of self-righteous certainty about matters that are beyond our control (or understanding), even as it champions goodness and reason. This calm yet confident focus on being our best selves, no matter who or what rules the cosmos, may be what’s drawing so many people toward the Stoic way of life.
The similarities between now and then

Stoicism is a philosophy that, in the words of Kare Anderson, was “built for hard times.” It emerged in the early 3rd century BCE in Athens, after the premature death of Alexander the Great left the eastern Mediterranean in disarray. The political and social upheaval of the times made many people anxious about their place in the world: migration became necessary for survival and the independent power of the polis to define its inhabitants’ identity went largely by the wayside. In its place came rule by inefficient and often corrupt kingdoms. Rapid and arbitrary change became the new normal during this era.

This chaotic period in history shares quite a lot with the current one: think legislative intransigence, the Great Recession, climate change, income inequality, the war on terror, and the widespread displacement of peoples all over the globe. Living in such a volatile world has compelled individuals to seek out a path to inner tranquility, just as they did in the early Hellenistic period. Now as then, Stoicism offers them a promising route. In unpredictable times, it makes sense to rely on ourselves and find strength in our individual autonomy. Deciding to act with reason and virtue is something the turmoil of the outside world cannot change. As Seneca points out, “If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you need is not to be in a different place but to be a different person” (Ep. 104.8).

And yet, Stoicism doesn’t advocate a retreat into a self-absorbed world of one’s own — quite the opposite. Ancient Stoics believed that a major component of virtue was serving other human beings and recognizing our common humanity. In fact, it was the Stoics who first made popular the concept of cosmopolitanism, and encouraged people to see themselves as “world citizens”, not defined by location, class, or religion: “Never in reply to the question, to what country you belong, say that you are an Athenian or a Corinthian, but that you are a citizen of the world” (Epictetus, Discourses1.9). By concentrating on the similarities between us, we can succeed not only at living in accordance with nature, but also at creating a new, expansive sense of community that transcends local differences.

Ancient Stoics also used the concept of oikeiosis to understand ethical duties and relationships with others in communal terms. Oikeiosis derives from the Greek word for “home” or “family” and essentially means “having a natural attachment to what is familiar” or “viewing something as belonging to oneself.” Stoicism encourages us to extend our sense of affinity and concern outward, from our selves, to our family, to our fellow citizens, to all people — to zoom out, as it were, and to collapse the distinctions between yourself and others. It also gives perspective on just how insignificant you are in the grand scheme of things. The philosopher Hierocles created a way of visualizing this idea of duty radiating outward in the form of concentric circles, while Marcus Aurelius simplifies the concept: “Whatever happens to you is for the good of the world. That would be enough right there. But if you look closely you’ll generally notice something else too: whatever happens to a single person is for the good of others” (6.45).

Seeing the world in this light — as one big family or commonwealth where whatever happens to the most distant person is also important to our own lives — fosters our empathy toward each other. Perhaps more importantly, it promotes a sense of justice that transcends our own self-interest. This justice ideally pertains to all members of society and aims to set us in harmony with one another. It compels Seneca to reminds his friend Lucilius that slaves are really “our fellow-slaves, if one reflects that Fortune has as much power over us as over them” (Ep. 47.1). For the Stoics, recognizing our equality as humans brings social harmony — a necessity if we want to live rightly and find true fulfillment.

The value for our globalized society of thinking and acting in a manner that emphasizes our similarities and increases our capacity for compassion and justice can hardly be overstated. Solving the problem of climate change, for example, will undoubtedly require us to draw upon and develop these qualities further than ever before. And yet, it seems to many that as a society we are only growing more fractured and detached from one another, focusing on our divergent political views, or our racial and religious differences, or our distinct lifestyle choices (all this notwithstanding our ubiquitous connectedness via the internet).

“Doing as the Stoics did” provides moderns with a means to combat this trend; it also reflects a desire to restore simplicity and fairness to our current code of human ethics. And while a nostalgic fantasy about the unerring “wisdom of the ancients” may underlie this desire, it may be that turning back to this old school of thought is actually a sensible step in our efforts to move forward: “If you can see the road, follow it. Cheerfully, without turning back. If not, hold up and get the best advice you can. If anything gets in the way, keep moving forward, making good use of what you have on hand, and sticking to what seems right” (Marcus Aurelius, Medit. 10.12). If this approach worked for past practitioners of Stoicism, why can’t it work for us?

This post originally appeared on Eidolon.
Chiara Sulprizio is a senior lecturer in Classical and Mediterranean Studies at Vanderbilt University. She enjoys researching and teaching about issues of gender and sexuality in Greek comedy, Homeric epic and Roman satire. She is also the owner of Ivy & June Custom Ceremonies, which provides wedding officiant services and premarital coaching to modern brides, grooms and same-sex couples. She loves traveling and exploring new places (especially if hot springs or waterfalls are involved), reading great books and helping people learn new skills.
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http://dailystoic.com/stoicism-cultural-moment/

Why are artists so poor?

Why Are Artists Poor?
The Exceptional Economy of the Arts
Hans Abbing
ISBN 90 5356 565 5
NUGI 911/651
ISBN 90 5356 565 5
NUGI 911/651
Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2002
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,
no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both
the copyright owner and the author of the book.
Table of Contents
Preface 11
1 Sacred Art
Who Has the Power to Define Art? 17
1 Art is What People Call Art 18
2 Cultural Inferiority and Superiority Color the Economy of the
Arts 20
3 ‘Art is Sacred’ 23
4 ‘Art is Authentic’ 25
5 ‘Art is Superfluous and Remote’ 27
6 ‘Art Goes Against the Rules and so Adds to Cognition’
(Goodman) 28
7 ‘Artists Resemble Magicians’ (A personal view) 29
8 The Mythology of the Arts Influences the Economy of the Arts 30
9 Conclusion 32
2 The Denial of the Economy
Why Are Gifts to the Arts Praised, While Market Incomes Remain
Suspect? 34
1 The Arts Depend on Gifts and Trade 38
2 The Amount of Donations and Subsidies is Exceptional 40
3 ‘Art that is Given Must not be Sold’ 42
4 ‘The Market Devalues Art’ 44
5 The Arts Need the High Status of the Gift Sphere 46
6 The Economy in the Arts Is Denied and Veiled 47
7 A Dual Economy Requires Special Skills 48
8 Conclusion 50
5
3 Economic Value Versus Aesthetic Value
Is There Any Financial Reward for Quality? 52
1 Aesthetic Value and Market Value Differ in Definition 55
2 ‘In the Market there is no Reward for Quality’ 56
3 Values are Shared 58
4 There is No Such Thing as a Pure Work of Art 60
5 Buyers Influence Market Value and Experts Aesthetic Value 62
6 Power Differences Rest on Economic, Cultural and Social
Capital 64
7 In Mass Markets Quality and Sales Easily Diverge 66
8 The Strife for Cultural Superiority in the Visual Arts (An
Example) 67
9 The Power of Words Challenges the Power of Money 69
10 The Government Transforms Cultural Power into Purchasing
Power 70
11 Donors and Governments Know Best 73
12 Market Value and Aesthetic Value Tend to Converge in the Long
Run 74
13 Conclusion 76
4 The Selflessly Devoted Artist
Are Artists Reward-Oriented? 78
1 The Selfless Artist is Intrinsically Motivated 81
2 Rewards Serve as Inputs 83
3 Artists are Faced with a Survival Constraint 85
4 Autonomy is Always Relative 87
5 Intrinsic Motivation Stems from Internalization 88
6 Habitus and Field 90
7 Selfless Devotion and the Pursuit of Gain Coincide 92
8 Artists Differ in Their Reward-Orientation 94
9 Types and Sources of Rewards Matter to Artists 96
10 Three Examples of Orientation Towards Government Rewards in
the Netherlands 99
11 Conclusion 101
5 Money for the Artist
Are Artists Just Ill-Informed Gamblers? 103
1 Incomes in the Arts are Exceptionally High 106
2 Art Markets are Winner-Takes-All Markets 107
3 People Prefer Authenticity and are Willing to Pay for It 110
4 Incomes in the Arts are Exceptionally Low 111
5 Five Explanations for the Low Incomes Earned in the Arts 113
6 TABLE OF CONTENTS
6 Artists are Unfit for ‘Normal’ Jobs 115
7 Artists are Willing to Forsake Monetary Rewards 116
8 Artists are Over-Confident and Inclined to Take Risks 117
9 Artists are Ill-Informed 119
10 Conclusion 122
6 Structural Poverty
Do Subsidies and Donations Increase Poverty? 124
1 Artists Have Not Always Been Poor 126
2 The Desire to Relieve Poverty in the Arts Led to the Emergence of
Large-Scale Subsidization 128
3 Low Incomes are Inherent to the Arts 129
4 The Number of Artists Adjusts to Subsidy Levels 131
5 Subsidies in the Netherlands Have Increased the Number of Artists
Without Reducing Poverty 132
6 Subsidies Are a Signal that Governments Take Care of Artists 136
7 Subsidies and Donations Intended to Alleviate Poverty Actually
Exacerbate Poverty 137
8 Low-priced Education Signals that it is Safe to Become an
Artist 140
9 Social Benefits Signal that it is Safe to Become an Artist 141
10 Artists Supplement Incomes with Family Wealth and Second
Jobs 143
11 Artists Reduce Risks by Multiple Jobholding 144
12 Artists Could be Consumers rather than Producers 146
13 Is there an Artist ‘Oversupply’ or are Low Incomes Compensated
For? 147
14 Conclusion 149
7 The Cost Disease
Do Rising Costs in the Arts Make Subsidization Necessary? 152
1 ‘Artistic Quality Should Remain the Aspiration, Regardless of the
Costs’ 154
2 ‘The Arts are Stricken by a Cost Disease’ 156
3 Technical Progress has Always been a Part of the Arts 158
4 There is no True Performance 160
5 The Taboo on Technical Innovation in Classical Music is a Product
of the Times 162
6 The Cost Disease Contributes to Low Incomes while Internal Subsidization
Contains the Cost Disease 164
7 There is no Limit to the Demand for Works of Art 167
8 Changing Tastes Can Also Cause Financial Problems 169
TABLE OF CONTENTS 7
9 Pop Music has Attractive Qualities that Classical Music Lacks 171
10 Subsidies and Donations Exacerbate the Cost Disease 174
11 Conclusion 178
8 The Power and the Duty to Give
Why Give to the Arts? 181
1 Donors Receive Respect 183
2 Donors Have Influence and are Necessarily Paternalistic 186
3 Art Sublimates Power and Legitimizes the Donor’s Activities 188
4 Gifts Turn into Duties 191
5 Donations and Subsidies are Embedded in Rituals 193
6 Artists Give and Pay Tribute 194
7 Family and Friends Subsidize Artists 197
8 Private Donors Give to Street Artists as well as to Prestigious Art
Institutions 199
9 Corporations and Private Foundations Support Art 200
10 Conclusion 201
9 The Government Serves Art
Do Art Subsidies Serve the Public Interest or Group Interests? 203
1 Art Subsidies Need Reasons 206
2 ‘Art Subsidies are Necessary to Offset Market Failures’ 208
3 ‘Art has Special Merits and must be Accessible to Everyone’ 210
4 The Merit Argument has been Used Successfully 211
5 ‘Government Must Help Poor Artists’ 213
6 ‘Art is Public and the Government Must Intervene to Prevent Underproduction’
215
7 ‘Art Contributes to Economic Welfare and so Must be
Supported’ 218
8 ‘Society Needs a Reserve Army of Artists and must therefore
Support Art’ 219
9 Government Distorts Competition in the Arts 221
10 Self-Interest Hides Behind Arguments for Art Subsidies 224
11 The Art world Benefits from Subsidies 225
12 The Government is under Pressure to Subsidize the Arts 227
13 Conclusion 230
8 TABLE OF CONTENTS
10 Art Serves the Government
How Symbiotic Is the Relationship between Art and the State? 232
1 Governments Have Interests and Tastes 234
2 Art Appears to be Less Serviceable than it was during Monarchical
Times 237
3 European Governments Carried on the Former Patronage 240
4 Veiled Display Serves Social Coherence 242
5 The Cultural Superiority of the Nation Needs Display 244
6 Government Taste Serves Display 248
7 Governments are Willing to Support the Arts 250
8 An Arts Experts Regime Harmonizes Government and Art World
Interests 252
9 Conclusion 254
Appendix: Differences between Government Involvement in the
Arts in the us and in Europe 255
11 Informal Barriers Structure the Arts
How Free or Monopolized Are the Arts? 259
1 In other Professions Barriers Inform Consumers, Restrain Producers
and Limit Competition 262
2 The Arts Resist a Formal Control of Numbers of Artists 263
3 In the Past Numbers of Artists were Controlled 265
4 Granting Certificates to Commercial Galleries in the Netherlands
(An Example) 267
5 Characteristics of Informal Barriers 268
6 Informal Barriers Protect Collective Reputations 271
7 Innovations in the Arts are Protected and Indirectly Rewarded 272
8 The Arts are Structured and Developments are Controlled 274
9 The Risks of Some are Reduced at the Expense of Others 276
10 Conclusion 277
12 Conclusion: a Cruel Economy
Why Is the Exceptional Economy of the Arts so Persistent? 280
1 The Economy of the Arts is an Exceptional Economy 282
2 Despite the Many Donations and Subsidies Incomes are Low in the
Arts 283
3 A Grim Picture has been Drawn 284
4 Winners Reproduce the Mystique of the Arts 287
5 Society Needs a Sacred Domain 289
6 Future Scenarios with More or Less Subsidization 291
TABLE OF CONTENTS 9
Epilogue: the Future Economy of the Arts
Is this Book’s Representation of the Economy of the Arts
Outdated? 295
1 Signs of a Less Exceptional Economy of the Arts 295
2 Artists with New Attitudes Enter the Scene (1) 298
3 Artists with new Attitudes Enter the Scene (2) 300
4 ‘Art Becomes Demystified as Society Becomes More Rational’ 301
5 ‘Borders in and Around the Arts Disappear’ 303
6 ‘New Techniques, Mass Consumption and Mass Media Help
Demystify the Arts’ 306
Notes 311
Literature 349
Index of Names 361
Index of Subjects 365
10 TABLE

The changing social-economic position of the arts

The Art Period, on the changing social-economic position of the arts - provisional TOC and summary of forthcoming book
Abbing - Draft TOC of book The Art Period - June 2016.docx 6/21/2016
Extended draft table of contents (and “summary”). Publication date of the book: 2018 (or earlier).
A draft of Part III Rejection of Commerce in the Arts is now (also) available on:
https://amsterdam.academia.edu/HansAbbing
Hans Abbing (hansabbing@gmail.com)
THE ART PERIOD. On the changing social‐economic position of the arts.
(The, what I call, “art period” is the period from the middle of the nineteenth century till circa 1980. Typical for the period is that art is
serious, much respected and exclusive, and that commerce is rejected. Presently there is a process of re-commercialization; art
remains attractive but there is less respect for art.)
Part I THE TRIUMPH OF SERIOUS ART
1. The art period and the art ethos
1. Introduction. The art period and the art ethos
2. There is much respect for art.
3. Respect for art is widely shared. Disrespect is punished.
4. Geniuses, masterpieces, celebrations and magnificent buildings mark the greatness of art
5. Now respect for art is no longer self‐evident. Public support for art goes down.
2. Autonomous and Useful
1. Aside: On the non‐existing intrinsic value and the inevitable usefulness of art.
2. Art and artists have an exceptional and high social status in a unified world of art.
3. In an art environment artworks are increasingly appreciated for themselves
4. Markets continue to contribute to an expansion of art consumption and the autonomy of artists
5. Markets continue to contribute to the development of art and the social status of artists
6. Art continues to be used for decorative, recreational, political and economic purposes [and artists often agree].
7. Artistic autonomy is a privilege as well as right.
8. Over time the notion of artistic autonomy changes. This has an impact on the kind of freedom artists have.
3. In Search for One’s Self and for the Sublime.
1. Individual expression in art is much appreciated
2. Art brings enchantment in a dis‐enchanted world
3. Bourgeois long for freedom and authenticity, and they search for a self. Artists are thought to be authentic individuals.
4. Art consumption contributes to the construction and expression of personal and group identities
5. Art serves the exploration as well as the sublimation of hidden desires and emotions
4. A Serious Art Setting in Concert Halls, Theatres and Art Museums
1. Aside: A classical music concert and a pop concert
2. Subdued behavior is typical for art performances and art museums
2
3. Ambience, formal behavior and protocol can contribute to an attractive atmosphere
4. Distractions and interferences with performance and exhibition are taboo
5. Restraint, modesty and impersonality are virtues. Together art lovers want to be alone with art.
6. The arts have lost much of their identity making quality to the popular arts. [Now popular art consumption contributes
most to the construction and expression of personal and group identities]
5. Authenticity, Aura and Authorship
1. “Artists and artworks must be authentic”
2. Unique artworks have authority and aura
3. “The artist is in the work.” The symbolic value of authorship is extremely high.
4. An obsession with correct attribution and authorship
5. People want to know which is the genuine work. Much money is spend on the restauration and preservation of art
6. Music performances must be authentic
7. Contributions by others are not acknowledged. Creative artists find it hard to collaborate.
8. Over the last decades artists have lost their monopoly on creativity and authenticity.
Part II BOUNDARIES AND BARRIERS, INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION
6. Separation of Art and Entertainment
1. Art becomes serious. Classics replace contemporary, fashionable and entertaining art
2. Classification, insulation and an art setting define art. Uncivilized behavior and mixtures of art and entertainment become
taboo.
3. Nonprofits enable the separation of art and entertainment and contribute to de‐commercialization of the arts.
4. Vulgar “inferior” and popular art are removed.
5. Reproduced art is put down.
6. At home the boundary between art and entertainment is weak.
7. In public space art worlds control only part of art.
8. Now educated people increasingly consume popular music, popular visual art, musical, cabaret and film —but not as art.
9. Borders Fade
7. Exclusion and Inclusion
1. The family of art is cultured, well‐to‐do, educated and white.
2. The exclusion of other social and ethnic groups among audiences is persistent and not experienced as a problem. Artisticquality
comes first.
3. Lower class people are thought to be inferior or incompetent
4. “Others” are excluded on the basis of their appearance. High prices contribute to exclusion.
5. Various pricing policies foremost serve inclusion and exclusion
6. Much exclusion is informal and automatic.
7. The absence of alternative settings contributes to exclusion.
3
8. Education and art subsidies are used to disseminate art among lower social groups.
9. The attempts of the labor movement and leftist artists to democratize art are not supported by their art worlds
10. Difficult art, intellectualization and a discourse of familiarity contribute to exclusion.
8. The Purchase of Exclusivity
1. What do people “buy” when they purchase art? Among others they buy membership in various distinguished groups.
2. Distinction still matters
3. Art is becoming less useful for the domination of lower social groups
4. For the very rich the possession of expensive artworks continues to be attractive
Part III REJECTION OF COMMERCE
9. Disapproval of Art being for Sale
1. “Art is too precious and personal to be sold.”
2. “Artworks must not be interchangeable. Economic value must not stand for quality.”
3. In the arts a culture of giving exists.
4. Commerce and the commodity nature of much art is veiled. The badness of exchange is compensated by good deeds.
10. Rejection of Commercialism and Compromise
1. Artists did not always reject making “commercial” art and marketing their work.
2. “Artists must not give in to consumer wishes and compromise” The line between profit‐for‐art and profit‐not‐for‐art is
thin. Artists are easily accused of being commercial.
3. To prevent shaming artists veil making also commercial art, accept a low standard of living, have “innocent” second jobs
and take no commissions.
4. Artists cannot ignore consumer demand. Many negotiate to maximize their autonomous space. Autonomy and voice may
well conflict.
5. Aside: Market demand influences artistic choices in litle noticed ways.
6. “Demands of donors and sponsors must not influence artistic choices.”
7. Marketing and self‐branding by artists is taboo.
8. A restrained cultural entrepreneurship is now acceptable and promoted. A commercial logic infiltrates the art ethos. A
commercial logic infiltrates the art ethos. Criticism revives.
11. Worries about Market Forces and a Commercial Culture
1. “Art must be free.” “It cannot be privately owned.” “It is sacred.”
2. “Art has special merits.” Subsidization can contribute to low prices that enable and persuade people to consume art.
Economists plead for price discrimination rather than low prices for everybody.
3. “Public goods and external effects in the arts require public funding and subsidies.” Many economists demand restraint
and recommend marketization.
4. There is re‐commercialization in the arts. The new critics of commerce fear that this will have similar negative effects as
exist in the popular arts.
5. “A culture industry produces dumbing popular art.” Along with changes in capitalism and a re‐commercialization in the
arts the criticism of commerce revives.
4
6. Commerce contributes to the reproduction and amplification of capitalist and neo‐liberal values by ar, but this does not
stop protests. The arts loose their exceptional position.
7. Aside: are claims of little diversity, triviality and manipulation in the popular arts justified?
8. Aside: Thanks to commerce the popular arts are relatively democratic. All social groups have access to popular music
consumption and production. The recycling of styles gives consumers time to “learn” art.
Part IV ART WORLD AUTHORITY AND ARTISTS
12. New Art Worlds
1. Governance in the worlds of art was formal and becomes not‐formal.
2. New style art worlds govern only part of art production. The art ethos facilitates the attuning of judgments and actions.
3. Art worlds define and guarantee artistic‐quality.
4. Art worlds conserve art and keep up tradition [by promoting classic works].
5. Art worlds guard progress in art
6. Art worlds demand unity. Conflicts are solved.
7. Aside: Two major conflicts in the twentieth century; one in the visual arts, the other in classical music
8. An uneasy relationship exists between consumers and other art world participants.
9. Over the last decades art world authority goes down
13. Financial Support of Art and Art worlds.
1. Introduction. Support is extensive. Artists and art companies also “support” art.
2. Supporting art brings good feelings. Various justifications for public support are presented. Aims and effects differ.
3. Support is thought to counter commerce, protect autonomy and promote innovation. In the US rich donors are best
trusted; in Europe governments.
4. Governments, foundations and corporations strengthen art worlds by facilitating recognition processes.
5. Aside: Support is never for free.
6. Conclusions. Over the last decades governments no longer cover cost increases. In relation to the size of the population
public support goes down.
14. Promotion of Classics. Commerce and the Balance of Power in Art Worlds
1. Art worlds promote extreme winners.
2. Art worlds care about the correspondence between quality and market‐success. Rich consumers are best trusted to go for
artistic‐quality.
3. Due to a successful attuning of judgments in art worlds] Art worlds are successful in keeping market‐success broadly in
line with artistic‐quality. There is more correspondence than in the popular arts.
4. Consumer choices matter for artistic developments.
5. Art worlds are more commercial than they appear to be.
6. Art worlds are successful in restraining commercial companies. This also applies to classical music, but less so to
literature.
7. Art worlds differ in strength. Vested interests and much support weaken the classical music art world].
5
8. Art worlds are becoming openly commercial. They believe to be still in control of commerce and this increases their
vulnerability.
15. Many Artists, Few Rewards
1. The “willingness” of artists to work for low incomes increases during the art period. A majority of artists earns very little
and a large proportion is poor.
2. The typical artist comes from a well‐to‐do family. The typical artist has second jobs.
3. State controlled and increasingly expensive professional art education contributes to the underrepresentation of ethnic
and lower class social groups among artists.
4. The number of artists increases much during the art period. Developments in the demand for art and in subsidies have an
impact on the income and number of artists, but the relation is far from straightforward.
5. The arts profession is very attractive. Artists are thought to be free.
6. Artists have a special status.
7. Deciding to become artist youngsters go with the flow while imagining profound rewards.
8. Being‐artist is a self‐declared state which needs confirmation.
9. Art world recognition offers confirmation of being a real artist. Artists long for recognition. Many passively wait to be
“discovered”.
10. Having voice is important for artists. A lack of voice causes distress.
11. Recognition and income are prerequisites for autonomy, self‐realization and voice. A lack of these and high art world
demands cause distress.
12. Poverty in the arts causes hardship. Artists are privileged but not well off.
13. Artists are not “compensated”. Due to a forceful art ethos not many artists leave the arts.
14. The inner‐art world exploitation of artists is considerable and growing.
SOMETHING GAINED, SOMETHING LOST (Conclusion and Discussion)
1. Is the art period coming to a close?
2. A more view on commerce in the arts and popular arts is called for. The arts can learn much from the popular arts
3. Among artists “activism” increase: Artists become more entrepreneurial and more critical.

REJECTION OF COMMERCE IN THE ARTS

REJECTION OF COMMERCE IN THE ARTS (draft of Part 3 of The Art Period book)

Abbing - Rejection of Commerce - Draft of Part III of book The Art Period - June 2016.docx 6/21/2016
REJECTION OF COMMERCE IN THE ARTS (IN THE ART PERIOD)
Hans Abbing, hansabbing@gmail.com, Emeritus Professor University of Amsterdam Draft June 2016 If you want to refer to this text please include “draft June 2016” in the reference. If you want to distribute the text or distribute links that give access to the text, please inform me first . PLEASE NOTE - That this is a draft version. The final version is likely to be very different (and, if possible, shorter) - That
comments are very welcome
; also if they were to lead to more sentences in specific sections. -
That the final text will be thoroughly edited and that the English will be corrected.
The text below is Part III Rejection of Commerce of my forthcoming book:
THE ART PERIOD. On the changing social economic position of the arts
(2018 and maybe earlier).

The book will consist of four parts and a conclusion:
THE ART PERIOD. On the changing social economic position of the arts

Part I
THE TRIUMPH OF SERIOUS ART
Part II
BOUNDARIES AND BARRIERS. INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION
Part III
REJECTION OF COMMERCE
Part IV
ART WORLD AUTHORITY AND ARTISTS

SOMETHING GAINED, SOMETHING LOST (
Conclusion and Discussion)


2
Part III REJECTION OF COMMERCE IN THE ARTS
[INTRO]
In the nineteenth century a process of de-commercialization accompanies the beginning of the art period. In spite of the fact that markets and commerce in the arts have clearly contributed to the triumph of art in art circles a rejection of commerce and commercialism becomes common. Whereas most art markets in the eighteenth century are overtly commerce-driven and the pursuit of profit comes first, now the a-commercial part of art worlds start to grow at the cost of the commercial part of art worlds. The majority of commerce-dedicated participants is expelled.*
1
Signposts of the de-commercialization are the newly established nonprofit art institutions. Participation in the ever larger a-commercial part of art worlds is, however, not limited to people in nonprofits; also many people in *lawful for profits participate: foremost creative artists and people in for profit ensembles, but also dealers, people in small publishing houses and so forth. They all start to adhere to an art ethos. Nevertheless, closer examination learns that in the background behavior in the art-dedicated parts of art worlds is often guided by a more or less commercial logic, but this is veiled. Therefore art worlds are largely
a-commercial
(or anti-commercial) rather than non-commercial.
Presently, there is a process of re-commercialization going on and a commercial logic is becoming more important again in the arts. A commercial logic infiltrates the art ethos. Even the management of nonprofits are openly applying more commercial techniques and adapt a far more commercial logic. Cultural entrepreneurship among artists also exemplifies a re-commercialization. What is particularly striking is that the de facto re-commercialization is accepted by most art world participants. There is however a reaction. Among groups of artists, art lovers and art theorists the rejection of commerce in the arts is becoming stronger again. These groups represent what I shall call
the new critics of commerce
. Conservative new critics foremost oppose that artists become cultural entrepreneurs. And the leftist new critics, unlike the old, now also distrust large nonprofits and art world establishments. They also fear that present unregulated capitalism and thus neo-liberalism increasingly get a hold on the arts. We will come across this contemporary split in mindsets —a majority going along and some going against the re-commercialization of the arts— again and again in this part of the book. It is typical for the forthcoming end of the art period and the weakening or changing art ethos.
In these paragraphs I have used the term commerce, commercial and commercialization in a broad or metaphoric sense. Further down I will clarify the concepts and the ways they are used. This is the more necessary because in art worlds the discourse about commerce is often fuzzy. When criticizing commerce art world people tend to use the terms in different meanings often without being aware of this. Therefore it is often not clear what it exactly is that they criticize. Therefore I will use this part of the book also to disentangle the criticism. Reading old and new texts and listening during a period of 50 years to artists and to people working in nonprofits, it appears that there are three main groups of criticism. First, the very fact that art must be sold and so becomes commensurate is experienced as unwanted —this is the topic of the first chapter. Second, commercialism is rejected: artists must not market their art, they must not pursue profit in the form of money or non-financial rewards, and they must not compromise by pleasing consumers —this is the topic of the following chapter. And third, art world people worry about more general market forces in a market economy or more specifically the forces within a capitalist and neo-liberal economy —this is the topic of the last chapter.
1
For the way the term art world is used in this book see **

3
The worlds of art and money are thought to be hostile worlds.
I use the remainder of this introduction to say more about this phenomenon, a phenomenon that matters for all three following chapters. In the art period the denunciation of commerce, markets (or
the
market) and commercialism are important symbols of membership in art worlds. Putting them down brings feelings of solidarity. This befits the a-commercial or anti-commercial nature of art worlds. In conversations the general praise of art almost always goes together with a rejection of commerce in the arts. This applies to conversations about art between artists in a local pub, between art lovers during an opening reception in a gallery as well as to that of construction workers during their lunch hour: “Art and money do not go together”, or “Money corrupts art”. It also happens that people raise their status within their own art circle by putting down commerce in the arts. This is what for instance directors of art institutions do when they exhibit a non-committal denunciation of commerce —and even more so when they succeed in combining it with an anti-capitalist stance. In such cases the terms money, commerce, markets,
the
market, commodity and commodification are often used in a metaphoric sense. For instance, whereas commerce in its proper economic sense refers to trade, in its metaphoric use it refers to far more than just trade: it can, for instance, also stand for a pursuit of profit or for the use of much marketing. Also terms like money, markets,
the
market, commodity and commodification are often used in a metaphoric sense. (In this book the sense in which the terms are used will usually be clear from the context. Otherwise I will make it clear, for instance by putting terms in between inverted commas when they are used in a metaphoric sense.) The notion that that the world of money and the world of art are hostile spheres and a belief that the former can harm art has to be taken seriously. It can be found not only among artists and art lovers, but also among eminent thinkers and critics like Georg Simmel, Max Weber, Arnold Hauser, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Peter Bürger and Robert Hughes.
2
Also some economists, like Arjo Klamer, adhere to the notion.
3
(But many economists disagree and sometimes explicitly “praise” an orientation on markets and a commercial culture, as for instance Tyler Cowen does.
4
) How loaded with negative value the things are that “money” stands for, shows from the evident confusion among some artists between real money and “money” as a concept symbolizing all sorts of evil, from commerce and the pursuit of profit to compromise, corruption, a market economy and capitalism. Otherwise it is hard to explain that all through the art period and most of all after the middle of the twentieth century artists come up with proposals that serve the goal of getting rid of money, and put much energy in the development of systems of exchange without a currency (foremost barter, which look sympathetic but, when applied on a large scale, is altogether unpractical.[
?]^
5
^
6
Or (presently) they go for crowd-funding —which makes sense—, while emphasizing that this is a form of non-monetary exchange —which is not true.

Artists anyway can be said to have a problem with money and “money”. The fact that over the last hundred years many visual artists made artworks that involve money indicates this. Often paper money or the reproduction of paper money are part of work of arts. From *Warhol to *.*
7
→→
2
(Velthuis, 2005b) 24-25. Given the various ways in which these people interpret the “hostility”, the phrase hostile worlds refers to more than just the supposed incompatibility at the level of the actual exchange of goods for money as opposed to other forms of exchange, a phenomenon which Zelizer * analyzed.,(She is known for her examination of hostile spheres.)
3
(Klamer, 1996)
4
“In Praise of Commercial Culture” is the title of a book by the economist Tyler Cowen —(Cowen, 1998).
5

[Give HERE in NOTE or in section gifts past examples of designed moneyless systems [ASK Olav]]

6
Other than artists sometimes think: barter on a regular basis differs little from exchange in which a currency is used. See also s. *[=s “not for sale”]
7
Cf. (Velthuis, 2005a)

4
We now live in turbulent times. On the one hand there are successful and rich artists whose comments on money, “money” and the “world of money” or the “world of finance” are ironic and not critical, or the supposedly critical stance is insincere.
[HERE and/or in s covering up]
An example is Hirst’s
For the love of God
, a skull covered with diamonds worth $ 26 million is ironic and certainly not critical. On the other hand artworks —visual art, performances, books and movies— express worries about financial practices in contemporary society.
Often the works are activist and not naively idealistic; sometimes they are cynical, sometimes funny and often both.
{Also in s. sponsoring, s. hostile spheres and/or s. art serves decorative and recreational purposes SYNC}
For instance, in 2015 artists tossed large amounts of fake money from the stairs of the Tate Modern museum in London to protest against the fact that the museum let itself be sponsored by BP, a company which is thought to white wash (or “artwash”) its ecologically detrimental activities by sponsoring art.
The rejection of “commerce” also shows from a rejection of economics and the use of economic terms which would otherwise be hard to explain.
During the last forty years I gave talks for established art lovers. Partly to provoke them and to make them “think”, I often used economic terms, like art consumer, art product and niche-market. I noticed that this is painful for art lovers. They also get irritated. (Art lovers can be very sensitive.) It happened twice that after having given a talk a listener approached me and asked if I was aware that I used these terms so often; and next told me that these terms do not befit art. I should not use them. For art lovers such terms bring art down. The reader of this book will by now have got used to the terms, but it is well possible that the first times he read them he as well experienced this as unpleasant.
1. Disapproval of Art being for Sale