Artistic Capital

by Galenson; David

• ISBN13: 9780415701709
• ISBN10: 0415701708
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-01-24
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

At what stage of their careers do great artists produce their most important work? In a series of studies that bring new insights and new dimensions to the study of artistic creativity, David Galenson's new book examines the careers of more than one hundred modern painters, poets and novelists to reveal a powerful relationship between age and artistic creativity.Analyzing the careers of major literary and artistic figures, such as Cézanne, van Gogh, Dickens, Hemingway and Plath, Galenson highlights the very different methods by which artists have made innovations. Remarkably, each method is associated with a distinctive pattern of discovery over the life cycle. The book's use of simple but powerful quantitative analysis permits systematic generalization about large numbers of artists.Pointing to a new and richer history of the modern arts, this book will be of interest not only to humanists and social scientists, but to anyone interested in the nature of human creativity in general.

Author Biography

David W. Galenson is Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, USA.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	ix
Preface	xii
PART I The life cycles of modern painters: evidence from art historians	1	(84)
Quantifying artistic success: ranking French painters -- and paintings -- from Impressionism to Cubism	3	(20)
Measuring masters and masterpieces: French rankings of French painters and paintings from Realism to Surrealism	23	(23)
Was Jackson Pollock the greatest modern American painter? A quantitative investigation	46	(18)
The New York School vs. the School of Paris: who really made the most important art after World War II?	64	(21)
PART II The life cycles of modern painters: evidence from auction markets	85	(20)
The market evaluation of fine art: the case of modern painting	87	(8)
The life cycles of modern artists	95	(10)
PART III Markets and artists' behavior	105	(38)
Masterpieces and markets: why the most famous modern paintings are not by American artists	107	(19)
The reappearing masterpiece: ranking American artists and art works of the late twentieth century	126	(17)
PART IV Life cycles of artistic creativity: beyond painting	143	(100)
Literary life cycles: measuring the careers of modern American poets	145	(26)
A portrait of the artist as a young or old innovator: measuring the careers of modern novelists	171	(35)
A portrait of the artist as a very young or very old innovator: creativity at the extremes of the life cycle	206	(37)
Notes	243	(24)
References	267	(14)
Index	281