DIt's hard to be honest with your “artist” friend who thinks he's Van Gogh but who accumulates crusts. When you have the courage to advise him to reconsider his professional project, he retorts, with an aplomb that sows doubt in you, that Van Gogh became known after his death. Although the Dutch painter was unable to make a living from his art, his paintings now sell for millions of euros. Generous, he even promises to inscribe your name on his inheritance.
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Is your friend right to cling to what researchers call the “death effect”? In other words, is it true that after the death of an artist, a work increases in value considerably? Luc Ferry doesn't believe it. In an editorial on the subject published by Le Figarohe writes: “The truth is that, apart from a very short period and an exacerbated “modernism” specific to the 20th century alonee century, the true artists and the most authentic writers have never been marginalized, unrecognized and destitute. Picasso himself, whether we like him or not, was an incomparable star during his lifetime, richer and adored than Mick Jagger or Marilyn Monroe. »
The “death effect” on artists actually happens when they are alive
Of course the “greatest” remain in the collective memory forever. But what about other artists? Beyond feelings, researchers have tried to evaluate the effect of death on the popularity of a work. To measure popularity, they based themselves on the monetary value of the works. Economists Robert B. Ekelund and John D. Jackson, in a study of the art market, including the death effect, analyzed a unique dataset comprising 14,000 art auctions involving 80 American-born artists. before 1950. They offer us an interesting reassessment: this “death effect” would actually be more active before the artist died.
The prices of works by an artist at the end of his life would increase “before” his death. Buyers sense the end of a monopoly and rush in, anticipating the imminent cessation of production. The idea is to bet on an upcoming funeral. Charming, right? The two researchers reveal a regular rise in prices in the five years preceding the death of an artist, then a collapse in the year of his death. So if your artist friend is patiently waiting for death to do its work to drive up his prices, he may be disappointed.
In the long term, death plunges the artist further into oblivion
And what happens in the long term? A fascinating study by Letian Zhang and colleagues, spanning more than two centuries, lifts the veil on the evolution of artistic reputations between 1795 and 2020. With hard numbers in hand, they demonstrate that most artists, even those who shone like shooting stars during their lifetime, see their shine gradually fade after their death.
To arrive at these results, the researchers dove into a colossal newspaper database, analyzing 3,394 artists, from painters to composers to writers. Using “embedding” models, they tracked down the sweet or spicy words associated with their names, “brilliant”, “brilliant”, “accomplished”, “mediocre” or “forgotten”.
On average, an artist's reputation begins to decline right after their death. In the century following their death, the reputations of the artists studied decline by an entire standard deviation. This decline is observed for almost all artists, including those who were extremely famous during their lifetime.
To Discover
Kangaroo of the day
Answer
The higher we rise, the harder the fall will be. The most renowned artists experience the “greatest drop” after their death, while those who had a lesser or modest reputation experience a less steep decline. As for those who died young at the height of their creative impulse, their reputation remained stable for around forty years before sinking into oblivion. A period of grace, one might say.
Artists in their 80s are not so “lucky”: their reputation plummets almost immediately after their death. No reason to rely on artistic immortality to ensure your old age. As Jean Cocteau said so well: “The true tomb of the dead is the heart of the living. »
