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Comment by jonahrd | Hacker News Reader

Think of it this way. Say you were trying to piece together the life story of Stephen Hawking. You'd be happy to come across an unknown/unpublished paper of his, which would be a new plot-point to demonstrate his intelligence and talent in a specific way that was previously unknown. Sure, it may not be his best work. It may not even be that different from other work going on at the same time. But because we are interested in Stephen Hawking's story specifically, it would still be a very valuable piece to keep track of. If you later found out it was an imposter's paper, it would be worthless.

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I think a better comparision would be a manuscript about calculus. If it was produced before Newton/Leibniz it's remarkable, otherwise well... who cares?

I would have hoped that art was more than just a puzzle-piece of historical narrative.

That's not at all comparable. The value of art is purely subjective. The only reason we're interested in (say) Giambologna at all is because his art has some ineffable subjective quality that the art of his competitors lacks --better "aesthetics" (or whatever you want to call it). So if you can't tell the difference between a Giambologna and an Arglebargle based on its aesthetics, what difference does it make whether it's a Giambologna or an Arglebargle? It's like arguing over whether Shakespeare's plays were really written by Shakespeare or by someone else with the same name.

The reason we're interested in Hawking has nothing to do with aesthetics, it has to do with science. The original works of a scientist may be of historical interest, but they are of no scientific interest. The reason we're interested in Hawking in the first place has nothing to do with the details of his original works, whereas the reason we're interested in Giambologna has everything to do with it.

People were interested in Hawking more because of his disability and public outreach efforts than his scientific papers. Most people who are interested in him can't understand his work, and the people who do understand his work have higher regard for scientists that the general public shows no interest in.

Yeah, whatever. The point is that no one is interested in Hawking because of the physical details of any artifact that he produced.

That's how it works and is why people buy reproductions. There is a huge market of reproduction. Every museum sells them in their shop.

For the original art, the main drive is its monetary value. Many piece of arts by famous artists are locked up in vaults. Not even locked up in expensive houses of the ultra rich for them to admire. In locked obscure vaults, gaining value until resold.

I guess the value of everything is purely subjective. But if you suggest the only legitimate value of art is the immediate aesthetic impression, then I disagree. The historical context is definitely part of what makes art interesting.

> I guess the value of everything is purely subjective.

No, that's not true. The value of scientific knowledge, for example, is in its power to allow us to make reliable predictions about our environment and the consequences of our actions. That's not subjective.

> The historical context is definitely part of what makes art interesting.

Sure, but the historical interest in a work of art should follow as a consequence of the (subjective) quality of the art, not the other way around. If I were to make a painting, no one would (or should) care, but not because my painting would not have an interesting historical context. It's because I have no artistic talent and any painting I would make would be a bad painting. And 500 years from now it would still be a bad painting.

To use a more realistic example: Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill were both painters, but no one remembers them for their art because it wasn't very good despite having an interesting historical context. Quality art creates an interesting historical context, no the other way around. Or at least that's how it ought to work IMHO.

"Us" and "our" are tokens of subjectivity. If "value" can be used meaningfully only if it refers to some subject, if things are only ever valuable "to me" or "to us", then value is a subjective determination. And to whomever says it is not worth to him, it is not worth to him.

Yes, all that is true, but think this through: because value is only relative to "us" then then a pre-requisite for value to exist is for "us" to exist. Being able to make reliable predictions about our environment helps us exist, i.e. helps us survive and reproduce, so that has value independent of anyone's opinion about anything.

I am not sure this is a great example, looking around online, it looks like Hitler’s paintings can sell for quite a bit.

Churchill’s also sell for quite a bit.

Sure, but it's not because anyone thinks they are great art.

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