At the top of this page I present to you two paintings. The painting on the left is a piece created by one of the most highly acclaimed artists of the 20th century, Barnett Newman. The original painting stands 18 feet tall and 8 feet wide. It is made up of three vertical strips, one blue, one red, and again one blue. In 1992, the National Gallery of Canada paid 1.8 million dollars of taxpayer's money for this piece. On the right are two companion pieces created by an unknown artist. This artist has depicted a traditional bull-fighting scenario lovingly created on the unforgiving medium known as black velvet. If you hurry, you may be able to purchase these pieces on Ebay for roughly ten dollars.

As an aspiring web columnist I'm sure you would be surprised to know that I have never been an active patron of the arts. Sure I've seen pictures of renowned pieces of art such as the Mona Lisa, Whistler's Mother, Andy Warhol's big ass Campbell soup can, as well as many others. But when I look at Barnett's "Voice of Fire" a lot of knee jerk reactions instinctively enter my mind. 1.8 million dollars!? 1.8 million dollars?! 1.8 million dollars for this painting which to me looks like an interpretive piece on a section of an airport landing strip. 1.8 million dollars for a painting that could have easily been recreated by an orangutan with a limited concept of symmetry, a paintbrush, and the promise of a banana as a reward. Now before my mailbox is flooded with emails from art lovers across the planet chastising me for my philistine view of a great work of art, typing angrily on their keyboards with their beret's firmly clenched between their teeth, let me finish.

I think to myself. There has to be a reason. There has to be a reason why this painting costs so much. A business or in this case an art galley does not just plunk down 1.8 million buckaroos for a canvas unless there is a logical motive behind it. Is it because it's so big? Is it because it's been painted on very expensive canvas or been created with acrylic paints hand mixed exclusively by blind Tibetan monks? Or maybe the difficulty of moving such a large painting factors into the cost? I do not know the answers to these questions, so I take it upon myself to do some research about the artist and try to get some information that can help me reach some logical conclusion.

After hours and hours of exhausting web research, I found a lot of information about Barnett Newman. First of all he's dead. Not to sound cold, but anyone with some familiarity of the world of art knows that any artists paintings will increase in value once they've gone to that great big canvas in the sky. He was also known as one of the great abstract expressionist's and minimalists of his day. It's been said that his work on "Voice of Fire" and his other paintings of similar style, revolutionized the use of colour and spacing. Well that's good too. If he was one of the pioneers of an art movement and inspired other artists to create in that same style it would be a wise investment to have a painting that was created by one of the originals. I find out a lot more things about him. He was a very prolific writer as well who wrote essays, letters, and was very outspoken about what his art means to him and what he was trying to get across. I think about all this new information I've found out about Barnett Newman, his background, his work and then I scroll back up and take another look at the picture of "Voice of Fire." I still don't think it's worth all that money and I think it's boring.

I'm sorry that's just the way I feel. I know one of the purposes of art is to garner some kind of emotional reaction. But I look at that painting and all can think of is racing stripes. Very expensive racing stripes. I know that I'm right. I know that painting is not worth all the dollar bills it took to put it in that art gallery and you cannot tell me I'm wrong. I'll tell you another thing as well. The person who visits the art gallery and spends over two hours sitting in front of it, admiring the piece for all of the beauty it posses and French kisses the curator on the way out in gratitude for giving this person the opportunity to see the piece in person. That person's opinion is right too and there's no way in hell I can tell that person they're wrong. Why? Because art is so unbelievably subjective that no one has the right to disavow anyone's opinion of it. Art only works on an individual basis. I hate it, you don't. I'm right and you're right. Who knows, maybe over time I'll grow and somehow find it appealing, but right now I couldn't care less. Now if you'll excuse me I have to check back and see if anyone's outbid me for those bullfighter paintings.

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