Originals and Fakes

One of the reasons why people are hesitant to invest in paintings, especially Chinese paintings, is a huge amount of fakes in the market. Most fakes look like fakes for professional eyes but not all of them. Recent steep appreciation of Chinese paintings has brought some new criteria to detect fakes, even for non-professional eyes.
When the original costs US$10,000 and reasonably evaluated while a really good fake is offered at US$1,000 - 5,000. There is a high possibility for you to buy the fake one and you think you had saved U$$5,000 - 9,000 or at least you think you made a good buy. However when the original costs US$100,000 and reasonably evaluated while a really good fake is offered at US$10,000 - 50,000, or when the original costs US$500,000 and reasonably evaluated while a really good fake is offered at US$50,000 - 250,000, you will surely be very careful to pay US$10,000 - 250,000, which is not small amount any more for most general personal investors or art lovers and collectors.

US$100,000 - 500,000 paintings are more likely exhibited at a expensive place with much care where the rent is high. If the paintings of this price range are exhibited at a cheep place with little care it is highly likely that they are fake. Some originals exceed US$1,000,000 now. Fake makers and dealers may not try these very expensive ones as many eyes see them.

On the other hand the sellers of fake paintings (seemingly syndicated) have been more careful to sell as the social pressure has become heavy, taking higher risk of heavy penalty or hopefully feeling higher sense of guilty. Greedy people always exist so that still there is a chance for the fake sellers to survive but it seems getting more and more difficult recently.


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Cubism

Cubism paintings famously represented by Picasso paintings are still highly and expensively appreciated even today after roughly one century has passed when this artistic movement emerged. This is mostly because of the originality to change the western oil paintings. To put 3D world into 2D world (paintings) was not new as the the techniques of perspective was invented several centuries before, and which was fairly scientific. Then what was new with Cubism? There are many answers to this question. One of the answers will be freedom, free from the conventional perspective

Painting is very restricted due to its 2D nature. Very 2D like paintings with no perspective technique like most oriental painting and ancient or middle age western paintings were not so dimension conscious as what was very important is (oriental paintings) and was (middle age western paintings) the spirit which a painting convey(ed). After the introduction of perspective the visual effects have become important, which may have related with less religious spiritual movement later on. Cubism can be considered to have brought one of new technique to make new visual effects, different from those which the conventional perspective can do. A cube is a 3D object but Cubism was not simply a new type of 3D making technique by paiting many cube-like objects on a canvas.

2D is very restrictive no matter how you use techniques of making 3D like image such perspective or depicting many cubes on a canvas.  3D itself , on the other hand, has a lot of freedom, not restricted within the so call 3D (length, width and height) but all possible 3 dimensions outside 2D world, which may be freely distorted angle wise or cannot be seen by eyes (can be expressed in this case?). Quite a freedom. Who first noticed or discovered this freedom, again not in terms of the ordinary dimensions, but completely free from 2D ? Not painters but highly likely mathematician(s) who liked real freedom. Because of this freedom Cubism painters freely went far from the 2D restrictions (although still physically restricted in 2D due to the painting 2D nature) and even from the conventional perspective derived 3D like images.


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Originals or Prints

Because of the rapid nature of making traditional Chinese paintings (ink with water on Chinese paper) millions or even billions of original paintings can be produced each year. This is not an exaggeration. Supposing that just one out of 1,000 people has a tendency to like to paint (by using ink with water on Chinese paper) and produces just 4 paintings in 1-2 hours a day (quite easy unless the size of paper is relatively large), he/she makes more than 1,000 paining a year even taking some holidays.  And the population of  China is over 1.3 billions. Even very high quality ones made by famous painters or those having good techniques but not famous in some reasons can be produced in thousands or some ten or hundred thousands every year. It is a great advantage for Chinese people to appreciate high quality original paintings with ease. Now the prices of the original Chinese paintings made by well known painters (no matter whether they are really goods or not) are quite expensive and seem to be over-evaluated contrast to the prices in 20-30 years ago - definitely under-evaluated.  Due to the mass production nature it is the fact that even famous painters occasionally produced not very good ones or failures, which they did not destroyed and have been circulated in the market because of their names. Meanwhile the printing technology has improved a lot in China recently so very good quality prints of famous paintings of famous painters are available at very affordable prices. You can enjoy these prints but with some unsatisfactory feeling as these are not original. Why not try original ones of painters not so famous or unknown at all but high quality ones from a technical point of view or very good ones by your own standard and preference. These are also affordable for economically ordinary people. Original ones definitely differ from prints.


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