Blue Over Red

What if your kid comes up to you one day and says, "dad, I can't decide whether to become a visual artist or a composer? What do you recommend?" Not that that is ever going to happen, of course. He or she is more likely to not even ask and to end up choosing between computer coding or marketing. Yes, these are the End Days. But supposing it did happen, you might point out that the odds of making a success of either calling is likely to be 100 to 1. Or perhaps 1,000 to 1.

I was prompted to this thought by an article in Barron's, the financial newsweekly: Mark Rothko’s ‘Blue Over Red’ Could Top $25 Million. That might be behind the paywall so you could try googling the headline. But here is the meat of it:

Mark Rothko’s Blue Over Red from 1953, a critical period during which the artist developed his signature style of abstraction, will headline a Sotheby’s contemporary art auction in New York on Nov. 14.

The painting is expected to fetch between $25 million and $35 million, and will be on public view at Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries beginning Nov. 1.

I suppose that this might be the equivalent of what, in music? An early piece by Steve Reich like Eight Lines? I don't know how much money Steve has made off that piece, but if it were more than a few thousand dollars I would be surprised. I also don't know how much money Mark Rothko made off Blue Over Red, but somebody sure has made a pile. Let me just speculate for a moment: let's say he sold the painting when it was new for, what, $10,000? $50,000? Some collector bought it and either sold it to another collector or collectors until finally it goes up for auction. The individual or group of collectors are going to make an enormous profit. Ok, fair enough.

But now consider the poor composer: not only does he make a pittance from an early commission and performances, he will also make a pittance from sales of the score by his publisher. And two or three pittances does not make much of a muchness. So how do composers make a simple living? The answer is, they don't. Stravinsky did ok for commissions early on, but that was a different time and not duplicable today. Nowadays either you have a university job teaching theory and composition for not much money, or you starve. Philip Glass, a very successful composer, had to work as a moving man, taxi-driver and plumber into his forties before he was making enough in commissions to live on.

It seems to be the case that if you create a unique purchasable object like a painting there are potentially huge gains. But if you create a piece of music, there are not. Unless, of course you are a pop diva. Weird, huh?

Here is Blue Over Red:

And here is Steve Reich's Eight Lines:

From an aesthetic point of view it is hard to see how one is worth $25,000,000 and the other is worth almost nothing.