Dave's Fiction Warehouse

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We all scream for ice cream

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This aftershave stings.

This aftershave stings.

On first viewing, it’s hard to say why “The Scream” is worth so much. Frankly, I’m not sure I’d want it over the mantel. You look at it, and in the back of your mind you try to beat back that cliched response to certain other expressionist or abstract works: “Um, my kid could have painted that.”

Unfortunately, my kid didn’t paint it. And somebody wanted it badly enough to bid $119 million over the phone, quickly eclipsing my own conservative estimate of $49. Now that famous painting is going out of public view and into somebody’s extremely large private home. Fine with me. Maybe art collecting isn’t my thing. Next time I get an urge to check out an example of late 19th-century expressionism, there’s always Wikipedia.

You can buy a lot of things for $119 million. At Sotheby’s in New York City, the very pinnacle of Western civilization, you can buy one Edvard Munch painting. In the same neighborhood you could buy about 400 Bentleys. Who knows what you could buy in Haiti, or Sub Saharan Africa or certain blighted areas right here in the United States? One thing’s for sure: A picture of a guy slapping his cheeks like Macauley Culkin probably isn’t real high on the wish list.

Everything is worth precisely what someone will pay for it at any given moment. This is the moment we’ve reached right now. You can see why the most recent buyer of “The Scream” might wish to remain anonymous. And if you squint at the picture, you might get an idea about why that guy is screaming.

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Comments

  1. Trish C says

    I actually love this painting! I think it captures the essence of a feeling we’ve all had at one time or another in our lives. Don’t ask me why it appeals to me. I am an optimistic, cheerful and rather Pollyanaish type person. What can I say? It just strikes a chord with me.

    • Dave Knadler says

      It’s not a bad painting. I just think the price is more a reflection of pop-culture fame than artistic significance. I have this vision of the buyer crawling naked across the desert, this painting his only possession. I’d like to see him trade it for a glass of water.

  2. John H. says

    This seems to have touched a nerve. This post goes a little beyond your usual entertaining sarcasm, Dave.

    I too feel that paying this much for any work of art is ridiculous, unless it’s actually made from $120M worth of gold or something. And you’re right, of course – that 120 mil could benefit a lot of people if spent on other things. Finally, I can’t help wondering… does the buyer know that this is only one of four versions of “The Scream”?