Now that you know that artwork is an important part of your home’s décor (be sure to read my last blog post if you don’t know what I’m talking about) I think it’s important to know some basics of the types of art you will find out in the world. 

If I asked you what type of art the image of the tortoise above is, would you know? You will by the time you finish reading this blog post!

This is actually a huge topic but basically there are two types of art you can purchase: originals or prints.

Original Art

Original art is created by the artist directly – their hands have been in contact with the materials and each work is one-of-a-kind. Because they are unique, they will cost the most. Depending on the size of the work and the popularity of the artist, prices can range from single digits to hundreds of millions of dollars!

The reason works of art can fetch such high prices is because they are originals – completely unique, one of a kind. Works that were created by artists that are no longer living will generally be worth more than when they were alive since there is a finite amount of their work, so the value goes up. 

Below is a painting attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci that currently is the highest priced painting ever purchased. There is tremendous controversy over whether or not it was actually done by Da Vinci, but nevertheless, someone was willing to pay $475.4 million dollars for it!

Leonardo Da Vinci  Salvator Mundi  c.1500  oil

Sold at auction for $475.4 million dollars in 2017

Within the category of original art, there are different mediums (or materials) the artist might have used. They may have used paint (oils, acrylics, watercolor, gouache, pastels, tempera, casein), pastels, charcoal, pencil, ink, collage, or any combination of these (called mixed media). This is not a complete list of artist media, but some of the most common. Here are a few examples of art done in different media.

Vincent Van Gogh  Sunflowers  1888  Oils on Canvas

Winslow Homer  Gloucester Harbor  1873  Watercolor

Edgar Degas   Three Studies of a Dancer   1883  Charcoal 

The works that I have shown above are all done by master artists during the late 19th century. While you probably won't be in the market for any of these artists, there are countless artists selling original work today, using these media, whose work you could own.

Prints

Prints are the other category of art. Within the category of prints, there are many different types and methods, but I’m just going to discuss two broad categories: limited editions and reproductions.

First off, a print is defined as an image created on one surface (often referred to as a plate or block) and transferred to another. There are many ways to do this which would be a great topic for another post!

Limited Edition Prints

Limited edition prints are the closest to original works of art. The artist has had their hands on the plate that they created to produce the print. They may have drawn, scratched or carved into it. While these prints will all come from the same plate, because they are printed by hand there may be some subtle differences from one print to another. Limited edition means that the artist will only produce a fixed number of prints and after that the plate will be destroyed. Each of these prints will be signed and numbered. In numbering a print, the artist will write a fraction with the chronological number of the print over how many are in the edition. For instance, if a print is the 6^th print pulled in an edition of twenty, the artist will write 6/20 on the front of the print. The smaller the edition, the more valuable each print will be since there are fewer of them. Generally, fine artists will create editions of anywhere from 2 - 250 prints. 

Can you see how many was in the edition of this linoleum print?

Limited edition prints can still be very expensive depending on who the artist is. This print by Picasso sold for over five million dollars at auction!

Pablo Picasso  La Femme Qui Pleure  1937 etching print 

Reproductions

The other type of print is a reproduction. These prints are generally quite removed from the original artist and are reproduced from a digital capture of the original work. The artist generally does not have any hand in the printing process beyond the creation of the original on which the reproduction is based.

There are different qualities of reproductions. Some, called “giclee”, are made with archival inks printed on a variety of possible surfaces: paper, canvas, glass, or metal. These, depending on the size, can go for hundreds to thousands of dollars. Sometimes artists will decide to only have a limited number printed, but these should not be confused with limited edition prints where the artist is a part of the physical printing process.

Lesser quality prints are also very common. You can get posters of just about any image you want. If you want to own a reproduction of the Mona Lisa, you can absolutely own that! There will be little value to it beyond the joy that it brings you, and that is a fine reason for buying a work of art.

I originally was going to also discuss where to buy art, but this post has gone kind of long, so I will save that topic for my next post. Between now and then, when you are out shopping next time, notice what types of art you might see for sale and consider what you are looking at. Is it an original? A giclee print? A limited edition print? A reproduction? What differences do you notice between the various types?

I hope you found this post informative. Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to put them in the comments below. I would love to hear from you.

Currently I have two types of art for sale on my website. I have original oil paintings and giclee prints of my digital art. Check them out here.