Marks of Opulence: The Why, When and Where of Western Art 1000–1914. Colin Platt

       Introduction

      ‘The simple truth’, wrote Philip Hamerton, ‘is that capital is the nurse and governess of the arts, not always a very wise or judicious nurse, but an exceedingly powerful one. And in the relation of money to art, the man who has money will rule the man who has art … (for) starving men are weak.’ (Thoughts about Art, 1873) Hamerton was a landscape-painter who had studied both in London and in Paris. However, it was chiefly as a critic and as the founding-editor of The Portfolio (1870–94) that he made his contribution to the arts. In 1873, Hamerton had lived through a quarter-century of economic growth: one of the most sustained booms ever recorded. He had seen huge fortunes made, and knew the power of money:

      But [he warned] for capital to support the fine arts, it must be abundant – there must be superfluity. The senses will first be gratified to the full before the wants of the intellect awaken. Plenty of good meat and drink is the first desire of the young capitalist; then he must satisfy the ardours of the chase. One or two generations will be happy with these primitive enjoyments of eating and slaying; but a day will come when the descendant and heir of these will awake into life with larger wants. He will take to reading in a book, he will covet the possession of a picture; and unless there are plenty of such men as he in a country, there is but a poor chance there for the fine arts.¹

      In mid-Victorian Britain, it was Hamerton’s industrialist contemporaries – many of them the inheritors of successful family businesses – who were the earliest patrons of the Pre-Raphaelites. A generation later, it would be American railroad billionaires and their widows who created the market for French Impressionists. ‘You’ve got a wonderful house – and another in the country’, ran a recent double-spread advertisement in a consumer magazine. ‘You’ve got a beautiful car – and a luxury four-wheel-drive. You’ve got a gorgeous wife – and she says that she loves you. Isn’t it time to spoil yourself?’² If one man’s trophy asset is a BeoVision Avant, another’s positional good is a Cézanne.

      Positional goods are assets, like Cézannes, with a high scarcity value. They appeal especially to super-rich collectors, wanting the reassurance of ‘those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves’.³ But for the fine arts to prosper generally and for new works to be commissioned, the overall economy must be healthy: ‘there must [in Hamerton’s words] be superfluity’. ‘Accept the simplest explanation that fits all the facts at your disposal’ is the principle known as Occam’s Razor. And while economic growth has never been the only condition for investment in the arts, it is (and always has been) the most necessary. Collectors pay high prices when the market is rising; even the best painters need an income to continue. It was