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人はなぜ美術品を買うのか
友人との食事の場で、誰かが問い掛けた。「なぜ人は芸術品を買うのか?」と。投資のため、その作者の生活を支えるためなど、さまざまな理由が考えられるが、筆者の場合、それが身近にあることが普通という環境で育ってきたからだという。
Why buy art?
At dinner with friends recently, someone raised the question: Why buy art? There's plenty of art to be seen on TV, in books, at museums, and these days you can even download a slide show of Picassos on to your computer, he argued. So why buy the real thing?
People give vastly different reasons for purchasing art. For some, it's all about the financial investment, a wager that a certain artist's work will appreciate with time. For others, it is a sentimental souvenir of where they've been and what they know. For still others, the appeal is in the artist's technique or labor. Some purchasers choose art that matches their home's interior design. For a few, art simply penetrates down into the molten core of their imagination.
In my case, owning art was a given. My parents were artists, my grand- and great-grandparents as well, and I'll bet even my earliest ancestors doodled on cave walls. Naturally, I studied art in college, too. I never thought I'd have to pay for art; I figured I'd just inherit it or make it myself.
One day, however, to thank me for a stack of handmade torinoko paper I sent her, my mother mailed me an original ink drawing by Brazilian landscape artist Roberto Burle Marx. When it arrived, the work sprung from its mailing tube as muscular and startling as a live zebra in the house. I saved up for several months to get it framed properly, to showcase the lines and layered depths of its ink washes. I gaze at it daily now, with pleasure.
It's taught me that a good piece of art defines a room, imbuing the space with an atmosphere of its own. It begins conversations, comforts on rainy days, and connects one intimately with the imagination of another. Also, I've realized that good art, though high-priced, is one of the best bargains going. If you buy a painting for 300,000 yen and keep it for 20 years, that's just 41 yen a day, less than the price of a postcard stamp. Of course, the most altruistic reason to buy art is to support artists both financially and through encouragement. This, in turn, nurtures the cultural environment where one lives, which is a priceless benefit.
Writing this, I recall a college friend of mine whose tiny apartment had no view to speak of. She preserved one whole wall for her "air-conditioning" art collection. She would hang a single piece at a time, changing with the seasons. In winter, she put up a huge oil painting of bathers in a steamy room, to warm the room. In summer, a gigantic photo of green bamboo cooled and brought the imaginary shush of leaves into her dark and unventilated space. She showed me how art can make windows into other worlds, and how it can even ease the struggles of day-to-day living.
- Picassos
- ピカソの作品
- vastly
- 大変
- financial investment
- 財的投資
- wager
- 賭け事
- appreciate
- 値が上がる、価値が高まる
- sentimental
- 心情的な
- souvenir
- 記念品
- penetrates down into 〜
- 〜に入り込む、染み込む
- molten core
- 熱され溶けた中心部(→「(原子炉の)溶融炉心」からきた比喩的表現)
- given
- 生まれつきのもの
- ancestors
- 祖先
- doodled
- 落書きをしていた
- figured 〜
- 〜だと思っていた
- inherit
- 〜を受け継ぐ
- torinoko paper
- 鳥の子紙(和紙の一種)
- mailing tube
- 厚紙で出来た郵送用の筒箱
- muscular
- 力強い
- startling
- 驚くべき
- live zebra
- 本物のシマウマ
- saved up
- 貯金した
- showcase
- 〜を引き立たせる
- layered depths
- 層になった深み
- ink washes
- 水墨
- defines
- 〜の印象を決定付ける
- imbuing 〜 with 〜
- 〜に〜を吹き込んで
- comforts
- 元気づける
- intimately
- 密接に
- altruistic
- 利他的な
- encouragement
- 励まし
- in turn
- その結果
- nurtures
- 〜を育む
- tiny
- ちっぽけな
- to speak of
- 取り立てて言うほどの
- preserved
- 〜を取っておいた
- air-conditioning
- 空気を整える(→エアコンになぞらえた比喩表現)
- put up
- 〜を架けた
- bathers
- 入浴する人
- steamy
- 湯気のたち込める
- gigantic
- 巨大な
- imaginary
- 想像上の
- shush
- さらさら擦れる音
- unventilated
- 風通しの悪い
- struggles
- 苦闘