THE INTERRELATIONSHIP OF THE ARTS
Close ties among the arts happen because artists share a special
purpose: the revelation of values. Moreover, every artist must use some
medium, some kind of "stuff" that can be formed to communicate that
revelation (content) about something (subject matter). All artists share
some elements of media, and this sharing encourages their interaction.
For example, painters, sculptors, and architects use colour, line, and
texture. Sculptors and architects work with the density of materials.
Rhythm is basic to the composer, choreographer, and poet. Words are
fundamental for the poet, novelist, dramatist, and composer of songs
and operas. Images are basic to the painter, filmmaker, videographer,
and photographer. Artists constitute a commonwealth - they share the
same end and similar means.
Appropriation
Artistic appropriation occurs when artists combine their basic medium
with the medium of another art or arts but keep their basic medium
clearly dominant. For example, music is the basic medium for composers
of opera. The staging may include architecture, painting, and sculpture.
The language of the drama may include poetry.
The dance, so dependent on music, is often incorporated in opera, and
sometimes in contemporary opera, so are photography and even film.
Yet music almost always dominates in opera. We may listen to
Beethoven's Fidelio or Bizet's Carmen time after time, yet it is hard to
imagine anyone reading the librettos over and over again.
Although essential to opera, the drama, as well as the staging, rarely
dominates the music. Often the librettos by themselves are essentially
silly.
Nevertheless, drama and the other appropriated arts generally enhance
the feelings interpreted by the music. Except for opera, architecture is
the art that appropriates the most. Its centering of space makes room for
the placement of sculpture, painting, and photography; the reading of
poetry, and the performance of drama, music, and dance.
The size of architecture itself tends to make it prevail over any of the
incorporated arts, the container prevailing over the contents.
THE ART MARKET
The visual arts market has no direct counterpart in the other arts. Its
distinction arises from the fact that original artworks can be bought, sold,
and collected. The possession of original artwork is valued not just for
pleasure. but also for the status the artwork can attribute to its owner,
and for the value it assumes in the marketplace.
Even though the number of buyers and collectors represents only a tiny
percentage of the number of people who attend museums. the arts
market and especially the changes that have occurred over the last three
