TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bruegel,Martin
AU  - Galenson,David W.
TI  - Measuring Masters and Masterpieces: French Rankings of French Painters and Paintings from Realism to Surrealism
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8266
PY  - 2001
Y2  - May 2001
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8266
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8266.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David Galenson
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
1126 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL  60637
Tel: 773/702-8258
Fax: 773/702-8490
E-Mail: galenson@uchicago.edu
AB  - For 35 leading painters who worked in France during the first century of modern art, this paper uses illustrations in French textbooks as the basis for measuring the importance of both painters and individual paintings.  The rankings closely resemble those obtained earlier from a similar analysis of American textbooks.  They also pose a puzzle: why do some of the greatest artists not produce famous paintings, while some relatively minor artists produce famous individual works?  The answer appears to lie in a difference in approach between experimental artists, who innovate incrementally, and conceptual innovators, who produce individual breakthrough works.  This paper further demonstrates the value of quantifying artistic success, for doing so can improve our understanding of the sources of human creativity.
ER  -