"..the buyers did the editing."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/arts/design/04auction.html?_r=1

Found this article today- thought it was pertinent.

Below are a few paragraphs excerpted from the article that really caught my eye concerning the ideas I am trying to sift through and talk about. Or possibly some examples of why I am allocating a grotesque amount of time and energy to addressing these topics.

-a concerned artist

"It wasn’t surprising that such a classic Impressionist image brought a strong price. These prettier works are what buyers have been gravitating toward since the recession began. In May at Sotheby’s, three paintings that had belonged to an heir of Henry O. and Louisine Waldron Elder Havemeyer — celebrated collectors who left prime examples by Degas, Cassatt, Courbet, Manet and Monet to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1929 — were snapped up by collectors at solid prices."

***(please ignore the emphasis on 'impressionism', but rather, gravitate your attention towards the description of 'prettier works')*** I don't want to have a discussion about impressionism, I am not attacking impressionism- I am attacking taste.

"After the sale, as the audience milled outside Christie’s [the gallery], James Roundell, a London dealer, perhaps summed up the auction best when he said, “It was a night where the buyers did the editing."

***(I am noticing a theme. Sound familiar... recall Moliere's play perhaps?)