What is art?
And more to the point, what’s it worth? Lord Snotty has bought a Van Dryver, or so he thinks until art historian, Maurice Dance, comes calling and reveals that it’s actually a Van Rouge, who used to copy Van Dryver’s pictures as practice. Lord Snotty is mortified and the picture is hidden away in the attic. But a few years later in the Telegraph , Lord Snotty reads that Van Dryver’s greatest works were actually by Van Rouge who should now be recognised as an artistic genius. Lord Snotty doesn’t know what to think or do. He wonders whether he should put the picture on display again or whether it’s been a masterpiece all along. An artist needs two things, talent and critics: talent so that we can see they’re not just any idiot waving a brush or wielding a hammer and chisel; and critics, incomprehensible and unchallenged, to waffle about the artist’s oeuvres . But it’s through the latter that we know the art is great because most of us aren’t art historians. We’re not equipped to judge su...