Copy cats

This picture shows a facsimile painting competition in full swing in Dafen, a village in South China. Over 100 contestants painting to the clock. As we have already posted, China is the place to go to for mass-produced works of art. Some villages claim to create five million copies of masterpieces every year. A good “artist” can create around 30 paintings a day. Around 60 percent of all the cheap oil paintings in the world are made there the business being worth somewhere in the vicinity of $56 million a year.

According to Spiegel online “A reasonably skilful copy of Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" sells for €40 ($51). Buy 100 and the price goes down to €26 ($33), the gallery workers points out. The 100 paintings, guaranteed to have been produced by art academy graduates, ship within three weeks.”