A million masterpieces every ten years?

Period of crisis? Let’s try to provide the figures.
History has taught us that masterpieces are such precisely because they are rare. That in his own life an artist, even the greatest, produces an extremely limited number of major works, which will be points of reference within his body of work as a whole. And that the works that a society considers exemplary, capable of representing an age, are even rarer.
The Renaissance? Around a hundred fundamental works. And an endless series of variations on the theme, derivations, reproductions. The 17th century? Another hundred works. And so on for the centuries to come.

If we had to count the absolute masterpieces starting from the year one thousand to today, calculating a hundred works for each of the ten past centuries of history, we would have a thousand works to put together. Only a thousand works. Those that marked a turning point. Those that were capable of expressing their time in powerful terms. One hundred a century, multiplied by ten, equals a thousand.
A rounded-down estimate? Shall we exaggerate, for fairness’ sake? OK then, let’s say a thousand masterpieces a century. For ten centuries, that makes ten thousand.
Ten thousand masterpieces, in a thousand years.

More or less the same number of works that were exhibited at the latest edition of Art Basel alone. If we then multiply this number, ten thousand, by three hundred, that is approximately the number of the art events (including fairs, biennials and others) that are held every year worldwide, what does that make? Three million. Divided by two, because not all fairs are as important as Art Basel, makes a million and a half. Again divided by two, once again for fairness’ sake? More than seven hundred thousand.
That seems to us to be enough, right? After all, that’s the number of works presented per year. Of course, if we add those passing through the auction houses, we are back over a million again. At this point let us put all the works that go through the galleries or directly from the artists to the collectors to one side. Only because the resulting number would be shockingly high.

The art market today is certainly infinitely larger than in the 17th century. And this enlargement means an exponential increase in the number of artworks available. And since today everything is art or, at the very least, everything is artistic (an issue to which we will return), the problem of quality, or rather of identifying it, is increasingly challenging.
In fact, if we consider that, of the million works available a year - we are rounding down - ten percent are presented to us from time to time as masterpieces, at least judging from the asking prices, then we arrive at the ridiculous figure of a hundred thousand masterpieces present on the market every year. Because this is what they would have us believe, when they attempt to convince us of our ignorance when presented with unfathomable prices or unviewable works.
Multiply this by ten years of a buoyant market, that makes a million masterpieces that have passed before us in the last ten years. A million. Compared with the ten million masterpieces that we managed to count, with hindsight, in the last thousand years.

We believe that these numbers force us to stop and reflect. The outcome of this will inevitably be an invitation for buyers to act with caution. And an invitation for sellers to be humble.
In times of crisis, seriousness is de rigueur.