It's time for Americans to step up to what our European friends have known for years: Real art matters.
Owning real art, as opposed to department store art, is simply how Europeans live life stylishly. They would no more hang a plastic reproduction of a vase of flowers on their wall than eat a meal without a proper caraffe of red or white wine.
So, how is it that Americans are so satisfied and so willing to settle for hanging a picture that is stamped out by a machine, and duplicated a gazillion times in an "art factory".
Maybe it's because the perception, and the reality has been that real art is expensive, complicated, risky to buy and virtually impossible to understand.
I think we've all had the experience of walking into an art gallery and chatting with a snooty artsy-type who makes us feel stupid and totally intimated by the whole idea of buying real art.
But, whatever the reason that Americans are missing the boat on real art, the good news is that the internet is changing everything.
Like most things in the world, the internet is putting real art right at your fingertips. Fine artists by the thousands are going online where they can show their work and sell directly to the general public.
In fact, it's estimated that there are currently over 5 million pieces of wall art valued in the billions of dollars displayed on artist and art gallery web sites on the internet.
But, this means that similar to walking into an art gallery, sorting through millions of pieces of art online can be just as confusing and intimidated.
So, a good way to shop for real art is to rely on a curated, online art gallery to pare down your search. Curated sites sort through millions of pieces of art and read the biographies of thousands of artists to select only the quality and pieces that fit a particular purpose.
When you look for art on the internet you'll agree that there is plenty of art out there that is edgy and creative. But much of what you see is not what you'd want to hang in your living room.
So, if your objective is to find real art to decorate your home or office a curated site like DiscoveredArtists.com a good place to start.
By:Renee Castelluzzo
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