What makes art valuable?
How does one decide how much to pay for a piece of art?
The Materials?
The Artist?
The time it took to create ???
The amount of skill involved in its creation?
In reality, the worth of a piece of art is completely subjective. Its value cannot be simplified to a single statement. A masterwork of a sculpture can hold greater value than a life in a king's eyes, but be nothing other than firewood in a poor man's eyes. Even beauty cannot be used to value art as one man's treasure may be another man's trash.
In the English language, there is only one word that can be vaguely used to gauge the value of art at any given time.
Luxury
Art is A Luxury. And its value is completely dependent on how much luxury people can afford in their lives. It completely depends on how much money can be thrown without worry and how much money is needed to live a good life.
In times of great prosperity a painting can be used to trade for riches, and in times of squalor and desperation, a golden statue is nothing but a shiny waste of space.
This harsh fact can be seen anywhere and everywhere.
Especially on the continent of Velarus.
Before the age of Flame, when light had not yet descended art was non-existent. No living creature had time to sit and contemplate the beauty of the world while fighting in the dark. When giants roamed the land and bugs were comparable to houses no one had time for artistic pursuits.
During the age of Iron and conflict, art and aesthetic was set aside for Iron and war.
And yet during the age of Light art was celebrated. Grand sculptures adorned the roads, and any artist with a smidgen of talent could find work and pay.
The age of light was a time so prosperous that even a middle-class blacksmith could commission a self-portrait. Farmers could afford carved and painted toys for their children. A moderately wealthy noble could even commission a team of artists to craft them a twelve-foot-tall marble statue of themselves.
Yet sadly such times never lasted long.
Most intelligent creatures would rather use hard-earned resources on rather useful objects and pursuits. Especially during times of trouble.
And to a somewhat struggling artist in the small city of Florence, it felt as if the Iron Age had descended once again.
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* Bang.... Bang..... Bang.....
Cleff banged his head over and over again on the empty mailbox....
-1 hp, -1hp, -1hp
Sighing he contemplated the futility of life as he walked up the stairs to his small and dreary apartment.
Florance was the city of art they said, the epicenter of art they said. You could easily find hundreds of clients just begging to get an oil portrait done, tens of wealthy men willing to sponsor the creation of a marble statue, and if your lucky a patron willing to house and feed you with generous pay to boot while you made whatever you wanted.
It was only after moving to the city of "art" that Cleff realized that the rumors that had been force-fed to him were completely and utterly untrue.
A gloomy atmosphere hung over the once-vibrant city of sculptures and painters.
The colorful banners that once lined the streets had been taken down. The statues and intricate sculptures that once lined the streets were replaced with guard towers and barricades. The people of the once open and vibrant city had gone silent glaring at each other with untrusting eyes.
He had gone 6 months without getting a single commission, relying solely on occasionally illustrating small panphlets for the city guard to support his meager existence. Not a single soul within 100 miles seemed to be looking for anyone to paint or sculpt something.
Well, Cleff couldn't blame them, nor could he say he was surprised by the drastic change that had washed over the city of Florance over the last year.
After strange and horrific events started occurring all over the continent and the nights grew longer it was only right for suspicion and wariness to grow.
Reaching the wooden door that was his own Cleff struggled with the lock for a moment before entering his rather cramped apartment that was half-filled with his art supplies. Several easels lied against the fall wall, pots for mixing paints and preserving pigments took up most of the floor space, and a backpack filled with all of his paintbrushes and carving tools took up space under the window.
Leaning on his bed Cleff closed his eyes and focused on the small image and the few numbers that existed within his mind space.
The inhabitants of Velarus had long ago gotten used to the numbers and words that took up a place in their minds. The Magica they called it, made up of the flowing magic that existed everywhere the Magica converted most information in the world into strange numbers and phenomena that any intelligent creature could understand.
The amount of magic it could wield in combination with a creature's physical attributes became levels. Common professions and archetypes became classes. Spells, knowledge, and experience became skills, and a creature's ability to take damage and survive became health points or Hp for short.
The Magica never actually had any control over anything. It only provided information and acted as a tool for the inhabitants of Velarus to further themselves.
One interesting property of the Magica was that every person's interface and way of accessing it and looking at the information it provided was dependent on their chosen profession or way of life.
Cleff's view of the Magica had long ago turned into several pictures accompanied by a few words floating inside of his head once he chose to dedicate his life to art.
It was because of this that he was only able to sit back and stare at the strange pieces of art as they floated in his mind space. He couldn't even see his own level only an ever-changing self-portrait that he could never touch.
While others could steer their direction in life, changing things about themselves as they leveled up and making themselves stronger Cleff was locked into staying forever meek once he became an artist. Forever set to only get better at creating art and advancing its effects as he leveled up.
It was quite sad as.....
* Scratch * scratch *Scratch
A scratching on the wooden shutters of his window woke Cleff up from his stupor.
Scared half to death Cleff scurried up and reached for a carving knife that was sitting on his backpack. Even if he had to fight something it wouldn't do much as he was an artist not a fighter but if he was going to go out he planned to do it swinging. He couldn't just sit down and wait for the thing outside his window to learn how to open shutters.
After all with all the strange things happening around the world, you could never be to cautious. After all it might be a man-eating demon looking for its next meal.
Creaking the window open and expecting a demon Cleff was only slightly relieved to only find a bat holding a blood-red envelope.
*Sigh.....
" Well that's only slightly suspicious "