Comparing custom knives with the rest of the masterpieces

golok

golok

Joined
Oct 20, 2000
Messages
4,453
One reads quite often about this masterpiece of a painting being sold for millions or a sculpture fetching a price with more than 7 zeros.

So I was thinking will a custom knife ever hit that kind of a record.

Does a Michelangelo of Knives exist? Is there such a person in the making, unknown to most of us?

Such a situation when perhaps an art knife (in future) reaches the million dollar mark will probably take place when the maker has long passed over to the other side. And not forgetting there's only one such knife existing on the entire planet.

Perhaps some of us will live to experience such an event in future.

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Make Love your strongest weapon. Compassion your shield and forgiveness your armour.
 
I see more beauty in the dagger pictured below than I do in many of the "classic" works of art. Just like Van Gogh's Starry Night, this is something I could just sit stare at for hours. However, I could also pick it up and use it.

Every artist has a preferred medium. Van Gogh's medium was oil paint. A knife-maker's medium is steel.


artdag01t.jpg


[ Picture borrowed from Buster Warenski's website. ]

Though the utilitarian aspects of a knife impose limitations on a knife-maker's ability to pursue artistic expression in his chosen medium, they also give direction to the pursuit of that vision and create a tangible purpose - giving value and meaning to an otherwise meaningless object.

Some knives are little more than tools. Others are both tools and exquisite works of art.

Having said all that, I doubt knives will ever attain the level of appreciation and recognition that many paintings to. Part of the allure of fine art is the conveyance of a feeling or emotion. Take, for example The Scream by Edvard Munch. This painting expresses something on, perhaps, a much more personal level that a fine art-dagger will.

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But again, beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder. (Oh, and sometimes beauty is in the eye of D'Holder
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)

 
The King Tut Dagger and Hibbens Alien both sold for very high dollor amounts.

But apples to apples. Try and buy a swept hilt rapier made the same year as the painting "Last Supper or Mona Lisa". You will hit seven figures easy. Or say a Bizen period gokatana or tachi, and again seven+ figures.

For every artist that gets six+ figures for a painting, there are thousands that are lucky to get three to four hundred (many of the later are more talented than the former).

I think also that most knife makers are making a tool first, with very little if any thought to art value. There are only a handful that go after the high end art side. On the other hand paintings are just pure art (if you can call some of that crap art). Painters and sculpters don't wory about bevel angles or how it will balance in the hand, they just do it. I think Gil is one of the few that has just thrown caution to the wind and is making art that just happens to be really sharp. But (with no offense intended to Gil) I think he has lately kinda sold out with all that United knock off stuff. This is in no way meant as a hit on Gil, business is business, I would just like to see more of the Alien type work.



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R.W.Clark

Proud Member : California Knifemakers Association
 
Mr. Clark is right about comparing apples to apples. Take some of the knives and makers referred to above.The works are fantastic and, IMH[umble]O they are genuine art.. But even comparing this extraordinary work to a Da Vinci etc is comparing a historical work to that of a living master. Nonetheless, Mr. Clark's work, for example, is worth rather more than Van Gogh's work fetched while he was alive. But try to buy a Moran or a Loveless... But even those aren't apples.
A better comparison would probably be to exquisite historical blades. The clearest examples are the Japanese national treasures. They have been given splendid names, are literally national treasures [with all due deference to Mr. Fisk] and are priceless, like the Mona Lisa, David etc.
Compare a Rembrandt to a Masamune: that's apples to apples.
Yes? No?



[This message has been edited by HJK (edited 05-31-2001).]
 
BTTT
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Knife content:
Edvard Munch described the meaning of The Scream, in his diary back in 1892. He wrote:

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">"I was walking along the road with two friends.
The sun was setting.
I felt a breath of melancholy -
Suddenly the sky turned blood-red.
I stopped, and leaned against the railing, deathly tired -
looking out across the flaming clouds that hung like blood and a sword
over the blue-black fjord and town.
My friends walked on - I stood there, trembling with fear.
And I sensed a great, infinite scream pass through nature." </font>
Click to expand...

Even this nineteenth century Norwegian expressionist painter found inspiration in edged weapons.
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[This message has been edited by Wulf (edited 05-31-2001).]
 
I think if the cost of any knife gets to that point, I believe that it would have to of been made by one of these two makers... Moran, or Loveless.

Now, these knives are not that ornate, but some of their knives bring over $20,000 now.

I'm not talking about a knife that is made out of gold, with inlaid Gems, and all kind of carvings, I'm talking working knives. Just my 2&#162;!


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Click Here, and Check Out Florida Custom Knives

BC... For those who fought for it, Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know... Semper Fi!
 
Great question, time will tell, and it's here I think that HJK has a point about comparing older and newer art.
This may be a bit subjective, but I think that the 20th century has not seen the level of artistic genius in any field as that seen during the Renaissance and Enlightenment.
In painting, sure the 20th century had Picasso and some other notables, but not IMO to compare with Rembrandt, Renoir, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Monet, etc. And in music, okay there was Bartok, Stravinski, Ellington and Coltrane, but compare to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahams?
I do know that, $ aside, I would take a comtemporary knife by the likes of Jeff Harkins or Bill McHenry over an ancient Japanese sword. But then I also listen to Rock and Roll more than Classical music, so there ya' go.
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edit: Just had to add a picture of one of McHenry's knives from Miami Nice Knife's web site:
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And, no, this one's not for sale or I would have bought it already!

[This message has been edited by Erikfsn (edited 05-31-2001).]
 
Does that mean I have to die before I can make a halfway good living
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R.W.Clark

Proud Member : California Knifemakers Association
 
Does anyone remember the name of that movie where Dick Van Dyke [spelling? You know, the guy with Mary Tyler Moore] played a painter who pretended to die so that the price of his paintings would sky rocket, while he continued to paint and his agent cleaned up?
R.W., you could fake it. Just pick a reliable agent
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I believe that many of the best knives being produced today are indeed great art. I look at the knives were the maker is producing his own mosaic damascus, and making some of the most beautiful art that I have ever seen, and I am in awe.

Will these knives attain the monetary value of other great art? I do not know, nor do I care. To me, there is very little art of any kind that I admire as much.

These makers and forgers are true artists of the highest order.

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Keith

AKTI Member #A001338

[This message has been edited by Keith Montgomery (edited 06-02-2001).]
 
Edge tools as an artform?!?.... too late

Somebody already thought of it first.

Next time you find yourself in NYC check out the MET. When you get bored of looking at the fantastic collection of traditional art, and finish going through their Egyptian collection, you can stop by and check out their arms and armor collection. It's one of the largest and finest in the U.S.

Take a hanky along to clean up after yourself.
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We regret to inform you that while backing up his manual shift pickup R.W.Clark fell under the rear bumper and was crushed. He did not survive this tragic accident.

Rumor has it however that he had a huge stockpile of knives, the values of which are tripling daily. He is also still taking custom orders.

Anybody buying it
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R.W.Clark

Proud Member : California Knifemakers Association
 
R.W.,
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Not2,
I was just there a few weeks ago and walked around the weapons displays in shock and amazement! I realized that I has been in that museum more times than I could count but I hadn't wlked through that section since I was a kid, so I had a good look. Great Googely Moogely! I saw some of the most amazing knives and swords I have ever seen. There were a couple of wootz daggers that almosr made me cry, and the japanese blades were also amazing. But I was also completely knocked out by some of the shields and armour. The detail was beyond belief.
It's absolutely worth checking out.
 
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