“Thou, O God, does sell us all good things at the price of labour.”
Quite by chance I encountered this quotation from Leonardo da Vinci today. It really made me sit up and think. At first I thought that he had set out, a couple of centuries in anticipation, Karl Marx’s “labour theory of value”. Then I realised that there is a crucial difference here. Whereas Marx was linking the value of production to the input of labour required to produce it, da Vinci connects the price of things to their content in terms of labour. There is, of course, a crucial difference. I don’t want to get into the intricacies of Marxist political economy, but this has set me thinking.
Having been pondering over the past few days the thorny question of what to charge for my art-work, Leonardo’s comment made me wonder whether there is an alternative approach to pricing which is different from my own way of thinking. I have tended to price my paintings according to their area: but Leonardo seems to be suggesting that the key to this ought to be the labour I invest in a picture. It makes sense at one level, but to do this would require that I keep a meticulous record of the amount of time I spend on any project. Also, of course, it assumes that all time is equal, irrespective of whether I am day-dreaming idly about the preliminary versions of something that might become a picture, or actually working in a disciplined way about a project which is in full flow. Furthermore, do I include the long periods I spend sitting in front of a picture asking myself whether or not it is finished in my calculation of my input of “labour”?
At the moment, also, I am acutely aware of the amount of time I am having to invest in the preparation for exhibitions. How do I distribute this between the individual items I eventually exhibit? Undoubtedly Leonardo was a very clever chap …. but I think I’ll stick with my established practise for the moment. I do like the idea of Leonardo as a photo-Marxist, even so. I can imagine him as a member of the First International, advising Engels about the redesigning of the machinery in his cotton mill.