Article March 15, 1975 Issue

Man: God's Masterpiece

LOUIS H. KAMMERER

A number of years ago an Army officer, while in Italy, picked up an old painting in a junk shop. He paid twenty-five cents for it. Later it was found that his purchase was the work of Jean Baptiste Greuze, an eighteenth-century French master. He sold the painting to a Roman museum for several thousand dollars.

Nothing had to be done to this painting to change it from a junk object into a valuable work of art. No additions or changes or improvements were made. It was a work of art from the moment the last brush stroke had been made on the canvas by the artist.

The only changes of value it underwent were in the appraisals of those through whose hands it passed. When it finally reached its rightful place, it could be viewed by those who had the artistic knowledge to recognize the mastery of its workmanship. Its new status was achieved solely through a correction in thinking.

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