What do the experts think about the Britney Spears painting that has broken the internet?
The pop diva revealed to the world some pictorial gifts that have culminated in the sale of her first work for $ 10,000. We submit it to the judgment of three artists.
"Beauty is in the eyes of those who contemplate it." That must have been thought by all those who discover the amount paid at auction to get the first Britney Spears painting. The interpreter of incunabula of millennial pop like… Baby One More Time or Toxic has changed her artistic activity in just a month. She recently surprised us with an Instagram video in which she displayed her skills with the brush while she listened to Mozart music.
"Sometimes you just have to play!", She wrote below her, accompanying the phrase with a trail of emojis that we have not yet been able to understand. A picture worthy of a Zoolander spin-off that went viral instantly, giving rise to hundreds of memes and jokes about the questionable quality of her strokes. The more than four and a half million views of the video confirm that the internet has embraced the exuberant talent of the Mississippi singer. Despite the digital laughter, the five watercolor flowers that make up the first painting of her have been sold at auction for $ 10,000 (8,500 euros to change).
These numbers, described by many as exorbitant, have multiplied criticism on social networks. Before issuing an unfounded verdict, at S Moda we wanted to ask those who know the most. “Paying that figure seems like a savagery to me. Whoever buys it knows that he only buys "something" that Britney Spears has made by hand, nothing more.
It cannot even be classified as painting… ”, confesses Chema del Fresno, an artist who also works as a teacher. Inés Maestre, a young illustrator famous for the expression of adolescent uncertainty in her works, is not convinced by the diva's work either. "The painting itself seems scary to me, but who am I to judge talent in a society where it is diluted with success and the value we give to things is linked to money and the price paid for it".
It is not the first time that Spears shares a video painting that sets fire to the networks. In 2016, her choice of a crop top of hers to draw various colored leaves on the canvas was already celebrated as a new genius of the singer. Criticisms of an alleged frivolization of artistic work by Britney Spears have also been heard on the networks.
The illustrator Mari Quiñonero, recognizing her disaffection with her work ("the naive style does not reach me"), applauds the initiative. “I don't like to demonize the issue of‘ intrusion ’because we are all free to express, at any given moment, what we carry inside. If Britney has now found a way to do it in painting, bravo for her ”.
The lucky person who managed to take home such a precious object was Robin Leach, a presenter known on American television during the 1990s for Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, a program that followed the day-to-day lives of celebrities. The proceeds have been donated in full to the Vegas Cares organization, which will fund a sculpture commemorating the victims of the Oct. 1 shooting during the Route 91 Harvest festival.
"The flowers in my painting represent a new beginning and the direction in which we must move forward," explained the interpreter. Spears' relationship with Las Vegas transcends this event, since since 2013 she has become her adopted city thanks to the resident show Piece of Me. The charitable use of the proceeds from the painting has been unanimously celebrated, but this end has not lessened criticism of its quality.
Britney Spears, whose last album Glory was released in 2016, is the last but not the first star in the entertainment world to admit her love of painting. Actors such as Anthony Hopkins, Lucy Liu or Sylvester Stallone, who have been exhibiting in different galleries for years, opted for abstract art. Bob Dylan or Pierce Brosnan's drawings are reminiscent of Matisse's impressionism and Johnny Depp immortalized his admired Marlon Brandon or Keith Richards on canvas. James Franco, Benedict Cumberbatch, Viggo Mortensen, Paul McCartney… the list is endless. Despite such proliferation, Quiñonero says she does not feel threatened by those who may want to "start being artists.
" “It is something that you carry inside, yes or no. Of natural form. Only time will put each of us in our place ”. In the particular case of Britney, Del Fresno assures that she takes advantage of her musical fame: "The stars can do whatever they want and on top of that, charge any amount for it." "I think it is one more flourish that accompanies the product," says Maestre, who concludes: "But everyone is free to do whatever he wants with his life. If, for example, overnight I gave them to become shepherds, the whole flock would follow them anyway ”. We do not know if there will be grass for everyone.
