Why are some strange paintings so expensive?

Why are some strange paintings so expensive?

Indy Hinkkuri, 8

Strange usually means unusual. It is something that amazes. Since one of the most important purposes of art is to make people realize and feel something new, strangeness is valuable in art – sometimes also financially.

For example, a painting consisting of tiny traces left by insects may look strange compared to a gold-framed portrait. It is valuable, for example, because it can entice you to notice something new about the importance of insects in the world. However, novelty value alone does not necessarily make art financially expensive.

It’s also the case that doing weird is rarely easy or cheap. New insights and technical development take a lot of time. One painting can take thousands of hours of work, and art materials can also be expensive. Half of the price of the art can go to the gallery, which presents the art to the public and has expenses for selling it.

Strangeness and expensiveness also have a long history. Even centuries ago, rich people collected startlingly special objects, i.e. curiosities. Only a few could afford them, which is why they spoke of the Collector’s special status.

Even today, some people can pay a lot for strange art, sometimes even millions of euros. They might like weirdness a lot or want to support the making of weird art. It is also possible that they want to feel special by buying expensive art.

Strangeness is paid a lot, especially when the artist is famous, his works have been bought by many others and those works are in the collections of important museums.

Katve-Kaisa Kontturi

university lecturer in art history, docent of contemporary art research

University of Turku

There are two hands, two legs, two eyes and one nose. Why doesn’t a person have three?

Valve weapons, 5

On it’s true that there aren’t very many things in three pieces in a person. However, there are some. For example, there are three bones in each finger except the thumb.

There are indeed two arms, legs and many other parts, which is due to the fact that humans are two-sided animals: we have a left and a right side almost like mirror images. There is only one part left in the middle, such as the nose and navel.

For example, three-legged or three-eyed people are not born, because the cells of our body only know how to build a two-sided person. The building instructions in the cells would have to change fundamentally and from the beginning to make three legs or eyes.

Rhinos and some birds have three toes on their feet because their cells leave a pair of toes unbuilt. It is easier to leave body parts unbuilt than to grow extra parts. Three toes have worked well in their lives.

Mikael Niku

university lecturer in anatomy and developmental biology

University of Helsinki

Why can you eat the skins of some foods and not others? What happens if you eat orange peels, for example?

Kerttu Holopainen, 6

Skim is especially in fruits, berries and roots. Their skins can be eaten, but the skins of fruits and roots that are bitter in taste and dry, tough or hard in texture, for example, are not often eaten.

Among other things, the skin of a pineapple is unnecessarily thick, tough and hard to eat. For example, potato skins are delicious when fried, but they must be washed carefully, because the microbes in the soil, i.e. small organisms, can cause stomach disease.

The inside of fruits and roots is often more delicious. Tough shells can also cause stomach problems for people with sensitive stomachs. Pesticides are also often applied to the surface of many fruits transported from far away countries, which for example prevent the formation of mold, so that the fruit remains good for longer periods of time.

Pesticides are not meant to be eaten: they can even cause harm to health in high concentrations.

In Finland, however, pesticide concentrations are closely monitored, so the products are safe to eat. Pesticide residues may still be present on the surface of peels, for example in oranges. It is therefore a good idea to peel or wash the fruit well before eating if you want to reduce exposure to residues.

In the end, however, peels are used quite often in food. For example, the peels of citrus fruits are used chopped and in small quantities, for example, as a spice and in marmalades. Nothing very strange is unlikely to happen if you eat, for example, the peel of a washed orange. However, it probably doesn’t taste juicy and good.

Stop Hakala

division manager of organic residues

Food Agency

Annikki Welling

head of the chemistry department

Food Agency

What all can be born from fire? I’m interested in fire tornadoes, for example.

Tuukka Terhemaa, 5

Fire can get other very special forms in addition to fire tornadoes. The shapes depend on temperature, pressure, environmental structures, flows of air or combustible gas such as hydrogen or methane, and properties of the combustible material.

For example, the flame can be completely spherical. When the mixture of air and hydrogen is ignited, a dangerous, explosively expanding spherical flame can be created. When such flames have been carefully studied in laboratories, it has surprisingly been noticed that they have an interesting cellular structure!

A very special fire phenomenon also occurs when there is no gravity at all, such as, for example, on a space station orbiting the earth. Then the flame is usually blue in color, quite spherical and very stable. The reason is that the warm air and gases produced by combustion in weightlessness do not rise up as they do on Earth. In those conditions, it is also possible to create a spherical flame that seems to float, i.e. is completely detached from, for example, a candle or a lighter’s burner.

When two candles are placed close enough to each other, they start to flutter in sync. If they are a little further apart, when one flame is small, the other is usually large.

When there are several candles close together in a row or in another close formation, the brightness of the flames varies in a complex way. These phenomena of candles are possible because the air currents created during combustion also affect the nearby combustion.

If the horizontal airflow is large, the flame itself can be horizontal and ribbon-like. This can sometimes be seen on volcanoes. Sometimes, on the other hand, the vapors of some fuels, such as ethers or some alcohols, can burn very slowly in semi-closed containers with an almost invisible ghost-like flame, which is an exceptionally cold and also an unpredictably dangerous phenomenon.

Tom Kuusela

University researcher in physics

University of Turku

Send the question, the questioner’s full name and age to lasten.tiedeskö[email protected]. The column is provided by Touko Kauppinen.