.. Its organic unity is its value." (McCain 151) while interesting in theory the concept in practical use is a little vague. McCain goes on to state that, "On this view, then, objects of art may have intrinsic value (as they successfully realize a novel diversity-in-unity), cultural value (as symbols of some cultural unity), and economic value (in that some individual is willing to pay for them)." (153) It seems to be a recurring motif that it comes down to the concept of value as related to the popular expression in the culture. Similar to the real estate market in different areas, the exact same hoe can go for various prices dependent on the location. And then there is provenance. The origin or source of artistic material does changes the value of the material itself. The author uses the example of creating an exact replica, molecule by molecule, of a Rembrandt. Obviously the original would be worth more than the copy. Painting tht had once been thought to be by one, less popular artist, were determined to be by a more famous one increase in value tremendously. The painting stays the same, but the provenance changes. Then in the current age there is also the concept of intellectual property. Art, in many ways, seems to have the aura of intellectual property around it. After all, there is certainly an artistic, creative intellect behind it and it is unique to its creator, much as intellectual property rights follow the same reasoning. However, the author disagrees with this, "Even...

McCain continues the debate between what is cultural and what is artistic, in one breath saying they are separate and in another saying they may contain elements of each other. He never seems to come to a conclusion either way in this reader's opinion. He then speak of creativity and it various forms. Concluding that most artists are not creative across domains, save perhaps for Da Vinci who was creative across many domains and then creates a formula of value based on all of the foregoing. He derives the following from Caves, Thc Creative Industries:
The domain-specific knowledge and skills necessary for creative consumption of art are together known as "taste," and are something not given but acquired. One cannot be a productive consumer of creative work without at least some knowledge of the generative rules that produced it and determine its evaluation, and that knowledge is gained in part by the experience of consuming the artistic product. (McCain 161)

Seeing the obvious Catch-22 here, the author comes to the conclusion that there is no real pragmatic formula for calculating this value, but he hopes his efforts inspire other to a broader view of value when attempting to determine the worth of cultural…