Adding Value to Innovation: Impressionism and the Transformation of the Selection

System in Visual Arts

Author(s): Nachoem M. Wijnberg and Gerda Gemser
Source: Organization Science , May - Jun., 2000, Vol. 11, No. 3, Special Issue: Cultural
Industries: Learning from Evolving Organizational Practices (May - Jun., 2000), pp. 323-
329
Published by: INFORMS

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2640265

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 Adding Value to Innovation: Impressionism and
the Transformation of the Selection System in
Vi's ual Arts

Nachoem M. Wijnberg * Gerda Gemser

Department of Technology and Innovation Management, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus Univ
Rotterdam, Burg. Oudlaan 50, 3062 PA, Rotterdam, Netherlands, [email protected]
Department of Strategic Management, Faculty of Management and Organization, University of Groningen
P.O. Box 800, 9700 Av. Groningen, Netherlands, [email protected]

Abstract show, many of the leading Impressionists worked to-

Valuation of cultural products tends to be problematic. In this gether to get value attributed to the innovative aspects of
paper, we provide insight into how valuation of cultural prod- their style of painting. In the process of doing this, they
ucts takes place by describing the changing role and signifi- helped to bring about an important change in the selection
cance of different types of selection systems. Three basic types system dominating the visual arts industry. Peer selection
of selection systems are distinguished: market selection, peer through the established Academies was gradually re-
selection, and expert selection. We show that the rise of a group placed by expert selection which relied on museum cu-
of painters known as the Impressionists was facilitated by a
rators, ideological dealers, and professional art critics.
change in the selection system of the visual arts industry from
This change was accompanied by an increase in the value
one dominated by peers into one dominated by experts. In the
of innovation and a raise in the status of the Impression-
new selection system, innovativeness has become the most
ists to a group with avant-garde credentials.
highly prized product characteristic, while a range of experts
have begun to play an essential role, certifying the innovative- To advance this argument the paper is broken into three
ness of either individual artists or groups of artists. major parts. In the first part, the concept of the selection
(Groups; Innovation; Selection Systems; Art) system is discussed. We distinguish between three basic
types of selection systems: market selection, peer selec-
tion, and expert selection. We draw special attention to
the impact of the selection system on the value that is
attached to innovation. In the second part, the case of the
Impressionists and the genesis of the modern selection
Determining the quality or value of cultural products prior
system of the visual arts industry are described. In the
to or even after consumption tends to be notoriously dif-
third part, we provide a discussion that serves to analyze
ficult. Even though evaluation is problematic, neverthe-
further how the Impressionists helped to establish a new
less, some form of value must be assigned to most cultural
selection system where individual artists began to draw
products. It is only through the value determination pro-
significant competitive benefits from being attached to a
cess that the significance of each product can be estab- group.
lished, thus allowing it to obtain crucial resources. This
paper extends our understanding of value determination
and resource allocation in cultural industries. We accom- The Impact of Selection Sustems on the
plish this by an analysis of the different types of selection Value of Innovation
systems which have been used over the years. Each of The value of most cultural products is generally hard to
these has had considerable effect on the competitive pro- ascertain, in part because the standards to be used for this
cess that can be observed in cultural industries. purpose are seldom clear and rarely obvious. In our terms,
In our analysis, we focus more generally on the visual this means that the value of a product can only be deter-
arts industry and in particular on one group of painters mined within the context of a set of preferences of indi-
who are widely known as the Impressionists. As we will viduals and groups that act as selectors and, therefore,

1047-7039/00/1 103/0323/$05.00 ORGANIZATION SCIENCE, ? 2000 INFORMS

1526-5455 electronic ISSN Vol. 11, No. 3, May-June 2000, pp. 323-329

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NACHOEM M. WIJNBERG AND GERDA GEMSER Adding Value to Innovation

necessarily within a particular selection system. The se- contains innovations that are not valued within an exist-
lection system specifies the essential characteristics of the ing selection system. In many instances, therefore, art that
selected, consisting of actors that are competing with each is innovative will only be successful if the innovators that
other for recognition; and the selectors, consisting of ac- champion it succeed in changing the ways in which value
tors whose decisions will influence the outcome of the is determined. This often means changing the selection
process. The selection system therefore provides a short- system itself. Thus, when art containing radical or revo-
hand description of the relation between the selectors and lutionary innovations succeeds, it often does so in con-
the selected, and more generally of competitive process: junction with a change in the selection system.
the way in Which winners are distinguished from losers This is essentially what occurred in the modem visual
(Wijnberg 1995). arts industry at the turn of the century. From being one
Three basic types of selection systems can be distin- criterion among others, innovation gradually became the
guished: market selection, peer selection, and expert se- dominant criterion. This was accompanied by a shift from
lection. In the case of market selection, the producers are a peer to an expert selection system. In the peer selection
the selected and the consumers are the selectors. In peer system, such as existed in the visual arts industry when
selection, on the other hand, the selectors and the selected it was dominated by the Academy, it was difficult to gain
are part of the same group (Debackere et al. 1994). In the recognition and acceptance for significant innovations.
case of expert selection, the selectors are neither produc- Established artists were reluctant to concede power to
ers nor consumers, but have the power to shape selection those whose work differed considerably from their own.
by virtue of specialized knowledge and distinctive abili- By contrast, experts did not have a vested interest in per-
ties. petuating the status quo because they themselves were
It should be emphasized, however, that the three types not contributing through their own works of art. They
of selection systems described are ideal types. In reality, derived their legitimacy and importance from being
outcomes of competitive processes are often determined among the first to recognize the value of new entrants
by a combination of types of selection. In some instances, into the visual arts industry. In general, prestige and in-
two types of selection will operate alongside each other, fluence accrued to experts who were the first to identify
such as market and peer selection. In other cases, the and champion individual artists who were later accepted
types are tiered, making it necessary for the producer or as being major figures, but even greater prestige and el-
product first to pass one type of selection in order to be evation to position of authority would usually go to ex-
admitted to a second stage in which another type of se- perts who identified and championed an emerging move-
lection operates. In many cases, however, a dominant ment in the visual arts.
type of selection system can be distinguished. Expert se- There is, therefore, a symbiotic relationship between
lection, as we show in this paper, is the selection system artists who systematically pursue innovation and the ex-
which began to dominate visual arts in the twentieth cen- perts who can help to establish the value of this innova-
tury. tion. This mutually beneficial relationship played an im-
In many forms of cultural industries, recognition and portant role in the rise of a group of painters that became
attribution of value is strongly linked to product differ- known as the Impressionists. In the next section, we ex-
entiation (e.g. Becker 1982, Heilbrun and Gray 1994, amine this process in detail. We show how innovation
Hirsch 1972, Mossetto 1993, Throsby 1994). One of the became the dominant criterion for judging quality in con-
means of differentiating cultural products in order to gain temporary visual arts. Furthermore, we describe how ex-
market recogni-;on has been through the use of innova- perts-as museum curators, as ideological dealers, and as
tion. In the visual arts, however, innovation had been reviewers of art works-came to play an essential role in
largely limited to variations based on existing styles and certifying the innovativeness of individual artists and
themes. More radical forms of artistic innovation that groups of artists.
break with existing standards had rarely been used as a
deliberate strategy. In part this was because the value of
artistic innovation had always been harder to establish, The Role of Museums, Dealers, and
given that the peer selection system which had grown in Critics in the Rise of Impressionists
importance was strongly biased in favour of tradition and The painters who came to be called the Impressionists
continuity. were active in the second half of the nineteenth century.
An innovation attains value only if it is considered The best known among them were Manet, Monet, Renoir,
valuable by the selectors that control a given selection Pissarro, and Degas. The name "Impressionist" was de-
system. This may lead to serious problems for art that rived from the title of a painting by Monet and caught on

324 ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 11, No. 3, May-June 2000

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NACHOEM M. WIJNBERG AND GERDA GEMSER Adding Value to Innovation

precisely because it conveyed one of the essential stylistic of the system of expert selection and the emphasis on
innovations of the Impressionists: to create the sensation innovativeness as the dominant product characteristic in
of capturing the fleeting impression of a particular scene modern visual arts.
at a specific moment in time (Rewald 1980). The Im- However, it is important to note that the Impressionists
pressionists also innovated with respect to use of color did not replace the Academy with a single new central
and subject matter, preferring depiction of modem life institution. Instead, the new system developed together
over depiction of history, which was the subject with the with a few crucial elements that did already exist but took
highest status in the academic tradition (Wijnberg 1999). on new characteristics and increased in importance.
The rise and eventual success of the Impressionists, White and White (1993) use the concept of the "dealer-
however, depended not only on the stylistic innovations critic system" to describe the situation in the visual arts
they introduced. It was achieved by a shift away from the that arose in late nineteenth-century France. Besides the
peer-based selection system to an expert-based selection commercial gallery and art critic, we would like to add a
system. Prior to the rise of the Impressionists, peers had third essential element, namely the art museum. Each of
begun to dominate the selection system for painters. In these institutions will be discussed below, with particular
the earlier medieval system, peers had largely exerted emphasis on their role in the processes of value deter-
their influence through the guild. Although the medieval mination.
system could be regarded as one of regulated market se-
lection, in fact both entry into the market and the range The Art Museum
of permitted types of competitive behavior were regulated In the eighteenth century, the art museum had primarily
by the guild. In the course of the Italian Renaissance, the served as a repository for the works of dead artists and
Academy took over most of the functions of the guilds. as a school for training young artists. In the course of the
If the Academy approved of the work of an artist, espe- nineteenth century, the museum began to play a more
cially if the artist was admitted to its ranks, the artist was active role in exhibiting the work of more current artists.
able to earn rewards for his or her artistic excellence. Although the first museum to house the works of current
Within this system, therefore, the careers of individual artists was the Musee Luxembourg, others were gradually
artists depended to a large extent on the judgment of founded in other countries. By displaying the work of
peers, thus establishing their clear power over the domi- specific artists while they were still active, the more mod-
nant selection system (Wijnberg 1997a, 1997b). ern museums were able to exert a significant effect on
The Impressionists provided the impetus for the next their careers. In other words, the museums began to take
major change in selection system from the peer- on the task of certifying artists while they were still alive.
dominated academic system to the modern, expert-based As such, these museums, or rather their directors and cu-
system. Just as the artists of the late Renaissance wrested rators, became more and more assertive in their estab-
control away from the guilds to transfer it to the Acad- lishing the value of individual artists or groups of artists.
emy, so did the Impressionists attempt to remove it from Furthermore, modern art museums began to focus on
the Academy. Like the masters of the Italian Renaissance, significant new trends in painting, attempting to distin-
the Impressionists brought about a change in the selection guish between various styles or periods. This led them to
system because they were not satisfied with the way their focus on crucial innovators, with major innovative move-
exertions and innovations were being rewarded. ments being displayed in different areas within the mu-
The shift in selection systems increased the strategic seum. In the process, modern museums began to value
value of being innovative. In the guild-regulated market art in terms of its innovativeness, as reflected by a sig-
selection system, innovation had little or no intrinsic nificant shift away from existing styles. The innovative-
value. In the peer selection system that came into being ness of individual artists or groups of artists was also
in the Renaissance, the capacity to innovate was associ- established by the inclusion of their work in a museum
ated with innate ability and became one of the character- collection.
istics that distinguished the artist from the craftsman (Wi- The modem art museum was far from fully grown dur-
jnberg 1997a, 1997b). However, the Academy did not ing the heyday of the Impressionists. Their new role was
consider innovativeness to be the most essential or dom- partly the result of a concerted push by many of the Im-
inant characteristic of works of art, not in theory and cer- pressionists. They explicitly accepted the challenge to
tainly not in the practice of admitting artists to the Acad- prove themselves worthy of museums and, especially, of
emy and awarding prizes. It was precisely the desire of the Louvre. In 1894, Caillebotte, a painter who himself
the Impressionists to have value attributed to their paint- is generally counted as one of the major Impressionists,
ings, which were innovative, that led to the establishment died and left a will in which it was stipulated that his

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NACHOEM M. WIJNBERG AND GERDA GEMSER Adding Value to Innovation

whole collection of paintings, containing works of most In response, the Impressionists began to organize their
of the major Impressionists, would be left to the state on own exhibitions, first in the form of one-man shows and
the condition that the paintings were to be exhibited in then as a group. But these shows did not produce more
the Luxembourg museum and finally moved to the Lou- than modest profits, often resulting in a substantial loss
vre (Rewald 1980). for the organizing artists (Rewald 1980, 1989, White and
In effect, this bequest would result in an instant certi- White 1993). Instead, commercial success came to the
fication from the museums of the Impressionist move- Impressionists through the growth in importance of com-
ment as a whole, and it was no surprise that antagonists mercial art galleries. Individual dealers, such as Durand-
of the Impressionists (and thereby of changes in the se- Ruel, began to provide advance money to Impressionists
lection system)-such as many professors at the Ecole such as Degas, Monet, Sisley, and Pissarro in order to
des Beaux-Arts and other public officials, felt threatened display their work for sale.
and reacted sharply. After tortuous negotiations, more From the early 1880s onwards, a growing number of

than half of the collection was accepted by the state and Impressionists began to improve their financial condition

transferred to the Luxembourg museum in 1897. because of the support of dealers that operated commer-
cial galleries. However, it was not just any commercial
A few years later, the Louvre itself began to open its
galleries. The commercial galleries that played a crucial
doors to the Impressionists, even to such principled an-
role in the promotion of the Impressionists, and of later
archists as Pissarro (Shikes and Harper 1980, Ward
modernist artists, were those led by so-called 'ideologi-
1996). Exhibitions of major Impressionists began to draw
cal' dealers like Durand-Ruel, Petit, Theo van Gogh, and
larger and larger audiences, and their work became es-
Kahnweiler. These dealers can be termed as ideological
sential to the financial well-being of many important art
because they were motivated not merely by the desire to
museums.
make money, but by the desire to spread the gospel of a
particular type of art, meaning, in practice, the work of a
The Ideological Dealer
particular artist or, more often, of a group of artists (Jen-
Among other functions, the peer-dominated Academies
sen 1994).
had served to promote artists by holding regular-or even
The art dealers gradually discovered that having an ide-
permanent-exhibitions of works of art created by their
ology made selling a more virtuous and thereby more
members. At first, the works exhibited were normally not
profitable activity. Gradually, the exhibitions in the grow-
for sale, although their exhibition functioned as an ad-
ing number of commercial galleries that were organized
vertisement for those that were. Later, the exhibitions in-
by dealers began to take on museumlike qualities. Like
creasingly showed works whose commercial prospects
the modem museum, they began to highlight specific
depended on the success they had in the exhibition.
styles or periods by presenting retrospectives of a certain
The exhibitions organized by the French Academy, the group of current artists. Similarly, museums were more
so-called Salons, became the most important way to show willing to collaborate with dealers and to showcase those
one's work to the public, and to show the results of the artists whose work the commercial galleries were trying
peer selection system. In the first "real" Salons, from to sell.
1737 onwards, paintings were explicitly grouped and The sales that were made by the commercial galleries
hung according to the artists' academic rank. Much more quickly became a more important source of income than
important than the question of where one's work was Salon prizes and official patronage (Jensen 1994). Buyers
hung was, of course, the question of whether one's work from the United States in particular became an important
was exhibited at all. Not to be allowed, year after year, a factor because these buyers were able and willing to pay
place on the walls of the Salon meant not having a career relatively high prices (Rewald 1989, Weitzenhoffer
as a painter (Crow 1983, Loyrette 1994, White and White 1984). Furthermore, American collectors often brought
1993). the speculative life of a painting to an end, bequeathing
Although the methods by which the members were many of the paintings to museums instead of selling them
chosen for the Salon juries varied over time, the great later on (Jensen 1994). The willingness of museums to
majority of jurors were also distinguished members of the accept the paintings, and thus certify them as "museum
French Academy (Hamilton 1986). The Impressionists art," further reinforced, in turn, the willingness of private
had a particularly difficult time getting their work to be collectors to acquire them in the first place.
accepted for exhibition in the Salons. In 1867, for ex- The Art Critic
ample, the jury refused most of the work of the Impres- Although peers had generally claimed to have no need of
sionists which included that of such leading artists as Mo- expertise beyond their own, the Academy-sponsored Sa-
net, Pissarro, Sisley, Cezanne, and Renoir. lons contributed to the birth of a new species of expert

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NACHOEM M. WIJNBERG AND GERDA GEMSER Adding Value to Innovation

whose task was to enlighten and educate the rest of the visual arts industry in mid-nineteenth-century France. At
nation: the journalist-art critic. The demand for well-writ- first, the Impressionists were so unsure of themselves that
ten explanations of which works of art were to be appre- they explicitly chose to downplay the innovativeness of
ciated only increased with the rise of social mobility. The what they were doing. Eventually, they were able to
nineteenth century saw the first specialized journals for achieve success, but only by pushing for a change in the
art criticism, such as l'Artiste in France and de Neder- selection system from one that was dominated by peers
landse Spectator in the Netherlands. Many critics in the to one that was dominated by experts. In the new selection
latter half of the nineteenth century, such as Zola or Mir- system, the entire group of Impressionists managed to
beau, were famous novelists who also wrote criticisms. gain recognition for their innovative style of work.
However, there slowly started to appear a number of There were three critical elements that played a key
"professional" critics who were not artists themselves part in the shift of the selection system towards one based
and who made criticism, if not a full-time occupation, at on experts. Ideological dealers who were trying to create
least their main vocation. interest in the works of a specific group of artists were
Just as in the case of the relation between museums assisted by art critics who would also bring attention to
and dealers, the relation between critics and artists with the efforts of the same group. Becker (1982, p. 113) re-
respect to credentials worked both ways. On the one hand, marked: "Critics frequently make the same discoveries
the artist needed critics to convince others that his or her that gallery owners make, and the two groups collaborate
works of art were valuable. On the other hand, art critics to promote those painters and sculpturers whose paintings
increasingly had to prove their own worth and credentials they find attractive and critically acceptable." Eventually,
by being able to spot the most innovative artists and the the modem art museums would also begin to exhibit
newest styles earlier than anyone else. Those who did so works by artists in the same group in order to highlight
on behalf of the right painters, such as Aurier in the case current trends, thus supporting the efforts of both the
of van Gogh, earned a modest place in art history for ideological dealers and the art critics.
themselves. Thus, museums, dealers, and critics were drawn to-
Not only the artists, but also the dealers, and especially gether with the same purpose: the establishment and de-
the ideological dealers, increasingly looked to the art crit- fense of the credentials of a group of artists for being
ics for assistance. Often, lack of support from most of the innovative. Positive feedback loops, however, went be-
critics could make it difficult for a dealer to succeed com- yond just providing the impetus for the development of
mercially (Shikes and Harper 1980). The ideological the three central elements of the new system. There was
dealer needed critics to "place" an individual painter or a significant positive feedback loop between the three ele-
a group of painters in a sequence of innovations. Dealers ments and the relative importance of innovation as a
also needed critics to convince the consumer of the value means of differentiating artistic performance. After the
of the works of art they exhibited. rise of the Impressionists, innovation gradually came to
When in 1889 Mirbeau wrote a long and most sym- serve as the dominant criterion for the evaluation of the
pathetic article on Monet, this article significantly in- quality of artistic performance. This reinforced the posi-
creased the number of visitors to the show of Monet's tion of the experts who could certify a painting's inno-
work at Boussod and Valadon, according to this firm's vative character.
manager, Theo van Gogh (Levine 1994). This article was Nowadays, the expert' s certification powers have
not only the longest until that date written on Monet, but grown to such an extent that it almost seems as if the
it also focused on Monet' s innovativeness. Mirbeau wrote critic is more important than the artist or as if the critic
about Monet: "With M. Claude Monet, we are far from is the real artist and the painter just the person providing
tradition.... One of his great originalities is that he was the raw material (Sandler 1996). Because innovativeness
the pupil of no one" (quoted in Levine 1994, p. 96). Both came to serve as the dominant criterion for the evaluation
Theo van Gogh and Monet himself thought that Mir- of quality in the painting industry, only the work of the
beau's article also led to other positive reviews, all of innovators has remained valuable, while much of the
which served to encourage the efforts of dealers who were work of contemporaneous academic painters has disap-
supporting the works of the Impressionists. peared or is only valued as a curiosity, not as a work of
art (see, for example, the work of Alma-Tadema).
Discussion and Implications The fact that artistic innovativeness is a characteristic
The Impressionists faced a problem: They found it hard that is difficult to evaluate by the average consumer not
to have the value of their paintings recognized and re- only reinforces the position of experts; it also makes it
warded in the selection system that was dominant in the more likely that group formation will become important

ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 11, No. 3, May-June 2000 327

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NACHOEM M. WIJNBERG AND GERDA GEMSER Adding Value to Innovation

to producers and experts alike. Where the value of an the attraction of being in a group on the one hand and the
innovation in painting is determined by evaluating its ef- premium on originality on the other.
fect on the course of art history, an artist will see the value The relevance of our conceptual framework and the
of his or her paintings increase when he or she is recog- results of the case study are not restricted to the work of
nized not only as an individual, but also as a leader of a the Impressionists, or to the contemporary visual arts in-
group, as an artist whose work has influenced the, work dustry. Across a large number of industries, an innova-
of many other important artists. tor's credentials tend to be strengthened by the extent to
On the other hand, if an expert can ascribe followers which they have followers and therefore become a
"leader" of a growing collective. Merton (1968), for ex-
to an artist and if he or she is the first to describe the artist
as among the leaders of a major group, this expert can ample, observed that scientists acquire status by contrib-
increase both his or her own credentials well as the art- uting groundbreaking work that becomes a foundation for
ist's. The returns to the critic's credentials from spotting future research (Stuart 1998). In a similar vein, the pres-
a whole movement are likely to be greater than from spot- tige and reputation of organizations in high-technology
ting a single individual. Indeed, the history of modern and fashion-sensitive industries seem linked to the extent

visual art is also the history of those critics who were to which their innovations become a foundation for fur-

among the first to recognize the importance of new groups ther innovations, imitations, and new trends (Gemser and

and movements (Golding 1994, see also Sandler 1996). Wijnberg 1999, Podolny and Stuart 1995).

To summarize, the changes caused by the Impression- Furthermore, many industries are confronted with com-

ists also led to a significant increase in the importance of petitive arenas that are not exclusively market-selected,
as traditional theory would like to have it, but are domi-
innovativeness as a means of differentiating paintings and
nated by expert selection or by some combination of ex-
of constant innovation as a characteristic of the industry.
pert and peer selection. The growing importance of vari-
To become successful, a group had to be recognized as a
ous forms of experts has been illustrated in many different
group of innovators. Individual artists could benefit from
types of settings (Eliashberg and Shugan 1997, Fombrun
being part of such a group and, especially, of being con-
and Shanley 1990, Lampel and Shamsie 1997, Mossetto
sidered to be among its leaders. The representatives of
1993, Smith and Smith 1986). Above all, this paper sug-
the three core institutions of the new selection system
gests that a close inspection of the selection system of a
could also gain significant benefits by identifying inno-
particular industry is a necessary first step towards un-
vative groups and their leaders as early as possible.
derstanding the dynamics of the competitive processes
FitzGerald (1995, p. 7) wrote of the key accomplish-
and the development of the institutional structures in that
ments that were associated with the rise of the Impres-
industry.
sionists: "The success of the Impressionists was based
on a more remarkable-and more complex-achieve- Acknowledgments
ment. By coupling their new aesthetic with the establish- The authors wish to thank three anonymous referees and the editors of
ment of a commercial and critical system to support their this issue for their most helpful and constructive comments.
art, they not only created the movement of Impressionism
but laid the foundation for the succession of modern References
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Accepted by Joseph Lampel; received February 3, 1998. This paper was with the authors for three revisions.

ORGANIZATION SCIENCE/Vol. 11, No. 3, May-June 2000 329

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