Nowadays, for many people, there are still a lot of questions. What is an NFT, and what differentiates it from a physical oil painting? And, can a physical oil painting be an NFT? The example of Trevor Jones “Picasso Bull” can explain this question pretty well:
The artist Trevor Jones digitised his painting “Picasso Bull” as an NFT in June 2020. He sold the NFT version of “Picasso Bull” for USD 55.000. In contrast, the artist sold the physical oil canvas for just USD 50.000. This means that the original oil painting costs USD 5.000 less.
The reasons for that are different. On the one hand, NFTs are easier to acquire and trade. Therefore it attracts much more people than physical oil paintings. On the other hand, there is a lot of money in the crypto space sector and collectors of the first hour are interested in not just being part of the history – they want to write history.
The three different options of digitising a physical oil painting:
- One owner: The NFT represents the ownership of the respective Oil Painting. It is kind of a digital certificate.
- Two owners: In option number two we have two fully exclusive ownerships. On the one hand the owner of the digital NFT Art piece and on the other hand the owner of the physical painting – as in the example of Trevor Jones.
- One owner: Another option is that the physical oil painting on canvas is just the process for the artist to generate NFT Art. After digitising the physical oil painting into an NFT, the artist destroys the original physical art piece.
Threats of different options
Some artists complained that criminals converted their work to an NFT without their permission. Many NFTs for sale are also based on other famous art pieces which are violating copyrights. This illegal activity helped criminals to benefit from the work of the underlying artist or copyright owner without consent.
Final Thoughts
The NFT world offers new potential for legit offline artists to sell their masterpieces to a broader audience, including digital elements. The artist has to decide which of the three above mentioned options is the best.
