Q: Is it possible to calculate the value of a work of art by using mathematical formulas? Is it possible to rank artists in order of importance the same way? Can you predict the future of the art market by using math or science or extrapolating from graphs?

A: In spite of the fact that researchers occasionally claim to have reduced the art business to mathematical formulas, the answer to each of the above questions is a resounding NO. The main problem is that art is a subjective medium-- it does not operate according to the same fundamental laws of nature or mathematical formulas that apply to the rest the universe.

People collect art for personal reasons, not because they're conforming to quantifiable equations. An individual chooses to buy a piece of art because he feels a certain way about it. How much he pays for it depends on an incredible variety of factors including how much money he can afford to spend at that moment, how good of a negotiator he is, what kind of a mood he's in, how much his wife likes it, how much he likes the frame, whether he likes the colors, how big it is, how badly the seller needs the money, and so on. This same individual cannot, however, change the speed of light or alter the force of gravity no matter how he feels about them.

In addition to an individual's willingness to pay a certain price for a certain piece of art, numerous outside factors also come into play. Since owning art is not necessary for human survival, prices drop during times of war, economic uncertainty, and social or political unrest. A severe drought can temporarily impact the prices of a region's most collectible artists. Even bad weather the night of an auction or the fact that an auction is mistakenly scheduled at the same time as the Superbowl can adversely impact art prices. On the flip side, media attention on record art auction prices, a great economy, low interest rates, and easy credit cause art prices to rise. And don't forget what happens when two egos clash over one piece of art at auction. That's a situation where two people care far less about the art or what it's worth than who ends up owning it.

That's not all. You also have variables relating to the art itself including what condition it's in, when it was created, what the subject matter is, what the dominant colors are, how good the frame is, whether it was pictured in the paper or shown at an art exhibit, whether the artist made a slight little mistake on a tree limb that bothers certain people when they look at it, what sort of mood the art imparts to viewers, and on and on and on. Anyone who tells you that they can scientifically or mathematically mold these sorts of variables into universal formulas has probably also been abducted by space aliens.

Even if you ignore all of the above unquantifiables and set out to create a formula based solely on past selling prices, you still run into big problems. Suppose, for example, that most sales of an artist's work take place privately at galleries and that prices are neither published nor generally known. Suppose also that his art rarely appears at auction and the few pieces that have all fared poorly. As a result, any pricing formula based on known sales results will yield unrealistically low values. A similar situation exists when no top quality work of art by an artist has ever changed hands at auction. Once again, anyone researching a superior work of art will end up with an unrealistically low value if they simply plug numbers into a formula based on known sales results. Neither of these scenarios are unusual, by the way.

As for ranking artists, scholars and critics argue over who's more important, influential, and had a greater impact on art history all the time. One year it's one artist, the next year it's another. Some of these arguments have been raging for centuries. Tastes and fashions of the times also tend to dictate who's viewed as more or less significant at any given moment. All you have to do is read art criticism of different time periods to see how rapidly artists can fall into or out of favor.