The importance of NFTs in art – The case of Michelangelo's crucifix

Welcome to Hoken Tech

NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) represents a revolution in the field of digital art, allowing to certify the authenticity and ownership of works of art through the use of the blockchain. This technology, already known for cryptocurrencies, is making its entrance into the art market, offering new monetization opportunities to artists and allowing collectors to acquire digital cultural assets with a high rarity value.

But what are the implications of this encounter between technology and art? How is the digital art market changing and what challenges and opportunities does it bring with it? In this article we will examine the importance of NFTs in art, addressing topics such as intellectual property, the monetization of art, the traceability of art transactions, and the aging of digital works.

An NFT (Non-Fungible Token) is a digital token based on blockchain technology used to certify the authenticity and ownership of digital works of art. It is a unique system that makes it impossible to duplicate or counterfeit the works, thus guaranteeing their originality and rarity.

NFTs can be used to represent any type of digital assets, such as images, video, audio, games, and even tweets, but they are particularly popular in the art world, where they are a way for artists to monetize their creations and for collectors to acquire valuable digital works.

To create an NFT, it is necessary to use a starting blockchain for creation and distribution, such as EOS, then, once created, the NFT can be sold or traded on specific decentralized market platforms (so-called marketplaces), such as AtomicHub, thus becoming a tangible asset for whoever owns it.

NFTs are revolutionizing the art market, opening up new monetization opportunities for artists and enabling collectors to acquire digital works as if they were tangible assets. Through the use of the blockchain, the NFTs guarantee the authenticity of the works and certify their ownership, offering a unique and secure certification system of authenticity.

Furthermore, NFTs make it possible to trace artistic transactions and guarantee the integrity of data relating to the works, making it possible to create real digital marketplaces for works of art. All of this is changing the way art is valued and traded, creating new opportunities for artists to sell their work through online art galleries or dedicated online selling systems.

Furthermore, NFTs are bringing technology and art ever closer together, allowing collectors to acquire priceless digital cultural assets that age differently than traditional works.

NFTs offer numerous advantages for artists, both from an intellectual property point of view and from the monetization of the works. Through the use of NFTs, artists can protect their copyrights and guarantee the authorship of their works, preventing the dissemination of unauthorized copies or the creation of plagiarism. Additionally, NFTs offer the ability to monetize digital works, creating a marketplace for online artwork where artists can sell their creations directly to collectors.

In this way, artists can bypass traditional art galleries and reach a global audience, opening the door to new markets and sales opportunities. Furthermore, NFTs can be used to create limited editions of works, thus increasing their value and making it possible to create real collecting phenomena.

We are in early May 2004, when the exhibition entitled “Proposal for young Michelangelo opens. A linden wood crucifix”, which brought to the fore a small wooden crucifix attributed to none other than the famous artist Michelangelo Buonarroti:

It should be noted that the exhibition also had a catalog in which, in addition to revealing the owner of this legendary crucifix in the figure of Giancarlo Gallino, 3 appendices were also added, the first two of which, signed by expert authors, for a comparative purpose executive technique on wood, and an anatomical side made by doctors, and finally the third appendix, without the authors' signature, affirmed the close correlation with Michelangelo's style regarding the famous "Christ":

In the autumn of that year, and after the conclusion of the exhibition, the officials of the superintendency of Florence declared the "particular cultural interest" of that small crucifix "attributed" to Michelangelo, in such a way as to bind the work by preventing it from could be sold abroad.

Unfortunately, the Italian art world, with prominent figures, needed to be more credible about this attribution as there was no concrete evidence that it could be a work by the famous artist.

Meanwhile, the owner of the crucifix was trying to strike while the iron was hot as the only buyers could only be Italian figures of government significance, so much so that in July 2007, the owner wrote to the Italian cabinet of cultural heritage, offering it for the modest sum of 18 million euros.

The letter was also listened to on the advice of the curators of the previous exhibition, and so it was that in the autumn of that year, the scientific committee in charge confirmed the historical interest of the work and therefore its purchase, on condition that you pay a between 3 and 5 million euros.

Between delays and new Italian governments, we have to wait another year to see the offer for the crucifix be accepted for the sum of 3.2 million euros, agreement and sale were signed on November 20, 2008, passing all the bureaucracy without problems, becoming from that day heritage of the Italian state.

After about 3 weeks, this small and controversial crucifix becomes the news of the year, and it passes from place to place, even reaching Pope Benedict XVI and also in the halls of Italian power to show it, like a trophy, to the general public.

However, things begin to crack when, especially abroad, insights, articles, and broadcasts begin to emerge regarding the doubts of the attribution, since, as will be discovered only several years later, no in-depth studies have been carried out and some elements have been misrepresented.

One of the objective element is the material as Michelangelo mainly used poplar as a material and linden only to a minor extent, and this means in simple terms that it is easier to find a work by Michelangelo carved in poplar than in linden.

Furthermore, another regrettable fact concerns the history of the origin of that crucifix, which many, erroneously and without due research, claimed that it came from some Florentine family, nothing more different from reality in that, also thanks to the intervention of the forces of the Italian order, it didn't take much to trace the true origins of the work, as Gallino had bought it for 10 thousand euros from another antique dealer in Florence, who in turn bought it much earlier (in the 1990s), even in the United States United.

Another detail that has escaped many, precisely concerning this catalog, derives precisely from the publisher of the same which is not linked to the Horne museum or in the Florentine area, but to the Turin one, and coincidentally the catalog ends with other catalogs made by the same publisher and which all concern catalogs published by Gallino, created to promote the works in his possession:

This detail unequivocally reveals research and appraisals commissioned by the owner of this crucifix and other works, causing the principle of autonomy of the results to fall between whoever commissioned the research and whoever performed it, and the various experts consulted have given their opinion in favor of the attribution to Michelangelo, and no opinion against it, and clues can be found in the appendices as to the crucifix attributed to Michelangelo, rivers of ink are spent, while for the others information is skimpy as if they were almost forgotten.

Without taking the story for long (we recommend the book "What is Michelangelo for” by Tomaso Montanari regarding the whole story), an investigation by the Italian police forces subsequently led to the trial which ended with the judgment in which all the various actors in the story that led to the purchase of the work, acquitted as the elements are not sufficient to determine the damage that is difficult to calculate as the work itself presents uncertainties as to the authorship of the work and to think that it was enough having the catalog in hand to verify and check the anomalies and to raise the slightest doubt about the authenticity of the whole.

As reiterated in the acquittal sentence:

“the attribution to Michelangelo is not possible to prove, nor will it ever be unless a definitive document emerges (and it seems unlikely). But at the time I thought it proper, and I am still convinced of it, to include the Turin crucifix in Michelangelo's corpus since its attribution, supported by distinguished sculpture experts, requires careful consideration 23 precisely in comparison with Michelangelo's work, concerning the which represents one of the very rare expansion proposals put forward in recent years”

As can be seen, the problem regarding the crucifix is ​​given precisely by the lack of a certain document that can in some way identify a connection with the famous artist, a document that can be of various kinds.

And this lack meant that thanks to a simple catalog, the work was attributed to the artist Michelangelo, which triggered the whole series of facts that we have told up to now.

Now it is true that for ancient works it is quite difficult to find historical and documented material of the various works and their history and movements, but here comes the reflection of being far-sighted because in another 500 or 600 years, we are sure that there will not happen another such case, especially in an age of extreme forgery?

This is where NFTs come into play, digital and immortal assets thanks to the blockchain, as it is not possible to delete that information unless the entire supporting structure is compromised, and NFTs cannot be manipulated and falsified, not even between 500 and 600 years.

When future generations find a work, physical or digital, and the same work has gone through a digitization process thanks to NFTs, it would be enough to read the various information contained in the NFT itself and all the documents enclosed within it, as not only can you upload a simple image but you can also upload other documents relating to the work, always having access and also available files from hundreds of years ago, always within everyone's reach.

Aware of these and other problems that afflict and will afflict works of art precisely in terms of attribution and value of the same, Hoken Tech and its team undertake together with the artists and those who curate the art, to maintain that history and authenticity of works of art in all their forms.

Works of art, as well as cultural interests, must be preserved and protected over time, since art still has technical and structural limits, which can deteriorate over time leading to their disappearance and destruction, and it is here that Hoken Tech, thanks to the use of carbon-neutral blockchains, protects and preserves art and history itself, handing down and leaving all the information that will be useful in the future to reconstruct all the various passages of the asset, and all the documentation suitable to demonstrate the authorship and authenticity of that particular work.

Finally, we conclude with the video made by the CTO of Hoken Tech, Alfredo, where he tells the whole story about the crucifix attributed to Michelangelo: