So said the formidable art critic Robert Hughes in a lecture titled “Art & Money,” delivered not last spring but last millennium. The year was 1984, to be precise, and the market boom to which he was referring was still a long way from cresting. And price inflation? As he marvels at $2 million Rembrandts and Rothkos and Pollocks, one longs to shout: Mr. Hughes, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

Nonetheless, the lecture (which was published the same year by the now-defunct New Art Examiner and was recently e-mailed to me by a friend) remains a fascinating read, even though we’re at a very different point in a markedly different art boom. That’s primarily because one of Hughes’s main arguments—that the uneasy relationship between art and commerce is exacerbated in particularly robust markets—still resonates. Indeed, it has been resonating since the 18th century, when here emerged what Hughes calls “the twin figures of the art impresario and the art star, performing for a large audience,” working in tandem to persuade said audience to fork over large sums of money for, essentially, some pigment on a stretch of canvas. You may ask what has been the persistent logic governing three centuries of such commercial transactions? Logic’s never played a part, says Hughes, because paintings “do not have an objective value that rises from their material contents. Art prices are determined by the meeting of real or induced scarcity with pure, irrational desire.”

Desire’s delicious in the bedroom, but you’re bound to be taken to task when you flaunt it in public or, worse yet, try to attach a price tag to it (just ask Eliot Spitzer). That’s why it seems as if every art-market boom is accompanied by a sound track of complainers and Cassandras (not all of them members of the press) insisting that the good times are actually quite bad for art.  And that’s also why when the economy inevitably cools, as it has undoubtedly now done, that same chorus eagerly chronicles each derailment, every train wreck, any sorry death foretold. But when supply outstrips demand and paintings find no takers in the salesroom, when dealers downsize and fairs fold, who among us will prefer that reality to the heady times from which we’ve just emerged?

Here’s an alternative refrain: Art is made, sold and proudly hung on walls regardless of where one finds oneself on the economic roller-coaster. And that’s particularly true regarding the really good stuff. This was borne out in March when I was conscripted for tours of duty in Maastricht and on New York’s Pier 94 (where, respectively, TEFAF and the Armory Show bookended the month with their undeniable successes). With an eye to the big May auctions, which will feature masterpieces both large and small (see Sales Preview for some of the standouts among them), I can’t help feeling that things are not as gloomy as some wags might have it.

Indeed, we may be leaving a bacchanal, but the fun’s surely not at an end. You’ll find that true desire still burns at even the most temperate of gatherings.

"From the Editor" originally appeared in the May 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's May 2008 Table of Contents.