This was an answer given by Reinoud Schuijers

“I suppose you’re confusing two things with one another. It’s okay – I think most people make this same mistake, which is why, to date, art is hardly understood by the masses.

The pieces of art you are talking about, such as the paintings by Miró, aren’t meant to be pretty or decorative. They aren’t meant to make someones living room look good. I’ll get back at what they are meant to be later, but in short, they have little to do with (whatever it may be): beauty.

And then there are things that are meant to make your living room look good. A pretty side table. A photograph of some beautiful underwater scene, printed on a huge canvas. A fancy carpet. Stuff like that.

So what’s up with that? Why can you buy a huge, beautifully printed canvas which looks infinitely better than Miró’s painting at, say, 0.000027% of it’s price?

As said, the Miró painting is not a piece of wall decoration. It is, like most great art, a creation by a very special human being. Someone who is different, someone who thinks different and someone who is capable of expressing this. Most artists are incredibly inspring people – in their own way, admitted. They aren’t just people who can paint a pretty picture – they are the thinkers of their time, often with very new and fresh ways of seeing the world. Visionairs.

But still, why would you pay $37 million for something that does not look good? Because such painting is a manifestation of who an artist was and what he thought. It’s not about the prettiness. In fact, with most art, it isn’t even about technical perfection. It is the simple fact that there is only one item that was created by that very special person at that very moment, which makes it this valuable.

Still don’t get it? It’s very comparable to why a letter by John Lennon is auctioned for over $60.000,-. It’s not a beautiful letter, is it? His handwriting isn’t all that special. It’s pretty useless in fact. But the very truth behind it, the story, the uniqueness and the context makes it valuable. John Lennon Letter to Paul and Linda McCartney Going Up for Auction | Music News | Rolling Stone

Or how about a bomber jacket worn by John F. Kennedy, auctioning at $570.000,- (!!!). It might be a pretty jacket, but is it a five-hundred-seventy-thousand-dollar-pretty jacket? I don’t think so. JFK birthday card from son, other items auctioned for up to $2M

So, do you see where I’m taking this? This is an oversimplification, but in essence this is one of the reasons why art can become so incredibly valuable. Other reasons may include that one piece of art initiated a movement, which makes it the “first link” of a chain. And as you know, “firsts” are always more expensive. Or art could have witnessed things, making it valuable, such as paintings owned by political leaders which were present during important meetings, for example.

The point is; art is not solely intended to be decorative and thus isn’t solely valued by it’s decorativeness”.