The relationship between art and money has always raised questions and intrigue. Art, as a measurable quantity according to vague criteria, still seems to be debatable, doubtful, and open to speculation. One might even get the impression, also reading this book here, that the shapers of the art market, especially art sellers, dealers, and gallerists, have completely neglected the substantive side of art and calculate its value through its financial rather than intellectual quality.  The emphasis would seem to be predominantly on what one or another work of art might cost, how to get hold of these works, and how to keep the legends, myths, and art mythology of prices in a profit-orientated flow.  I have to admit that from a certain point onwards, when the works of certain artists have already acquired value as a result of whatever process, their saleability really becomes an indicator for gallerists. The circulation of art cannot be broken and businesses must survive, but the financial yardstick is certainly not the reason for the creation of highly valued art itself, nor for serious creation. Most certainly, I am not talking here about art with a commercial orientation, where certain already popular art movements or motifs are deliberately repeated because they sell (the purposeful copying of Impressionism is a good example here), but about those authors whose work has become a provocateur, an initiator, an innovator of important art movements. Art that has achieved remarkable and staggering prices, whether within national and cultural contexts or on global markets, thanks to its genuine quality based on content.  Yes, art can be viewed through money, but money does not make art, rather art gives direction to money, valuing the reason to formulate the world in a larger way.   
The principles of the functioning of individual countries and a global market representing the world’s top art are not so different in today’s terms. They are based on the same human emotions. It is emotion that is inevitable when talking about art, whether in the context of sales or not. The money that draws attention to art, and the prices that perplex, often challenge art itself, rather than justifying the real phenomenon, the cause that generates these prices. However, if we analyse and compare the works of the world’s most expensive authors with those of high-priced authors from Estonia, or any other small country, we come to clear similarities.  Choose art that has a strong, meaningful energy.  Works that have marked, reflected, changed, renewed, reformulated something in their time, and to which the artist has deeply committed themselves. It values the creative genius that leaves its strong imprint on works of art, even if it is hidden and unnoticed at certain times. The artist’s subjective, profound commitment to their art gives their work a broader intellectual value in perspective – creating a visual that articulates and maps the manifestations of society, a creative reality that encapsulates, in grand terms, the emotional history of humanity. 
Everything that happens around art, whether it is reflected in money or anything else, is preserved because of the creativity of being human. Thanks to our ability and desire to interpret, make sense of, and record our surroundings. To express one’s own experiences in a figurative way, in order to perceive again these forms, this result, this ‘secret code’ of art.  The relationship with good art is both a social and a very personal process. 
What is happening with art in Estonia and today, albeit in a country with a young market experience, is similar and in many ways already parallel to what is happening elsewhere in the world. The journey to this point has been challenging. The story of the development of our art market has been influenced by the long years of Soviet rule, which on the one hand created a gap between art and its audience, and on the other oppressed and restricted the freedom of artistic development. In a context of narrow choices, the quality of the artist themselves, their worldview, their substantive aspirations and professional skills, as well as the ingenuity and personality of their self-expression, became even more decisive – the ability to remain a distinctive self when it was politically safe to paint mainly landscapes, flowers, and cityscapes, and experiments had to be left hidden in the depths of the studio. Estonian art has managed to do this. 
The Soviet period also interrupted the development of the art market here. From the consciousness of the Estonian Age of Awakening, from the end of the 19th century through the beginning of the 20th century, and the Art School of Pallas in Tartu, emerged the driving forces that laid the foundations for our professional art and also for a knowledgeable and appreciative public. Art that progressive citizens of Estonia started buying and collecting long before World War II. It was a process that ended with the ‘imposition’ of Soviet power, with its own corrections, and in which there could be no question of an art market and art trade comparable to that in the West. 
The way we see our art market today, with already well-known and influential private galleries with a wealth of experience and regular art auctions, is a reality that has emerged in less than 30 years. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that it is now possible to buy art through state-funded art projects and institutions, something that was taboo until recently. A perfect and very well-organised example is the historic and already renowned Spring Exhibition at Tallinn Art Hall in the Soviet period, which has undergone a bold organisational overhaul, including cooperation with private galleries and the possibility to buy the art on display. 
There are many examples of the development of our art market and the emergence of a clearer relationship between money and art, with the media talking about auction sales records and the prices paid for works by Estonian artists, which until recently seemed utopian.  The turnover of our art market is very small compared to the rest of the world, but the logic is comparable today. As an aside, it has to be acknowledged that artists of the Soviet generation here, often alienated from the material world, have in their own way feared the relationship between art and money, as if the inclusion of art in the material value of the world might somehow compromise it, but this too has largely become a thing of the past.  In art that really sells, and not just in monetary terms, it is the creative something that involves more than money can measure.  Art that can be directed and determined, and that can become an article of merchandising, must be something. Art that is sought by gallerists, formulated by art historians or presented by curators, and which over time gains recognition and attention, and ultimately a price, must contain a cause that makes that art establish itself and pay for itself.  Unfortunately, due to the mostly imperceptible nature of art itself, this cause is not as obviously measurable as a square metre, but it exists. Indeed, how to explain the precise origin of the inspiration that makes one author’s work so gripping and evocative at a time that at some point people are prepared to pay hundreds of thousands and millions for it. 
Obscure processes have always fascinated mankind more than clear manifestations of life. Art, and everything that goes with it, offers enduring and inexplicable experiences. But still, what is it about a square of painting, or any other kind of artwork, that at once sets the energetic spaces ablaze, heats the passions, causes record sales or prompts long texts and analyses? The most charming thing about this question is the answer, which tries to be formulated in a way that is common to all, but to which in fact each person answers individually.  This is what happens when we come across a work of art that is impossible to walk past, a work that, when we stand in front of it, seems at once to be a work that has been created for everyone, but was in fact created only for me – a work that summarises at once, wordlessly and emotionally, everything that any one of us perceives as important at some personal moment in our lives, and that resonates through the figurative world of art as an unexpected touch. 
One thing should be borne in mind when interacting with art and analysing its various manifestations, be they substantial or material, perceptual or explicit, whether they involve intrigue and passion or a profound silence between the viewer’s gaze and the work of art – the charm of this world lies in its inexplicability, in the processes that operate without being fully explained. Truly good works of art are, on the one hand, material objects, but on the other hand, energetic assemblages that live their own lives, create their own rules and establish their own laws. Yes, we try to direct them, to subordinate them, to control them, to determine them, to anticipate them, to harness them to the chariot of our human desires, but the secret of the nature of art is greater than all this. 
This book here is an eloquent and intellectually enjoyable set of examples of the dialogue between art and the world that seeks to guide and shape it – a chance to walk with art and its entourage for a moment on this journey that is both definable and indefinable.