I have already touched on the subject of the appropriation by photo-realism and re-appropriation of photo-realism into what is still seen as ‘low art’ (see Girl on Beach 1). I have also touched on the subject of photo-realism’s relationship with nihilism and ‘anti-art’ (see Show-Jumper). The whole concept of the ‘value’ and hierarchy of art is an interesting one. It is at once the most precious commodity, the ultimate status symbol and the most worthless tat. In the 18th century the Academy prescribed a strict hierarchy of the ‘worthiness’ of paintings; at the top of this list was ‘history painting’ - scenes of religious, mythological or historical content, followed by portraiture, and the lowest form of art was considered to be landscape and still life. This hierarchical structure of value has survived all of the modernist anti-movements certainly to the 1980’s, though the new hierarchy had substituted late modernist conceptual art for history painting. What form it will take since the splintering of art ‘movements’ that marks the implosion of modernism remains to be seen, it remains fairly certain, however, that animal portraiture will remain reassuringly low.