Street artists painting on the streets of Montmartre in Pairs are soon to be a thing of the past with the introduction of very cheap Chinese painting done by artist’s equivalent of a battery hen in a steel cage.

The majority of the 300 officially registered artists working on the streets of Paris now find themselves competing with souvenir shops that sell mass produced Chinese oil paintings for a fraction of the price that Paris street painters can afford to sell theirs for.

In some people’s opinions, it’s a case of survival of the fittest, but not in this case as mass produced oil paintings from China are in most cases anti-art and any lover of art that supports these knock-offs should hang their heads in shame. Go by yourself a poster if you really must, however don’t encourage this abuse of featherless battery hens that churn out a large number of rip=offs year in, year out.

Van Gogh may not mind that his sunflowers are ripped off thousands of times a year but I don’t think emerging and mid-career artists do mind. It’s a sad fact that many contemporary artists have their images stolen by battery artists in China.