The real dividend people should seek from art is not financial but emotional.

So says Morris Shapiro, director of the Southfield, Mich.-based Park West Gallery, the biggest independent art dealer in the world.

"Our overriding philosophy is that people should buy art because they love it," Shapiro said Friday. "Because they want to hang it on their walls, they want to look at it, they want to have a relationship with it, they want to keep it for a long time and pass it on to their heirs.

"That's really the great benefit of art. It's an intangible appreciation, not a financial appreciation."

The Park West Gallery was founded in 1969 by Albert Scaglione, a Wayne State University engineering professor, and has grown ever since-- attesting to the enduring popularity of fine art.

Besides selling online, Park West runs art auctions on cruise ships around the world, while at any one time the Southfield gallery, at 29469 Northwestern Highway, features between 500 and 1,000 works of art-- from contemporary to masters-- in 63,000 square feet of space.

Over four decades in business, now with 1.2 million customers, Park West has not only expanded it sales, but has seen prices rise on certain work.

For example, Chagall lithographs bought for $3,000 or $4,000 in the gallery's early days, Shapiro said, now sell for $30,000 or $40,000.

Park West has dealt in everything from Rembrandt and Picasso to Miro and Dali, and sells work from a few hundred dollars to about $1 million.

But Shapiro stresses that people should buy art as a lifestyle, not portfolio enhancement, since values typically only jump dramatically over decades.

"What I get out of it is being able to enrich people," Shapiro said. "Introducing art to people's lives is just thrilling."