Painting, sculpting, disappearing?

[Neo-Scholastic]

When was the last time you bought a high quality original work of art?

Last month:

Ukiyo-e woodcut by Toyokuni III, showing (in anachronistic Edo-period dress) the famous e-awase scene from the Tale of Genji.

The most modern things I have are woodcuts by Munakata Shiko, who died in the '70s sometime.

Maybe you personally, yes, but in general there is no real middle class market for visual art. And quality options to middle class patrons are very niche and limited. So it is really just a matter of the cost of production being so high that ownership is a luxury. It takes a great deal of time, skill, and dedication to make a fine art oil painting. As a society we get what we pay for...if we're lucky...which is why visual art died long ago, giving way to cheap naratives. Twenty years ago it seemed to me you could not be expected to 'appreciated' a work of art without reading the Artist's Statement first. The story about the art became more important than the art itself. We are now a culture driven by competing made-up perspectives that may or may not have any correspondence to what is actually happening. The truest art always seems to transcend its origin into something primal and uniquely human. Art reveals what Story obscures.