(May 21, 2022 at 11:22 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:(May 21, 2022 at 10:42 pm)Belacqua Wrote: 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.
Yes, this makes sense. And it goes some way toward explaining the kind of two-tier system of painting we have now.
The middle class non-art-history-majors get schmaltzy mall art, with an instantly obvious nostalgia or heartwarming message.
While the Art World gets a different kind of heartwarming message, largely about how we are woke and the other, bad people, aren't.
And I guess I should add that it is a good thing to work on social improvement, and anything that actually raises awareness is worthwhile. But if this is in galleries for rich people, it teaches nothing. We're stuck with either preaching to the choir about social ills, or collectible brand logos, like Yoshitomo Nara or Murakami.
