Art in decadence?

[LinuxGal]

This is how Romanticism got started, and it's still pretty much the framework we're in today. After the change, what became important was not the great quality of the object depicted but the great way in which the artist depicts it. Van Gogh can paint worn out work shoes, and this painting is deemed as important or as beautiful as a Bouguereau Madonna. (Not to everybody of course -- tastes differ -- but the fact that the shoe painting is deemed to be historically important at all is due to this change.