Art in decadence?

[Angrboda]

There's also the role of community leaders. A similar thing happens with language. The people who are looked up to or most influential in a community are responsible for initiating changes in word usage and vocabulary. In the same vein, key players perform the same function for art. Reviewers play a big role there. A favorable review in the New York Times can make an artist. Nowadays social media plays a big role. I don't know who first drew attention to the Linda Lindas, but their being promoted with Youtube videos changed what might have been a small cult following into a nationwide surge of popularity.

[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. 

[Fake Messiah]

Talking about so-called realistic art, the problem is who would be the one dictating what is realistic, what is reality, what is normal, what is acceptable.

For example, there is a story that some guy was riding on a train with, who else, but Pablo Picasso. So the guy asks Picasso: "Why is all your art, all modern art, so screwed up? Why don’t you paint reality instead of these distortions?"

Picasso asks him, "So what do you think reality looks like?"

The man pulls out a picture of his wife from his wallet and says, "Here, like this. Like the photo of my wife."

Picasso takes the photograph, looks at it, and says, "Really? She’s very small. And flat, too."

[Belacqua]

Talking about so-called realistic art, the problem is who would be the one dictating what is realistic, what is reality, what is normal, what is acceptable.

For example, there is a story that some guy was riding on a train with, who else, but  Pablo Picasso. So the guy asks Picasso: "Why is all your art, all modern art, so screwed up? Why don’t you paint reality instead of these distortions?"

Picasso asks him, "So what do you think reality looks like?"

The man pulls out a picture of his wife from his wallet and says, "Here, like this. Like the photo of my wife."

Picasso takes the photograph, looks at it, and says, "Really? She’s very small. And flat, too."

I would like to take a moment to commemorate this occasion.

Fake and I have agreed on something.