Comment by smolder

I think understanding "what art is" comes from the experience of creating for the sake of creation, not so much from observing what has been made. It's different from knowing the history of art, which just gives you contextual perspective. That's valuable, but like with any history, there are narratives that survive and don't, there's context that gets lost. So a kind of orthodoxy arises around how you are supposed to view art according to the imperfect historical context that survived. It's not "a scam" but there's also no immaculate history; we get what the stewards of history choose to give us, within their ability to do so.