Comment by AlecSchueler
4 hours ago
> It's why there really isn't any "great art" anymore, at least in the classical sense
This is a tautology, no? There's plenty of great art being made today by people feeling the same emotions as those in the past.
Well "great" is rather subjective. But in terms of collective agreement we can conclusive say there really isn't anything like the art of the past made today. As an artist I was invited to a much vaunted exhibition in Venice itself recently. It consisted of a woman sitting in urine ...but with a kind message asking bystanders to please not poop in her tank.. The link if you fail to believe it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/arts/design/venice-bienna...
Modern art and artists indeed do mirror the feeling of their age.
Consider that the "great impressionists" were not considered great when they began defining the style.
van Gogh sold one painting in his life, Vermeer died in debt, and that's just off the top of my head.
And it goes all sorts of ways, too. Bach was relatively succesful in life, but then largely forgotten for decades after his death, but never saw anything like the current prevalence of his influence.
We really can't say, today, what our kids or kids kids will be studying in art history, what'll be referenced in popular culture, etc.
> Well "great" is rather subjective. But in terms of collective agreement we can conclusive say there really isn't anything like the art of the past made today.
Yes, but you claimed there was no great art in the "classical sense." Of course there's not; if it was contemporary then it wouldn't be classical.
Adding to that, your single data point to show the apparent vacuity of contemporary art which we can collectively agree on isn't very convincing at all when a dozen counter examples could trivially be found.
And all that while you admit yourself that what you're saying is completely subjective in any case.
I don't think we can conclusively say anything like that. Sure, a bunch of modern art is... odd, but that's more to do with the world generally being more ok with experimentation, and there's plenty of more classical work happening around the globe, even if it doesn't get the same recognition as various "clickbait", if you will. For instance, the bronze work of Luo Li Rong channels the art of the past pretty well, I'd say. https://mymodernmet.com/realistic-sculptures-luo-li-rong/
> experimentation
That's what I find so tedious about that particular type of modern art (e.g. Piss Christ). It's incredibly repetitive and not experimental at all.
It's always about transgression (body, gender, etc.), it pivots on a sophomoric "what is art anyway?" question, it drives audience discomfort in order to have a visceral reaction rather than any other kind of emotional response. In the end it elevates the artist's intention (in their mission statement) far over the reality of their art.
It's incredibly overdone and yet keeps coming back around...to an installation space near you.
Luo Li Rong managed to grab the other end of the spectrum: classically/romantically-presented T&A.
I do not think this pseudo-intellectual desire to ape art styles of the past is really very compatible with the soul of an artist. Artists make two things: what moves them, and what they are paid to make. Ideally, these are the same thing.
No one is stopping you from commissioning paintings such as the ones you revere as the peak of art, by the way. Open your wallet if that's what you want. That's how great art was made back then. But if the depth of your insight on the human condition is whatever you're posting here, I do not know if your commissions would capture the meaning you seem to want.
Your absolutely correct. The Venice exhibition was made with 600 thousand euros of public money. The great art of the last age was also commissioned by rich nobility, basically the same as there was no public funds at that stage of developmemt. So you admitted that the public purse and what it is willing to pay to commission for public art is useful measure of a pseudoscientific constant, namely that of the public consideration of the "great art" of that age. I'm not sure that fountains of human excrement convey the grandeur that your attributing to modern art however.
We can make better than the past for sure, there is no point to rehash the glory of old, but we so far have not. In archeology there is a constant and agreed upon "decadent" style that can indicate when cultures have experienced conditions, for external or internal reasons, that ultimately led to their decline and downfall.
It's amazing that we cannot recognize the same precursors in our own. But perhaps this is interdisciplinary blindness?
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Look at the incredible amount of art dismissed by this ideology: Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Rothko, Pollack, Coltrane, Lou Reed, the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, James Joyce, almost all of literature, centuries of genres in every field. Hemingway might agree, but didn't really live it out past a certain point.
By its argument, people in wartorn nightmares should be making 'great art': Gaza, eastern Congo, etc. The most violent parts of the wealthy world should be where 'great art' comes from.
> there really isn't anything like the art of the past made today
Little is made like it was in the past, thankfully. It's not like it used to be. The world changes.
> As an artist I was invited to a much vaunted exhibition in Venice itself recently.
I think you'll need to convince people of that claim, especially given the unsophisticated old cliches expressed in this thread which don't seem to reflect much understanding.
> consisted of a woman sitting in urine
For example, that's all you understood.