From the Art Renewal Center (
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2005/abstract/ross1.asp )...
"Just because something causes you to have a feeling of aesthetic beauty does not make it a work of art. A work of art is the selective recreation of reality for the purpose of communicating some aspect of what it means to be human or how we perceive the world."
By the standards of the ARC, ONLY realism is art. More specifically, only realistic paintings (and occasionally sculptures) are art. Everything else is trash. Expressionism, Impressionism, Surrealism, all totally worthless junk. Architecture isn't art. Neither is any form of design. Only paintings on canvas. Interestingly, what they consider "realism" is actually mostly classicism. Paintings must be of noble and enlightening subjects, and figures must be posed in appropriate ways, etc.
I have some sympathy for their point of view with respect to the effort and talent involved in creating realistic art, and I've always loved realism in painting.
But it seems to me they push the pendulum way too far the other direction.
Frankly, the idea that every single cloud of insipid Bouguereau cupids fluttering around, no matter how masterfully executed, is intrinsically more valuable than the entire body of work by someone like Picasso or Kandinsky, seems ridiculous to me.
There's no question that there is plenty of utter crap in the art world today, and plenty of people call themselves artists who have little or no talent. But does it really make sense to say that the only kind of painting that should be allowed is realistic painting of Europeans doing useful things?
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