When one either seriously thinks that the most popular "art" is necessarily the best, or that there is no standard worth arguing for, because everyone has a right to his own opinion, it becomes much more difficult to sustain a climate that supports fine art..........
My observation is that a lot of the discussion of what is art and what is not, or of what art is "better", spins off from the notion that art should be deserving of government subsidy, and that non-art should be subject to censorship. If you remove both the carrot and the stick, which I believe should be done, the discussion hardly matters, except as an academic exercise.
Art should not be subsidized or censored. Let those who aspire to the status of artists produce what they will, and let the market decide what has value. True, this is a little hard on the "true artists", as only a small percentage of the population appreciates "true art". But hasn't this always been the case? And isn't it true now, as it was in the days of Bach or Rembrandt, that although the number who truly appreciate (or who aspire to the social status conferred by patronage) is small, many within that number are those with the resources to support the artists of their choice? |
