I came across an article in Smithsonian magazine, at least twenty years ago, that pointed out the fundamental problems with Postmodern art. I wish I had kept it, because I have not come across any better explanation for the state of "art" than that one. A succinct summary of it would be this: Art has always depended on the connection made between viewer and work of art. When that is gone, you have nothing but elitist garbage, fools embracing whatever is the in thing and paying absurd amounts for it to stay on trend. The rest of the public lose all interest. They can't connect with any of it anyway. Art is no longer relevant to them. It's only for a small, wealthy class of people.
Avoiding an academic discussion about what is meant by the term "art", here is a fact. Just like we see in every other area of Western society, the base, stupid, pointless, ugly and absurd is what the elites tell us is worthy of our admiration today. But when a museum janitor tosses out a work of "art" consisting of old beer bottles, thinking it's trash (it is), things have come to a ridiculous pass. (This actually happened. See linked article below.)
I don't think art is supposed to be all white bread and Miracle Whip. I could not stand Thomas Kinkade's work for this reason. It was an immediate, visceral response from me as just a lowly member of the public. It's not that the man didn't have any skill. It's that he used it producing a false view of the world. He was trying to paint heaven on earth, and that's not honest. A cross bedazzled in pink roses up on a cliff, towns with no porches needing paint, no stormy seas and everything perfect is sickening after a while. I could go on with this, but I say this to point out that no, I'm not suggesting that everything has to come up with lilac bushes in full bloom. Warhol and Kinkade both cynically produced a commercial product for different audiences. But were they great? Compared to the skill of the Great Masters? Not even close.
I remember years ago when a London art gallery unveiled an art exhibit *cough*comprised of an unmade bed, used tissues and rumpled sheets in all their glory. I remember laughing out loud at the video of members of the media lined up against a wall, cameras poised, dressed all in artsy black, snapping photos of this great new creation. It was hysterical. Fools, promoting utter foolishness, the members of the art world elite, cooing and fawning over "art" that every one of us creates each morning when we get out of bed. I am smiling just remember it. No clothes, Emperor, but we can't say so, or we risk looking like cultural Philistines. Shudder.
When I was sixteen, I came across a book in a library called, Escape from Reason, by Dr. Francis Schaeffer. It was like a light bulb switched on in my mind. There was an explanation for our culture at every level--entertainment of all kinds, books, art, music, film, and why it had gotten so grotesque and nihilistic. When you throw out the belief that man is made in the image of God, when you reject this as a foundational belief in a society, the results are stunning. Suddenly the base, the vulgar, dissonant, the ugly and pointless (like a rotting animal floating in formaldehyde and passed off as "art"), become dominant. Rather than create as image bearers of a loving God, humanity becomes, as Dr. Schaeffer put it, mere cogs in a machine--devoid of value, meaning and eternal purpose. In other words, rather than look up for inspiration, man looks back into the dirt. And it looks and sounds exactly like what we now see in postmodern art, music, literature, theater and film. Paint blobs thrown at a canvas, absurdity, death celebrated at every turn, grotesqueness, depravity, debauchery, darkness. The descent into what is called Postmodernism has taken what is ugly and given it a final push into total insanity.
This article here elaborates on what is wrong with Postmodernism in the art world. I highly recommend the read. But let me say this: The problem goes deeper than what the article addresses. It we think incisively, right down to root causes, we can see the direct consequence of our prevailing cultural philosophy--a secularist world without hope, without a Messiah, without joy and tragically,
without meaning.
Without God, all eventually becomes madness.
Painting by Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (1817-1900), considered one of the greatest painters of marine art. Those tranluscent waves...
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