To the best of my knowledge, until modern art, all art showed a high mastery of craft.
Do you really think that prior to the 20th century, there was no neglected, unremarkable, in-style but sub-par art, or art that might succeed on its own merits but failed to impress for other reasons, or art that just failed to ever catch on with those who had control over funding/critiquing/displaying it? Do you think that there was no prettying-up of mundane items, creating aesthetically-pleasing but not-terribly-formalized objects and images, no creative commission of form and image to medium for the sheer hell of it, regardless of what high society was upvoting as "the in thing" this year?
What you're calling "art" is a small subset of the actual collage of human creative endeavor of art generally, and is better termed "fine art" (and in the context of this thread, you seem to be confining yourself to visual arts). Most of art made by humans throughout history and prehistory has been decorative and utilitarian in its impulses rather than created by highly-trained individuals working within a well-defined tradition and its strictures for the sole purpose of aesthetic expression -- this is still the case today.
Modern Art itself is largely within the "fine art" category, and it includes all kinds of things you may be familiar with as "good art." Could your five-year old do a van Gogh? A minimalist or Futurist building? A photorealistic painting? Salvador Dali? Matisse? Picasso? Monet? The buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright? Those things are Modern Art too.
Yes, some things labelled Modern Art look like a box of crayons exploded, or they're almost absurdly simplistic, or they break from tradition but fail to do anything interesting with it. Especially given it's a movement strongly influenced by breaks from tradition, one oughtn't be surprised -- and it's easier than ever for a given work to find space, or be sent around on tour, or to be created essentially because someone wanted a thing there and didn't have a lot of specifics, felt like leaving it up to the artist they hired. There's more art, period, than there was in previous eras -- more people making it, more people comissioning it, more people interested in displaying it, more people trying to get into it with varying degrees of talent, more people finding something they like and going "here, this is pretty awesome."
And because you're living here and now, you have a much higher chance of seeing something made recently that flops, or just doesn't do it for you personally, from within that timeframe. The flops and failures and embarrassments of centuries past are, by and large, not widely-circulated today -- unless they found a niche later on.
How many execrable pieces of old and even ancient art are you not seeing because time has marched on? How many things you find to be the height of aesthetic refinement couldn't get an audience in their maker's lifetime? How many have gone on to be considered classics despite their reception at the time?
And how many things that entirely meet the general definition of art are you not even considering because they don't at least pretend to emanate from one of those establishments?
IAWYC, but I think this thread is quite a bit past due for "art" to be tabooed. Since the discussion is partially about how modern connotations of "art" effect people's usage its hard to say exactly when the line was crossed, but IMHO
..."What you're calling "art" is a small subset of the actual collage of human creative endeavor of art generally, and is better termed "fine art" (and in the context of this thread, you seem to be confining yourself to visual arts). Most of art made by humans throughout history an
I'm trying to like Beethoven's Great Fugue.
"This piece alone completely changed my life and how I perceive and appreciate music."
"Those that claim to love Beethoven but not this are fakers, frauds, wannabees, but most of all are people who are incapable of stopping everything for 10 minutes and reveling in absolute beauty, absolute perfection. Beethoven at his finest."
"This is the absolute peak of Beethoven."
"It's now my favorite piece by Beethoven."
These are some of the comments on the page. Articulate music lovers with excellent taste praise this piece to heaven. Plus, it was written by Beethoven.
It bores me.
The first two times I listened to it, it stirred no feelings in me except irritation and impatience for its end. I found it devoid of small-scale or large-scale structure or transitions, aimless, unharmonious, and deficient in melody, rhythm, and melodic or rhythmic coordination between the four parts, none of which I would care to hear by themselves (which is a key measure of the quality of a fugue).
Yet I feel strong pressure to like it. Liking Beethoven's Great Fugue marks you out as a music connoisseur.
I feel pressure to like other things as well. Bitter cabernets, Jackson Pollack paintings, James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, the music of Arnold Schoenberg, and Burning Man. This is a pattern common to all arts. You recognize this pattern in a work when:
Here are some theories as to how a work becomes the darling of its medium or genre:
(Don't assume that the same theory is true for each of my examples. I think that the wine hierarchy and Alban Berg are nonsense, Jackson Pollack is an interesting one-trick pony, and Burning Man is great but would be even better with showers.)
I could keep listening to the Great Fugue, and see if I, too, come to love it in time. But what would that prove? Of course I would come to love it in time, if I listen to it over and over, earnestly trying to like it, convinced that by liking the Great Fugue I, too, would attain the heights of musical sophistication.
The fact that people come to like it over time is not even suggested by theory 1 - even supposing the music is simply so great as to be beyond the appreciation of the typical listener, why would listening to it repeatedly grant the listener this skill?
I have listened to it a few times, and am growing confused as to whether I like it or not. Why is this? Since when does one have to wonder whether one likes something or not?
I am afraid to keep listening to the Great Fugue. I would come to like it, whether it is great art or pretentious garbage. That wouldn't rule out any of my theories.
How can I figure out which it is before listening to it repeatedly?