From the distance on the path I have traveled, I sense we’ve lost our way in so many ways. But particularly, we’ve lost our perspective in the arts. We have redefined excellence with sensationalism. We admire what’s hot, new, shocking, or offensive.

I’ve actually heard multiple people say they will not watch a black and white film. It’s old, they say. Where’s the explosions? Where’s the nudity? Boring.

Oh, the richness of life that you have missed.

What is art, exactly? The Oxford English Dictionary says art is: “The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination… producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” Arttypically describes visual works, but also includes performance (dance, plays), writing, and music. Art describes everything from a kindergartener’s macaroni picture or middle school band concert to the masterworks at the MET or symphony. My concern is that we no longer differentiate between the standards on that scale. No way a macaroni picture compares to a Rembrandt.

But, as a society, we insist it does.

On my social media feed, there is a woman who glues sea glass onto boards in awkward collages. She frames them. She sells them. People buy them.

Another woman glues patterns of rocks and glass beads onto bowling balls. She touts them as garden decor. She sells them. People buy them.

But are these works art? Does the market dictate beauty? Does that willing buyer define a piece as fine, beautiful, worthy of admiration as social proof that we should all “love it?” I say no.

“Master after master from Leonard, to Rembrandt, to Bierstadt produced works that inspired, uplifted and deepened us. And they did this by demanding of themselves the highest standards of excellence, improving upon the work of each previous generation of masters, and continuing to aspire to the highest quality attainable…but something happened on the way to the 20th century.” — Robert Florczak

We’ve stopped being critical or admiring genius. We’ve adopted a strictlyrelativistic position: Personal opinion about what is good art makes art good.While beauty is in the eye of the beholder is an admirable stance when describing people, we must question whether it is when describing human creative pursuits.

We can determine that another person is beautiful to us or ugly to us. And we, in the interest of preservation of self-esteem, affirmatively assert that evaluation is subjective: Who you see as beautiful, I may not. But even beautyhas objective definitions. For example, the beautiful human face is symmetrical.

Quality in art “is not merely a matter of personal opinion but to a high degree… objectively traceable. — Jakob Rosenberg

Perhaps I wax philosophical here and have read too much John Locke. Locke distinguished between the primary qualities of a thing — that exist independently of the observer (or any observer at all) — and the secondary qualities of that thing — the power of the object to produce ideas (or emotions) in an observer.

We have erroneously set aside the concept that a piece of art has primary qualities that make it brilliant, worthy, and beautiful, no matter the observer. We have completely abandoned objective, expert analysis and aesthetic standards which evaluate a work based on skill, lasting emotional impact, transcendent, and representative of the human condition.

The secondary qualities of any piece of art change not only from viewer opinion to viewer opinion but also with the time. What we value and find moral today is not what our grandparents did. No question criteria for beauty changes. I appreciate that what is deemed beautiful is highly personal. What you like, I may not and vice versa. I’m not arguing for a strict, and historically elitist, defined standard. I sure don’t want some smug pinky waver to tell me what I should appreciate and like.

But.

By rejecting all objectivity, have we not lost the ability to set a standard for greatness? Are we setting aside the rubric and clapping for crap? Don’t we need both subjectivity and objectivity? Sure, that sea glass collage is cute and pretty and I might hang it in my bathroom because it’s secondary quality is that it appeals to me at this moment. But, it’s still crap that I might throw away in a year when I’m attracted to new crap.

I’m not throwing away my Dali painting.

And, worse, don’t both social proof and social media likes influence what creation is considered great? What we taut as amazing and worthy? The Grammy Awards, the Oscars, the packed gallery or concert venue — all inform that this piece of art is great.

But it’s erroneous.

You will never convince me that La La Land is anything but Hollywood self-aggrandizing garbage, no matter how many people rave at how amazing it is. I hated it. My friend hated it. We asked the theatre for a refund. But it won awards and glory and rave reviews. Does my opinion make your love of that film less? No, my opinion means zip to your emotional reaction. Just as your love of the film does not sway my perception. Yet we, as a society, take this momentary, subjective evaluation of the film’s secondary qualities and deem it Great (capital G). Like the sea glass crap, we can toss this film and no one would suffer. No one will care in 100 years.

Universal, objective standards have brought the world Michael Angelo’s David. One block of marble the genius sculpted over three years. The art has the primary quality of greatness, no matter who is viewing or when it’s viewed.

MODERN POP GOES THE WEASEL

Relativism has given us:

Chris Ofili — The Holy Virgin Mary: A depiction of the Christian Mother of Jesus, with her elephant dung breast exposed, surrounded by porn magazine woman’s ass cracks. The work rests on two balls of elephant dung. I argue this work has no value except shock.

Andy Warhol — Oxidation, Piss and Cum paintings: Warhol ejaculated . He also had his assistants and friends urinate or ejaculate on canvases treated with copper paint. Now that’s talent.

Jordan McKenzie — 55 Cum Shots named Spent: This creator of these seminalworks, masturbated and ejaculated onto canvas, coated the fluids with carbon powder and glass to protect its majesty, and exhibited at a gallery.

Marcel Walldorf — The Urinating Police Officer, Petra: Sculpture depiction of pants down, ass exposed, female police officer in a squat over her puddle of urine, won a substantial and coveted art prize.

Kef — Billion Dollar Spirographs: Remember the toy, Spirograph? You’d insert your pen into the cogged wheels and go round and round to make a pattern? Well, this street artist, vandal (who seems very nice in his interviews) is selling his freehand doodles for thousands of dollar. I should have predicted the boredom doodles in my school textbooks could earn me billions.

Even our music has fallen prey to the pop wave: the complexity, genius, and depth of a symphony replaced by computer-generated voices, instruments and effects; and profane statements to rape or kill.

But I’m not a snob. I choose alternative or metal music over classical music or opera most days. But I know the difference in quality and lastingness.

Even pop-art Banksy mocked the world as morons for paying so dearly for his own shit.

TIME, TIME, TIMELESS & TIMEBOUND

Here was my realization: Fine art is timeless. Lesser creation is that of the moment: relativistic, subjective, contextual.

I summarize this standard as: Art is timeless; tripe is time bound.

Modern art (paintings, photography, digital art, music, novels and plays) undoubtedly represents the human condition: Our state in this moment, at this stage of evolution, as we abandon excellence for sensationism. But how much of what we praise today will continue to be valued out of the context of 2022?

Just because a work of art is popular does not mean it’s aesthetically good or has technical quality.

No matter the thousands of years in the future, no one will deny Shakespeare’s genius — and the plays will continue to celebrate and decry human emotion and situation. All alive will continue to gasp at the skill, the brilliance, of Michael Angelo’s masterwork on the ceiling of the Sistine Chappel. Humans will continue to drift into imagination when viewing anything by Dali. Or feel the haze of a Monet lily pond. Melt into Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor. Dance to Bennie Goodman. Have a whiskey with BB King commenting on life in the background and get drunk to Johnny Cash. Wonder at the Mona Lisa’s expression. Fall into van Gogh’s Sunflowers.

In a thousand years, no one will know the names EL James, Zero Gradient, or BonJovi. No one will sing anything by Silk Sonic. No one will rush out to buy a cum canvas. Or clammour for her sea glass on boards.

But I bet people continue to play Bob Dylan. Forever. And read and reread Jane Austen’s catalogue. People will always return to Casablanca.

And that’s my point. The objective standard for fine art, for the masterpiece, must be that the work is timeless. No matter the social moment granting secondary characteristics, subjective interpretation as awesome, the primary characteristics are everlasting. Fame (familiarity) and popularity are mere social proof. Sale price is a symptom of the same.

Cum on Canvas will never be equal to the skill, the precision, the impact of Starry Night.

Van Gogh never sold a single work in his lifetime. Think about that.