Introduction

What do the following artists have in common: Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Poussin, Raphael, Rembrandt, Renoir, Rubens, Titian, Velazquez, Vermeer, Bernini, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Dvorak, Handel, Mozart, Rossini, Schubert, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Vivaldi, Ibsen, Shakespeare, Sophocles, Williams, Dostoyevsky, Dumas, Hemingway, Lewis, Tolstoy, Coleridge, Dickinson, Frost and Yeats?

The greatness of these painters, sculptors, musicians, playwrights, novelists and poets cannot be matched or surpassed today. The era of the great artist is over. It came to an end a century ago. This article reveals why the era of the great artist is over, what happened and the remedy to ensure the rise of great artists in the future.

The Psychological Role of Art

For tens of thousands of years art has been a unique form of expression and communication among people. Art was intermixed with the development of written language during the early days writing. Art also enabled man to express himself in a way that is not available through the spoken or written word.

What is the psychological role that art plays in human life? Why do people search the world for art and pay upwards of one million dollars for a single work of art? The answer is that art provides pleasure and inspiration to its beholder.

People attend a concert, view a play, observe a sculpture or read a novel with the implicit goal of experiencing a sense of pleasure or even awe. In this sense, art can be said to satisfy the soul the way a delicious meal satisfies the stomach or the way a massage satisfies muscles. People from all over the world in all different cultures produce and observe art in its various forms for the delight, inspiration and pleasure it provides.

The Metaphysical Role of Art

If the psychological role of art consists of providing pleasure and inspiration, what is the metaphysical role of art? While most people can understand that art offers the beholder pleasure, most people are unaware of the metaphysical role of art.

The metaphysical role of art consists of revealing the state of man’s mind in any historical era. And art is a ruthless depiction of what is happening inside man’s mind.

Art in this sense is a kind of cognitive recorder that chronicles the development of the human mind at any stage in history. When man’s mind is primitive, art during that period of history also will be primitive. When man’s mind is flourishing triumphantly, art during that period of history also will be flourishing triumphantly. And when man’s mind is in disarray, art during that period of history also will be in disarray.

Modern Art Reveals the Breakdown of the Modern Mind

The mind-virus of irrationality reached its peak in nineteenth century Europe and spread to America from the 1880s through the 1920s. This resulted in the breakdown of the western mind throughout the twentieth century. Art was there to chronicle this breakdown with mirror-like accuracy. Art makes no apologies and hides from no one. It is a ruthless expose of the state of man’s mind.

Beginning early in the twentieth century in America, art started its long, slow decline from greatness to mediocrity to absurdity. Today much art in America is an unadulterated shrine to the bankrupt state of the modern mind.

The process of art is one where the artist takes the contents of his consciousness and expresses it in painting, sculpture, music, literature or other art forms. There is a direct relationship between the contents of the artist’s mind and his work of art. By analyzing modern art, people can see the cognitive disarray that is the hallmark of the modern mind.

The first form of modern art to be examined is non-representational painting. This consists of artwork that depicts nothing in reality. This form of art is euphemistically described as abstract art. In some cases modern paintings consist of nothing more than the artist dipping his brush into paint and flinging paint toward the canvas in a chaotic manner—leaving haphazard lines, dots, smears and swirls. This is then passed off as a genuine work of art. In other less severe instances, painted objects are semi-recognizable and guesses can be made as to the content. Regarding the most objectionable art, the content is nothing more than a gross depiction of a corpse or excrement. This too masquerades as genuine art.

The second form of modern art to be examined is weld sculpture. This consists of artwork that depicts nothing in reality. Basically weld sculpture has replaced stone sculpture as the new form of sculpting. It consists of random scraps of rusty metal that are welded together into a hideous pile, sometimes in a pyramidal shape and capped with an object. This kind of unrecognizable artwork is considered genuinely valid. In reality, it is nothing but art lowered to the level of a junkyard. It not only is unrecognizable; it is unsightly.

The third form of modern art to be examined is rap music. This form of artwork signifies a regression in music. Rap music is free of disciplined melody, recognizable lyrics and conceptual stimulation. It openly flouts standard conventions of music and in their place anything goes: mind-numbing beats, expletives, jumbled words and clashing background sounds. These elements of rap music culminate in a kaleidoscope of chaos that passes for genuine music.

The fourth form of modern art to be examined is non-syntactical literature. This form of artwork signifies a regression in cognition. Non-syntactical literature flouts the laws of syntax, grammar, spelling and logic. It consists of literature riddled with run-on sentences, sentence fragments, paragraphs comprising only a sentence fragment and purposely misspelled words. The more syntactical errors, the more this form of literature receives praise.

Architecture as a Noteworthy Exception

Architecture is the one noteworthy exception to the decline of art. This is due to a couple reasons. First, architecture primarily is a functional discipline rather than an art form, although many buildings do have aesthetic value. But the primary purpose of creating a building is to provide shelter for people. Second, architecture requires whole-brain thinking to create whereas most other art forms only rely on right-brain activity. Architects have to employ precise mathematical and scientific thinking to ensure their structures will endure plus they have to employ creative and artistic thinking to make their structures appealing and attractive, inviting people in and making them feel comfortable.

As a result, the disciplined training and effort required by architects culminate in beautiful buildings whether residential, commercial, industrial or public structures. Few other art forms demand the thinking effort needed to create a final product. This is all the more evident by comparing, for example, the Sears Tower with a weld sculpture. Both consist of welded metal, but the former is beautiful, majestic and useful; the latter is a piece of junk. But again, architecture is more than art. It is a professional discipline that provides human beings with shelter and beauty.

The Harm of Modern Art

Modern art in its various forms is anti-conceptual, anti-consciousness and anti-life. It brings people down to the perceptual level of cognition, blocking them from rising into the conceptual or truly human mode of thought. Moreover, modern art suppresses consciousness through, for example, the pounding beats and chaotic noises in rap music. The aural chaos of rap music can actually prevent the free flowing nature of human consciousness, leaving the listener in an animal-like state capable of being controlled.

Non-syntactical literature hinders the reader’s natural flow. For example, an abundant use of sentence fragments requires the reader to stop reading at the end of a fragment and go back to the previous sentence to determine the missing subject or predicate. In the case of an abundant use of run-on sentences, the reader has to stop reading to parse the jumbled sentences to decipher precisely what is happening in the story.

Regarding non-representational painting and sculpture, the beholder often stares in befuddlement. “What exactly is that thing?” is the implicit question of the viewer of modern abstract art. Sometimes an accurate guess can be made; other times the viewer walks away baffled.

Of course, art is not supposed to be a guessing game; nor is it supposed to be mentally crippling. But that is what modern art has devolved into. This does not even take into account the content of contemporary art: mindless cycles of money, drugs, sex, violence and death. Not that money or sex is bad, but these are portrayed as crude, animalistic entities devoid of any conceptual context such as arising from heroic achievement or overcoming obstacles to become successful.

As a result, modern art exemplifies the worst of all worlds: Bad content, bad style and bad implementation.

Gresham’s Law in Art

Gresham’s Law is a concept that was developed in the field of economics. It says that by introducing bad money such as unbacked paper currency into the economy, the bad money will drive out the good money such as gold-backed paper currency. Gresham’s Law can be applied to the field of art to see how destruction expands.

When the great artistic masters were flourishing centuries ago, this inspired new generations of great artists. Even though the artistic styles changed throughout the decades, the greatness of the artwork flowed across the centuries.

The opposite has occurred regarding modern art. As bad art began flooding the culture, the public taste for art began to decline. Eventually the populace became inured to bad art. At that point the creators of bad art began rising to prominence in society. Some even won prestigious awards, fame and fortune for their bad art. This in turn expanded the market for bad art. And this in turn spawned new generations of artists who lacked skill, talent, discipline and any understanding of the fundamentals of valid art. Some artists even dropped the façade of creating genuine art and purposely created works of garbage while chuckling at the public for embracing such garbage.

All this culminated in an era that no longer values the great artist. Talented young artists no longer have the incentive to create mighty masterpieces on par with Titian or Michelangelo or Beethoven or Chopin. Those talented young men and women sense the futility of struggling heroically to produce great art that the modern mind cannot appreciate. Hence they end up playing works composed by deceased artists but do not themselves create great masterpieces. They have been drowned out by all the garbage that passes for genuine art. Those artistically talented youth suffer quietly without ever knowing why. If they knew why, they might commit suicide. Why should they live in a world that cannot appreciate them and does not want them?

The Politics of Art

The political establishment implicitly recognizes the power of art to influence people. By leveraging government restrictions on free expression, especially through the government’s control of the electromagnetic spectrum, societal leaders use art to portray man as a pathetic being dependent upon an external authority.

Liberals use Hollywood and the mass media to elevate the worst artists into positions of fame and fortune with the tacit goal of crippling the mind and motivation of citizens. Why? With a suppressed consciousness, each citizen can be controlled more easily. Controlled by whom? Citizens can be controlled by societal leaders, by government bureaucrats, by the liberal establishment.

Conservatives use artistic images to legitimize religion and religious icons. The tacit goal is to say to each citizen, “This savior is divine but you are a miserable wretch.” Such subtle undermining of self-esteem among citizens makes them susceptible to surrendering their self in order to follow an external authority. What external authority? Conservatives seek to replace self-thinking with the external authority of a sacred text, a religious savior or a deity.

Like Hitler employed artist Leni Riefenstahl to gain control over the populace, liberals employ modern artists to gain control over the populace. And like Pope Julius II employed Michelangelo to subordinate the secular to the celestial, conservatives employ modern art to subordinate man to the Holy Bible, to Jesus, to God.

Artistic Remedy

What is the remedy for the long decline of art? Ironically the remedy is simple. In order to pull the plug on (1) mind-numbing art, (2) its inept artists and (3) the bankrupt mentality that gives rise to them, man needs to think.

What is meant by thinking? Does thinking consist of memorizing or associating things? No, it does not. Thinking consists of conceptualizing reality—of identifying things in conceptual terms and organizing those concepts into rational thoughts and principles. The purpose of thinking is to understand reality, to solve problems and to control one’s life for survival, success and happiness.

The ability to think independently means man can think on his own behalf. As more people do this, human consciousness will begin flourishing as will civilization. The inevitable result will be the outpouring of magnificent art by great artists. They will mirror the greatness of man through their great works of art.

Conclusion

It is true that some of today’s art is valuable. For example, Kid Rock’s mixing of rock with rap yielded surprisingly potent music. Another example is child prodigy Lil’ Bow Wow with his brilliant melodies that captured the hearts of children and adults across America. But these are the rare exceptions rather than the rule.

People who desire great art need not run to government for support of the arts. That will not help, especially considering it is not the government’s function to produce artists or artwork. People simply need to exercise independent thought and judgment. The more people who do this, the better will become the human species. Eventually the flourishing human mind will be reflected in flourishing art.

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