Fashion the avant gone

When artwork is contemporary it follows fashion and quality is indeed to a great degree overlooked. During this fashionable period technically superior artists are often judged inferior to contemporary yet famous mediocraties

However, when fashions change most all the work of the last fashion is usually rejected. What happens then?

With time works of the finest quality regain interest. No longer are these works judged for subject matter and whatever else the fashions at the times of their creation demanded. Often the original meanings are lost. What counts at this point is primarily the quality of the picture on the wall. Judgment is now based on the artists skill and technique. I use the word technique in its broadest sense.

It is for this reason that the finest 19th century academic work has gained so much ground in the past few years. Anyone with an eye for quality can sense this in the finest work of that period. It is in demand whether or not the artist is generally known.

This reasoning has led me to my predictions about the future. Namely, that the majority of Modern Academic works which exhibit no technique and ideas amounting to little more than a put-on, will have no future. As fashions change the majority of this stuff usually goes to the museum basement and after a while will back to the market where it will be received with a yawn.

A good example of this is Puvis de Chevannes the worst of academics who was once as famous as Picasso and who today only excites a few art historians who need something to talk about. He like Cezanne today was once considered the father of practically everything and he is far better than Cezanne.

Mediocre Academic 19th century art together with the worst impressionism has had this fate, while the finest academic painting is beginning to come back up from the basement to the museum walls. However some of the very finest academic work, never went to the basement (Ingres David and sometimes even Bouguereau, Messionior and Gerome) in spite the fashionable critical onslaught.

I believe the mediocre contemporary stuff both abstract and realistic, now covering square miles of office space and concrete corridors unlike the worst Academic painting, will for the most part suffer the fate of ordinary garbage as it has no redeeming technical qualities whatever.

A contemporary example to observe is the MOMA which has a fine collection of Dali. Much inhabits the basement. I do not know what they have up now but there was a time when they had nothing on show.

In the National Gallery Dali’s Last Supper is hung between buildings by a noisy escalator. I guess the curators were too chicken to exile it to the basement. Perhaps they might hang it in the men’s room next. But it stops most people in their tracks and many take a close look even though it was voted the worst painting of the 20th century by Art News. We shall see.

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'Puvis de Chevannes' - you could at least spell his name correctly:

It's 'Puvis de Chavannes'...

funny...I always thought it was 'Pubis de Chevannes.'

Tired of Modern Art? Check out my web page

But when they have stopped and taken in the carefully painted images and symbols, what will they have without a book explaining what it was all about? However, there are many other artists who are even harder to explain or justify. Some of the artists you mention came up with some lame stuff. If it had not been the demand of rich elderly merchants for young girls in submissive poses then where would Bougereau be? If the buyers had wished for interesting compositions and portraits with some sort of expression, then where would Ingres be? What I am saying is the skills you so often champion are nothing on their own. N.H