http://culture.vg/features/art-theory/on-the-genealogy-of-art-games.html
Nobody will read this but this internet eccentric wrote a really fucking great essay on this subject.
To paraphrase what I remember from it: Has art peaked? No. Have certain art forms peaked? Yes.
How can you look at Shakespeare or Ulysses and compare that to current literature and think anything other than a decline has happened? Or Beethoven and Mozart with current music? I know you'll say that we're comparing the best of the past with the average today, but he gives solid reasons why and how the cultures of art forms decline, meaning that new Shakespeares are not possible within those art forms.
If you are one of those people who insist that Tracey Enim's unmade bed is on par with Michaelangelo's David, you will dislike the essay. If you wonder why an opinion like that could be taken seriously, read the essay.
>Or Beethoven and Mozart with current music?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musique_concr%C3%A8te
Classical music (notated for performance by orchestra) has became outdated.
We shouldn't downplay their compositional talent, but we should acknowledge that unless you are making music with the final recording as the piece itself, you are missing out on an entire dimension of musical expression.
>visual arts peaked with Michelangelo and Rubens
>My Bed doesn't have value
love these memes
>>8054019
>Has art peaked?
Stopped reading here
>>8054019
>How can you look at Shakespeare or Ulysses and compare that to current literature and think anything other than a decline has happened?
By comparing them to Gaddis, Gass, and Hawkes; by not being completely ignorant about the contemporary world.
Art has never declined in quality; like everything else, it has only changed, grown different, more diverse.
>>8054019
All the good music has been used up.
If comparing mozart to today's music I think it would be more apt to compare it to glass or other modern composers. Even still, it has peaked.
Did music peak in the baroque, classical or romantic era for you guys? In my opinion it peaked in baroque and plateaud with a slight dip in classical then a slight incline in romantic. Post romantic was a considerable dip but still not half bad and now it has hit rock bottom (Imo of course).
>>8054597
I prefer John Adams to any classical composer tbqh
>>8054019
wtf criterion are you going by? If you have enough money you can literally finance anything you want: all those artistic techniques are open and accessible and there are people who can utilize them.
Art is still progressing and art forms will continue to advance as long as creativity still exists; the quantity to quality ratio just gets larger.
>>8054019
>How to Bait Kitsch Pseuds: The Thread
>>8055214
i can understand that
i am quite fond of some minimalism too so i see the appeal but if i had to measure the caliber of their music then it wouldn't be anywhere near classical for me.
>>8054019
I've never read such an epicly red-pilled art essay before. But of course the jews that control 4chan are gonna try and slide this.
>>8054019
Shakespeare and Joyce are 300 years apart, Ulysses is 100 years old. You still have 200 years before you can start whining about not having writers on their level.
>>8055285
>Kitsch Pseuds
You need to die asap... drop me a line i will put you out of your misery, just provide airfare and one day's board.
>>8055967
I was merely picking the most popular contemporary classical composer to compare it with the most popular classical composer
i will check those two out though :)
>>8055358
Wish people would stop using this gay retarded meme that was taken from a shitty overrated sci-fi movie and used to describe what people consider their actual ideologies
>>8054549
It has no value. Found objects stopped being interesting as soon Duchamp signed the urinal.
>>8054582
This tbqh famalam
>>8056013
In fact the urinal being what made the genre famous in the first place is quite profound in its tacit admittance that this form of art is literally a receptacle for piss
>>8056013
Not even then. I hate that fucker.
the idea that art has peak, or should or will reach a peak it's only because we have internalized a criterion to compare it too. In other words metaphysics.
>How can you look at Shakespeare or Ulysses and compare that to current literature and think anything other than a decline has happened?
That's a fairly silly statement because there is a 300 year gap between Shakespeare and Joyce and they don't write in the same genre. Plays and novels have waned in popularity and so likely have peaked. That's not a particularly profound insight though.
I'm not going to read the essay because it's long and the writer is clearly a pretentious windbag, but if his thesis is that nobody is ever going to make a great statue or a great piece of music again then I have no need to waste my time.
Comparing Emin and Michelangelo is a fairly pointless thing to do because they are trying to accomplish such very different things. As is the idea that there has been a decline in music since Mozart. I really would struggle to argue why Mozart was better than Miles Davis without just going "everyone says Mozart is the best ever."
>>8056080
well Miles Davis was black and a certified asshole too
>>8056080
Also, just another thing. I really have no idea why people like Michelangelo's David so much. I've seen it -- it's a very pretty and well-made statue but I wasn't exactly blown away. It#s just a naked dude at the end of the day.
I found Emin's Bed much more interesting to look at. I bet you'd find it easier to explain why Emin's work is of artistic value than Michelangelo's David.
