State of the Arts
At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is quite untrue in practice. Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather than blinkers it. (G.L. Glegg, The Design of Design)
Most of what passes for “art” today is undisciplined, anarchic, and pointless. Classics remain classics, by presenting reasonably consistent impressions while transcending their original contexts. A church icon drawn with charcoal and chalk on brown paper is more “art” than just about anything found on the top level of the San Francisco MoMA.
In this New Criterion article (via Power Line), Roger Kimball dissects the “art” world’s poverty, brought about by artists’ refusal to acknowledge their audience. If the intention of art is communication, modern art is the tree falling in the forest, with nobody around to hear.
Update 2007-06-05: Roger Kimball blasts Dartmouth for proving his point.
