On the other hand I went to an art school for a year and met a lot of incredibly elitist wanna be into Klein and the like that would never show up in history of arts class where they could have learned why some weird paintings were important stepstones in art (but they were capable of admiring the piece for two hours in the museum, go figure).
Well... Let's get back in 1863, France for a little thought experiment: s/Tate\ Modern/Salon\ des\ refusés/ s/Greenwich park/Jardin\ du\ Luxembourg/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_d%C3%A9jeuner_sur_l%27herbe That was a huge scandal at that time, people were screaming their children could draw better (yes, already in those times). Although a lot of social proof is going on as well it advanced art and few are calling it garbage nowadays.
To be clear I enjoy observatories much more than painting exhibition :)
Note: I think this wikipedia article lacks some important pieces of information and doesn't go very deep into the anlysis of that painting.
Appropriately, I remember "trash on floor" being one of the exhibits (second floor, I believe, just prior to the video montage of a gentleman's penis).
There is definitely a "snobbery of philistines" who want to not understand modern art because it isn't about pretty pictures. Making pretty pictures has been outdated in the 1840 by photography, and it's been nearly 100 years since Duchamps presented his "fountain".
If you like pretty pictures, there are people painting dolphins jumping in front of a full moon. Is that what you call art?
I don't understand how you can call out snobbery at the same time that you equate painting from life with dolphins jumping in front of a full moon, and imply that photography made life painting completely obsolete.
Yes, but it lacks the artist's purpose.
> I don't understand how you can call out snobbery at the same time that you equate painting from life with dolphins jumping in front of a full moon
Sorry about that; I fell prey to my own intellectual snobbery :)
> and imply that photography made life painting completely obsolete.
Photography made art as an imitation of reality obsolete, at least.
"The vertical strips in his paintings may relate to certain traditions that present God and man as a single beam of light. The name Adam, which in Old Testament was given to the first man, derives from the Hebrew word adamah (earth), but is also close to adom (red) and dam (blood). The relationship between brown and red in this painting may therefore symbolise man's intimacy with the earth."
I shit you not.
Video Of Naked Guy Punching Himself In The Face Repeatedly While His Genitals Wibble Back And Forth, for instance, has been put away.
Art is the ultimate example of social proof at work. Another great one is wine. I live in the Bordeaux winelands and the only difference between Premier Cru wines like Chateau Margaux at $400 a bottle and equally great non-premier cru wines is that everyone believes that Premier Cru is the best.