I knew I'd be in the minority here but I wasn't expecting this. I wish I was more qualified to make more appropriate responses to your post. Before I get on with all I would like to say, I noticed that the three of you all mentioned Picasso as being a great painter, though he really wasn't.
Picasso never reached a splendid level of artistic understanding. He reached a certain level of dexterity and skill, but he quit learning early on in the process. The image that Sydney showed is a good example of his inadequacy. He constantly jumps the lightsource and changes the intensity of it on the figure. The head recieves a strong light from the upper-right, the hand is lit from the upper-left, and the shirt and pants are lit frontally. This also limits his ability to model form, making the body look relatively flat. It shows that he lacks the confidence to give the body depth, likely due to a lack of anatomical understanding. He is unsure as to how the ribcage, biceps, abdominals, and so on should appear underneath the cloth. Picasso seems to exhibits some anatomical understanding in the face, but even the worst medieval artists were aware of the forms he attended to.
Moreover, as time went on his ability went with it. The longer Picasso dodged realism, the worse his paintings got. His only choice was the reduce himself in complete abstraction if he wanted to continue his career and that's just what he did. The great painters of the time were fully aware of what Picasso was doing. Here is what Salvador Dali, a fine example of one a wordl-class artist, had to say about Picasso's
Night Fishing At Antibes: "Pablo thanks! Your last ignominious paintings have killed modern art. But for you with the taste and moderation that are the very virtues of French prudence we should have had painting which was more and more ugly for at least one hundred years... you... have achieved the limits and the final consequences of the abominable in a mere few weeks... etc."
Art an expression of feelings. No visual requierments for art.
Cubism (for Picasso) is just as valid a form of art as relaisism/romantic art.
There are many requirements that make art good or bad. On the suject of paintings, the artist must balance out line with mass, choose appropriate colors, get the perspective to look convincing, have a technical understanding of the medium they are working with, and so on. Art is not just art. Art has science behind it, as well as philosophies that govern it. The painter must be aware of everything that he/she is doing. In the greatest of masterpieces, nothing is accidental. Every single brushstroke has value behind it. You need to know everything that you are doing at all times. Nothing is accidental. It is a requirement that the artist know these things to become great.
Paintings, drawings, sculpture, and the like have an objective side to them that can be judged. Saying that art is completely subjective is incorrect. A good book must have a well-constucted plot, dynamic characters, a fair use of imagery, etc. There are classes devoted entirely to music theory, in which one learns the science behind writing compositions, choosing major notes over minor ones, and so on. Likewise, people should be taught shading techniques, perspective, artstic anatomy and botany, design, compositional patterns, etc. I have even seen a book dedicated entirely to the play of light on water. Art is just as complicated as literature or music, yet this fact is ingnored by most people who just think practice makes perfect. Yes, the right kind of practice will lead to a msterpiece. Mindlessly scrubbing glazes on a canvas, copying photographs exactly, and literally putting trah together and calling it "art" does not to increase one's understanding of drawing and painting.
Errmm... Well maybe I don't think anything has "degraded in recent times", rather I think we've just evolved. We've gone from Beethoven to Miley Cyrus, Mark Twain to Suzanne Collins, Shakespeare to the Lion King on Broadway, etc and who says that the arts have degraded? We've changed, and change is greeted with a plethora of responses. Some people reject change, others accept it, and some people are caught in between.
Art has changed, and I think you're a little too biased towards artists such as da Vinci to understand contemporary artists such Picasso. I'm not saying one is better than the other, rather they are just as good. They may vary in skill level and mindset, but at the end of the day they are still artists.
I don't think that one painting is better than the other. They're both just as good, but how you perceive them will determine their importance and meaning to you.
Okay, so I shouldn't have used the term degraded? Would you have preferred it if I asked the stardards for art have decreased? I am not saying much for literature,as I believe many modern authors are phenemenal and you can never have too many books. It does displease me, however, that John Cage 4'33" is considered quality art.
And, no, like I have said, Picasso was not a very good artist. Skill level is an important part to decide whether or not a painting is good or bad, not something you can just shrug off. Every brush stoke in that Leonardo was purposeful. His anatomical understanding shows in the grace of the figures. His soft sfumato effects with shading is a testament to his techniacal mastery. The light source constistently remains in the upper-right. Leonardo is conscious of everything the paint is doing. Nothing in the peice is superfluous. I have already described a few things that are wring with the Picasso.
This especially jumped out at me. You've fallen into the classic trap of assuming that your own artistic preferences objectively define and dictate what art is or isn't. It's pretentious, narrow-minded, and frankly unimaginative. Your analysis is ironic in a way, isn't it? The great sin of the Renaissance was assuming the ancient world contained all of the knowledge and inspiration humanity would ever need without any consideration that more was possible - and here you are basically saying art is dead past 1890 (unless it mimics the style of your worshiped heroes).
Contemporary art is about pushing the boundaries of expression. Artists aren't content with copying the style of the past masters forever - even the mannerists had to move past Michelangelo. Whether that does anything for you or not is not the artist's problem. Breaking the rules is part of advancing the medium. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't (e.g. I still have no idea how to extrapolate any meaning out of a Pollock piece). I spend a fair amount of time with art historians, who have dedicated the majority of their lives to emerging themselves neck-deep in technical interpretation and get more out of contemporary art than the traditional, "correct" variety.
Sorry, encountering Picasso's Guernica up close at the Reina Sophia (all three hundred square feet of it) was the single most amazing experience I've had with art. I also enjoyed seeing Kahlo's work up close at an exhibit a few years ago. And I've been through the halls of the Louvre (four times), the Musée d'Orsay the Prado, and the National Gallery of Art (among about two dozen other large art museums).
Edit: I forgot my conclusion. Interpretation of art is subjective (that's the nature of interpretation). You can judge contemporary art based on classical standards, sure. You may as well also call a herb-roasted sea bass **** because it doesn't taste like steak.
Actually, I do like some living artists, as well as ones from the previous century. Norman Rockwell kept the tradition alive for much of the last century. Currently, I have affection towards Living Masters like Juliette Aristides and Virgil Elliott. Great painting are still being produced, but it hardly gets the recognition it deserves. Art changes and I get that. Is it always going to be accepted? No. What I am saying is that contemporary art has lowered the standards of what good art is so much thatart barely can even be defined. Some say that it doesn't even have a definition anymore. Just be "creative" "express yourself" is all that people know about art.
I would say that you yourself have fallen into the classic trap that what is and isn't art is entirely up to the spectator, disregarding basic logic. The art historians you talk have been unfortunately misguided. There is nothing technical to the contemporary art of Kahlo, Rothko, or Picasso. You don't get Pollock because there is nothing there to get. You can't say that both Raphael and Cezanne are phenomenal painters when Cezanne did not even have 10% of the genius of the young prodigy. But since no one cares about the skill level of the artist anymore, I suppose the hard waork and dedication that a person puts into their craft means nothing anymore. I mean, it's not like most people stop drawing because they can't acheive convincing realism or that kids say, "Even I could have made that!" but the sophisticated critics just say, "Yes, but you didn't," or "You are just not smart enough to understand." The ability to paint masterpieces is a skill that is difficult to obtain. Contemporary art, however, rejects that skill is even a part of the pating process.