It's true that some art -- and most big-P Postmodern cultural products -- require a lot of prior knowledge of their context in order to get much out of them, an

It's true that some art -- and most big-P Postmodern cultural products -- require a lot of prior knowledge of their context in order to get much out of them, and I agree this is hostile to a general audience. But first, some of it does manage to be engaging and even fun ; and second, I blame the universities and not the Art World per se. There's a lot of very idea-centric work in the museums and in private collections, but the stuff that (probably) makes your eyes roll is not a big part of it. And the business of speaking in a priestly tongue unintelligible to the laity is absolutely a product of our (mostly US) universities in the last 20 years or so. Art critics within that caste do their best to promote artists of the same caste -- and have done for ages -- but it only goes so far. That said, this: > Contemporary artists with any skill now work in classical styles, illustrations, or graphic design. ...is obviously and demonstrably false for, I dunno, say >= 90% of all professional artists making a living at it today. Which leaves you with a pretty circular definition of "skill" I guess.