It's not so much that art had ought to be without prowess, but that the predominating reason for art to exist is as a medium of communication of a message, of e

It's not so much that art had ought to be without prowess, but that the predominating reason for art to exist is as a medium of communication of a message, of emotion, to everyone. Art for art's sake, art designed only to convey the technical abilities of an artist isn't art because it isn't communicating the frame of reference of an artist, it's showing their ability to cleanly transition from dark to light values. It isn't intended to convey the mournful sadness and doesn't impute the viewer with the sense of voyeurism a la Repin's Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581 but as I qualified in the parent, I'm doing the text an injustice, it's a great work. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_the_Terrible_and_His_Son_Ivan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_the_Terrible_and_His_So...