A lot of people just don't understand what art is, for the sole reason no one taught them that. The stereotype of “art” that “naturally” (i. e. out of general n

A lot of people just don't understand what art is, for the sole reason no one taught them that. The stereotype of “art” that “naturally” (i. e. out of general neglect) emerges from compulsory education process is not that different from anecdotal 19th century opinion of an average educated person on that, as whole education systems stem from that era and keep its sensibilities (like scientific reductionism, militant materialism, and so on). Left alone, people stick to informational, ideological, or decorative functions of works of art (see examples in other comments). You can point to the crowds in famous galleries, but what do they do there? Move quickly through the halls as if competing to increase their ppm (paintings per minute) stats, when in fact you need to stand and think in front of each of them. It's the requirement for both “avant-garde” and “realist” works, no matter how old and “simple” they are. What exactly is “realism” anyway? Is this “reality”? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ilya_Repin_-_%D0%9A%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D1%85%D0%BE%D0%B4_%D0%B2_%D0%9A%D1%83%D1%80%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%B3%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B8_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ilya_Repin_-_%D0%9A%... Of course not, it's a virtual scene constructed by the artist to convey certain thoughts. And that's a very recent example. Many Renaissance paintings now require a commentary that is longer than those needed for contemporary works. What can one see in, say, Gollum example in the article? It is collection of cliches, either recognized (the composition of the figure of a scribe with a book has been used in countless illustrations) or artificial (boulders? why this connection?). An artist, as opposed to an illustrator, would distance from that, making, say, a humorous image of an excited Gollum filling page after page after discovering his own talent, and poor hobbits carrying long stacks of paper (well, my approach is not that original either). It's not hard to imagine that computers would sooner or later generate cheap fantasy novels (as people do now), add cheap illustrations (as people do now), and make low quality translations to other languages (as people do now). Then what is exactly new here, apart from production rate, and what does it all have to do with art?