4 ms·

Great art is rooted in the hardest of human emotion. Is why we look back to ancient culture with reverance and sometimes nostalgia. We wouldn't want to be there

Great art is rooted in the hardest of human emotion. Is why we look back to ancient culture with reverance and sometimes nostalgia. We wouldn't want to be there in the midst of the brawl, most of us moderns would rather jump from the bridge. But our human spirit and memory recognizes the suffering and sacrifices of the ancestors. It's why there really isn't any "great art" anymore, at least in the classical sense, as those with the means to produce it don't have any great emotions. We will probably get there again, but like an LLM, sometimes humans need to reconstitute the entire corpus to make a rather small change

AlecSchueler 3mo ago
> It's why there really isn't any "great art" anymore, at least in the classical sense This is a tautology, no? There's plenty of great art being made today by people feeling the same emotions as those in the past.
- jubilee33 3mo ago
  Well "great" is rather subjective. But in terms of collective agreement we can conclusive say there really isn't anything like the art of the past made today. As an artist I was invited to a much vaunted exhibition in Venice itself recently. It consisted of a woman sitting in urine ...but with a kind message asking bystanders to please not poop in her tank.. The link if you fail to believe it. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/arts/design/venice-biennale-austria-florentina-holzinger.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/arts/design/venice-bienna... Modern art and artists indeed do mirror the feeling of their age.
  - soiltype 3mo ago
    I do not think this pseudo-intellectual desire to ape art styles of the past is really very compatible with the soul of an artist. Artists make two things: what moves them, and what they are paid to make. Ideally, these are the same thing. No one is stopping you from commissioning paintings such as the ones you revere as the peak of art, by the way. Open your wallet if that's what you want. That's how great art was made back then. But if the depth of your insight on the human condition is whatever you're posting here, I do not know if your commissions would capture the meaning you seem to want.
    - jubilee33 3mo ago
      Your absolutely correct. The Venice exhibition was made with 600 thousand euros of public money. The great art of the last age was also commissioned by rich nobility, basically the same as there was no public funds at that stage of developmemt. So you admitted that the public purse and what it is willing to pay to commission for public art is useful measure of a pseudoscientific constant, namely that of the public consideration of the "great art" of that age. I'm not sure that fountains of human excrement convey the grandeur that your attributing to modern art however. We can make better than the past for sure, there is no point to rehash the glory of old, but we so far have not. In archeology there is a constant and agreed upon "decadent" style that can indicate when cultures have experienced conditions, for external or internal reasons, that ultimately led to their decline and downfall. It's amazing that we cannot recognize the same precursors in our own. But perhaps this is interdisciplinary blindness?
      - soiltype 3mo ago
        Actually this is a very interesting comment so I do want to continue to engage. Thanks for not rising to my tone, I suppose. > So you admitted that the public purse and what it is willing to pay to commission for public art is useful measure of a pseudoscientific constant No I did no such thing. I said rich people paid for art they wanted to exist in the past and still do today. It measures nothing. > I'm not sure that fountains of human excrement convey the grandeur that your attributing to modern art however. You've quite missed my point if you're looking for grandeur in it. I see an artist pushing the boundaries of art. Your questioning of its value is the value (or, part of it). > we so far have not. That can't be stated definitively even if we limit ourselves to large-scale painting. But of course, we have far more media available to us today than 2D paintings and other traditional art forms. Breathable tanks of piss, films, video games - none of these existed in the 17th century. And each of them is capable of evoking great emotions, greater even than looking at a painting of a hundred Venetians beating the shit out of each other. You've never watchec a movie that left you feeling awe? Ah, even the piss? Sure. What if it was a thousand women in a tank of piss? Use your imagination - that's what art is about. > In archeology there is a constant and agreed upon "decadent" style that can indicate when cultures have experienced conditions, for external or internal reasons, that ultimately led to their decline and downfall I have never in my life heard of this claimed in an academic setting - only from retro-fetishist cranks, if you'll pardon me saying, making some "hard times create strong men" argument (which can't be entertained, being ahistorical). Nor can I think of any such phenomenon in ancient Greco-Roman history from Mycenae to the Visigoths. Are you able to expand on that?
  - romanhn 3mo ago
    I don't think we can conclusively say anything like that. Sure, a bunch of modern art is... odd, but that's more to do with the world generally being more ok with experimentation, and there's plenty of more classical work happening around the globe, even if it doesn't get the same recognition as various "clickbait", if you will. For instance, the bronze work of Luo Li Rong channels the art of the past pretty well, I'd say. https://mymodernmet.com/realistic-sculptures-luo-li-rong/ https://mymodernmet.com/realistic-sculptures-luo-li-rong/
    - shermantanktop 3mo ago
      > experimentation That's what I find so tedious about that particular type of modern art (e.g. Piss Christ). It's incredibly repetitive and not experimental at all. It's always about transgression (body, gender, etc.), it pivots on a sophomoric "what is art anyway?" question, it drives audience discomfort in order to have a visceral reaction rather than any other kind of emotional response. In the end it elevates the artist's intention (in their mission statement) far over the reality of their art. It's incredibly overdone and yet keeps coming back around...to an installation space near you. Luo Li Rong managed to grab the other end of the spectrum: classically/romantically-presented T&A.
  - mmooss 3mo ago
    Look at the incredible amount of art dismissed by this ideology: Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Rothko, Pollack, Coltrane, Lou Reed, the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, James Joyce, almost all of literature, centuries of genres in every field. Hemingway might agree, but didn't really live it out past a certain point. By its argument, people in wartorn nightmares should be making 'great art': Gaza, eastern Congo, etc. The most violent parts of the wealthy world should be where 'great art' comes from. > there really isn't anything like the art of the past made today Little is made like it was in the past, thankfully. It's not like it used to be. The world changes. > As an artist I was invited to a much vaunted exhibition in Venice itself recently. I think you'll need to convince people of that claim, especially given the unsophisticated old cliches expressed in this thread which don't seem to reflect much understanding. > consisted of a woman sitting in urine For example, that's all you understood.
  - AlecSchueler 3mo ago
    > Well "great" is rather subjective. But in terms of collective agreement we can conclusive say there really isn't anything like the art of the past made today. Yes, but you claimed there was no great art in the "classical sense." Of course there's not; if it was contemporary then it wouldn't be classical. Adding to that, your single data point to show the apparent vacuity of contemporary art which we can collectively agree on isn't very convincing at all when a dozen counter examples could trivially be found. And all that while you admit yourself that what you're saying is completely subjective in any case.
  - goodmythical 3mo ago
    Consider that the "great impressionists" were not considered great when they began defining the style. van Gogh sold one painting in his life, Vermeer died in debt, and that's just off the top of my head. And it goes all sorts of ways, too. Bach was relatively succesful in life, but then largely forgotten for decades after his death, but never saw anything like the current prevalence of his influence. We really can't say, today, what our kids or kids kids will be studying in art history, what'll be referenced in popular culture, etc.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
soiltype 3mo ago
> those with the means to produce it don't have any great emotions. Actually, re-reading your original post, this comes across as so asinine I do have to wonder if I'm replying to an LLM. Because it makes no sense to say that artists don't have emotions today that can compare to checks notes rowdy Venetians beating the shit out of each other.
- Insanity 3mo ago
  It’s a new account (2h old as of me commenting) and it does read like LLM content to me.
  - soiltype 3mo ago
    Weirdly favored, if it is an LLM. Of course bad actors will be training them out of the obvious rhetorical tells, but a complete lack of semantic reasoning will fortunately always be a valid reason to ignore or dismiss someone's arguments, human or chatbot.
- bryanrasmussen 3mo ago
  there are incredibly wide swathes of society which go on about modern decadence and have outsized respect for violence as being somehow ennobling. As an example some people think the tough guys of the past who killed each other over women's handkerchiefs were real men and possessed of emotions more potent than those of the girly men that exist nowadays. This is not necessarily what was being claimed, just that there are claims like that so not sure why anyone crossing similar regions needs to be thought an LLM. That said >it makes no sense to say that artists don't have emotions today that can compare to...rowdy Venetians beating the shit out of each other. The rowdy Venetians beating the shit out of each other came from a society with strict rules about honor and dueling, and they dueled over honor. So I'm not sure if the artists of today do have emotions that compare to the particular emotions that were very common in a society with duels for honor that had a significantly different economic and educational system than our own. Sure we're all humans, but we're not all exactly the same despite that.
  - 3mo ago
pavel_lishin 3mo ago
> We wouldn't want to be there in the midst of the brawl, most of us moderns would rather jump from the bridge. People in some moshpits would beg to differ.
- ButlerianJihad 3mo ago
  For any outsiders who have never experienced authentic mosh-pit dancing, I wish to testify to their value. A good, organized mosh-pit is a safe place, and even a place where men (ok mostly men) can find camaraderie, encouragement and support. Mosh-pits are enjoyed by guys with some anger issues or simply need to get out aggression in a controlled way, and yeah, they wear spikes and leather and pull off their shirts, but the actual mosh-pit dancing is structured, ritualized, and supportive. The mosh-pits I've danced in begin with a central "vortex" of guys who begin marching/stomping in a circular direction and flailing their arms around, mostly to establish a "personal space" or a "keep out zone" to indicate they're actively moving. And then they contrive to bump/bash into one another. And there are also bystanders or non-participants who stay on the border of this dance circle who also have the active role of keeping the dancers on-track and acting like the ropes in a boxing ring, cushioning them and bouncing them back into the vortex. The dancers aren't punching or kicking or striking to hurt others, but the physical contact is authentic and helps them feel alive. There's an informal choreography and style to mosh-pit dancing that's been refined over decades; styles may differ but they usually converge based on genres and locale. Though these guys may be individually angry and bitter, and the music we're dancing to is abrasive, aggressive and rough, the dancers can respect one another, and they hold themselves to an honor code of safety and concern for others' well-being, because it is, ultimately, a catharsis and a dance, in a club or venue among neighbors and friends, and while a few bad apples can spoil a night's fun, I was pleasantly surprised when I tried it out myself.
  - pavel_lishin 3mo ago
    Yep. Every mosh pit I've been in, when someone goes down, everyone around stops and gets them back up and out to safety if necessary. (Granted, not every mosh pit is like that. There are some bands who are notorious for having dangerous pits, a few genres that encourage it, and a few concerts where people have been badly injured.)

AlecSchueler 3mo ago

> It's why there really isn't any "great art" anymore, at least in the classical sense This is a tautology, no? There's plenty of great art being made today by people feeling the same emotions as those in the past.

jubilee33 3mo ago
Well "great" is rather subjective. But in terms of collective agreement we can conclusive say there really isn't anything like the art of the past made today. As an artist I was invited to a much vaunted exhibition in Venice itself recently. It consisted of a woman sitting in urine ...but with a kind message asking bystanders to please not poop in her tank.. The link if you fail to believe it. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/arts/design/venice-biennale-austria-florentina-holzinger.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/arts/design/venice-bienna... Modern art and artists indeed do mirror the feeling of their age.
- soiltype 3mo ago
  I do not think this pseudo-intellectual desire to ape art styles of the past is really very compatible with the soul of an artist. Artists make two things: what moves them, and what they are paid to make. Ideally, these are the same thing. No one is stopping you from commissioning paintings such as the ones you revere as the peak of art, by the way. Open your wallet if that's what you want. That's how great art was made back then. But if the depth of your insight on the human condition is whatever you're posting here, I do not know if your commissions would capture the meaning you seem to want.
  - jubilee33 3mo ago
    Your absolutely correct. The Venice exhibition was made with 600 thousand euros of public money. The great art of the last age was also commissioned by rich nobility, basically the same as there was no public funds at that stage of developmemt. So you admitted that the public purse and what it is willing to pay to commission for public art is useful measure of a pseudoscientific constant, namely that of the public consideration of the "great art" of that age. I'm not sure that fountains of human excrement convey the grandeur that your attributing to modern art however. We can make better than the past for sure, there is no point to rehash the glory of old, but we so far have not. In archeology there is a constant and agreed upon "decadent" style that can indicate when cultures have experienced conditions, for external or internal reasons, that ultimately led to their decline and downfall. It's amazing that we cannot recognize the same precursors in our own. But perhaps this is interdisciplinary blindness?
    - soiltype 3mo ago
      Actually this is a very interesting comment so I do want to continue to engage. Thanks for not rising to my tone, I suppose. > So you admitted that the public purse and what it is willing to pay to commission for public art is useful measure of a pseudoscientific constant No I did no such thing. I said rich people paid for art they wanted to exist in the past and still do today. It measures nothing. > I'm not sure that fountains of human excrement convey the grandeur that your attributing to modern art however. You've quite missed my point if you're looking for grandeur in it. I see an artist pushing the boundaries of art. Your questioning of its value is the value (or, part of it). > we so far have not. That can't be stated definitively even if we limit ourselves to large-scale painting. But of course, we have far more media available to us today than 2D paintings and other traditional art forms. Breathable tanks of piss, films, video games - none of these existed in the 17th century. And each of them is capable of evoking great emotions, greater even than looking at a painting of a hundred Venetians beating the shit out of each other. You've never watchec a movie that left you feeling awe? Ah, even the piss? Sure. What if it was a thousand women in a tank of piss? Use your imagination - that's what art is about. > In archeology there is a constant and agreed upon "decadent" style that can indicate when cultures have experienced conditions, for external or internal reasons, that ultimately led to their decline and downfall I have never in my life heard of this claimed in an academic setting - only from retro-fetishist cranks, if you'll pardon me saying, making some "hard times create strong men" argument (which can't be entertained, being ahistorical). Nor can I think of any such phenomenon in ancient Greco-Roman history from Mycenae to the Visigoths. Are you able to expand on that?
- romanhn 3mo ago
  I don't think we can conclusively say anything like that. Sure, a bunch of modern art is... odd, but that's more to do with the world generally being more ok with experimentation, and there's plenty of more classical work happening around the globe, even if it doesn't get the same recognition as various "clickbait", if you will. For instance, the bronze work of Luo Li Rong channels the art of the past pretty well, I'd say. https://mymodernmet.com/realistic-sculptures-luo-li-rong/ https://mymodernmet.com/realistic-sculptures-luo-li-rong/
  - shermantanktop 3mo ago
    > experimentation That's what I find so tedious about that particular type of modern art (e.g. Piss Christ). It's incredibly repetitive and not experimental at all. It's always about transgression (body, gender, etc.), it pivots on a sophomoric "what is art anyway?" question, it drives audience discomfort in order to have a visceral reaction rather than any other kind of emotional response. In the end it elevates the artist's intention (in their mission statement) far over the reality of their art. It's incredibly overdone and yet keeps coming back around...to an installation space near you. Luo Li Rong managed to grab the other end of the spectrum: classically/romantically-presented T&A.
- mmooss 3mo ago
  Look at the incredible amount of art dismissed by this ideology: Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Rothko, Pollack, Coltrane, Lou Reed, the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, James Joyce, almost all of literature, centuries of genres in every field. Hemingway might agree, but didn't really live it out past a certain point. By its argument, people in wartorn nightmares should be making 'great art': Gaza, eastern Congo, etc. The most violent parts of the wealthy world should be where 'great art' comes from. > there really isn't anything like the art of the past made today Little is made like it was in the past, thankfully. It's not like it used to be. The world changes. > As an artist I was invited to a much vaunted exhibition in Venice itself recently. I think you'll need to convince people of that claim, especially given the unsophisticated old cliches expressed in this thread which don't seem to reflect much understanding. > consisted of a woman sitting in urine For example, that's all you understood.
- AlecSchueler 3mo ago
  > Well "great" is rather subjective. But in terms of collective agreement we can conclusive say there really isn't anything like the art of the past made today. Yes, but you claimed there was no great art in the "classical sense." Of course there's not; if it was contemporary then it wouldn't be classical. Adding to that, your single data point to show the apparent vacuity of contemporary art which we can collectively agree on isn't very convincing at all when a dozen counter examples could trivially be found. And all that while you admit yourself that what you're saying is completely subjective in any case.
- goodmythical 3mo ago
  Consider that the "great impressionists" were not considered great when they began defining the style. van Gogh sold one painting in his life, Vermeer died in debt, and that's just off the top of my head. And it goes all sorts of ways, too. Bach was relatively succesful in life, but then largely forgotten for decades after his death, but never saw anything like the current prevalence of his influence. We really can't say, today, what our kids or kids kids will be studying in art history, what'll be referenced in popular culture, etc.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

soiltype 3mo ago

> those with the means to produce it don't have any great emotions. Actually, re-reading your original post, this comes across as so asinine I do have to wonder if I'm replying to an LLM. Because it makes no sense to say that artists don't have emotions today that can compare to checks notes rowdy Venetians beating the shit out of each other.

Insanity 3mo ago
It’s a new account (2h old as of me commenting) and it does read like LLM content to me.
- soiltype 3mo ago
  Weirdly favored, if it is an LLM. Of course bad actors will be training them out of the obvious rhetorical tells, but a complete lack of semantic reasoning will fortunately always be a valid reason to ignore or dismiss someone's arguments, human or chatbot.
bryanrasmussen 3mo ago
there are incredibly wide swathes of society which go on about modern decadence and have outsized respect for violence as being somehow ennobling. As an example some people think the tough guys of the past who killed each other over women's handkerchiefs were real men and possessed of emotions more potent than those of the girly men that exist nowadays. This is not necessarily what was being claimed, just that there are claims like that so not sure why anyone crossing similar regions needs to be thought an LLM. That said >it makes no sense to say that artists don't have emotions today that can compare to...rowdy Venetians beating the shit out of each other. The rowdy Venetians beating the shit out of each other came from a society with strict rules about honor and dueling, and they dueled over honor. So I'm not sure if the artists of today do have emotions that compare to the particular emotions that were very common in a society with duels for honor that had a significantly different economic and educational system than our own. Sure we're all humans, but we're not all exactly the same despite that.
- 3mo ago

pavel_lishin 3mo ago

> We wouldn't want to be there in the midst of the brawl, most of us moderns would rather jump from the bridge. People in some moshpits would beg to differ.

ButlerianJihad 3mo ago
For any outsiders who have never experienced authentic mosh-pit dancing, I wish to testify to their value. A good, organized mosh-pit is a safe place, and even a place where men (ok mostly men) can find camaraderie, encouragement and support. Mosh-pits are enjoyed by guys with some anger issues or simply need to get out aggression in a controlled way, and yeah, they wear spikes and leather and pull off their shirts, but the actual mosh-pit dancing is structured, ritualized, and supportive. The mosh-pits I've danced in begin with a central "vortex" of guys who begin marching/stomping in a circular direction and flailing their arms around, mostly to establish a "personal space" or a "keep out zone" to indicate they're actively moving. And then they contrive to bump/bash into one another. And there are also bystanders or non-participants who stay on the border of this dance circle who also have the active role of keeping the dancers on-track and acting like the ropes in a boxing ring, cushioning them and bouncing them back into the vortex. The dancers aren't punching or kicking or striking to hurt others, but the physical contact is authentic and helps them feel alive. There's an informal choreography and style to mosh-pit dancing that's been refined over decades; styles may differ but they usually converge based on genres and locale. Though these guys may be individually angry and bitter, and the music we're dancing to is abrasive, aggressive and rough, the dancers can respect one another, and they hold themselves to an honor code of safety and concern for others' well-being, because it is, ultimately, a catharsis and a dance, in a club or venue among neighbors and friends, and while a few bad apples can spoil a night's fun, I was pleasantly surprised when I tried it out myself.
- pavel_lishin 3mo ago
  Yep. Every mosh pit I've been in, when someone goes down, everyone around stops and gets them back up and out to safety if necessary. (Granted, not every mosh pit is like that. There are some bands who are notorious for having dangerous pits, a few genres that encourage it, and a few concerts where people have been badly injured.)