Why is classical art — as opposed to much of today’s modern art — so good? The latest video from PragerU discusses the importance of classic art based on refined principles of aesthetics and strict standards that withstand the tests of time and culture.
Host Robert Florczak notes in the latest five-minute video from PragerU that art forms like painting, drawing, and sculpture employ a number of characteristics to create beauty. Even an inexperienced viewer of a masterpiece can recognize a beautiful art form due to aspects such as color, form, and texture.
“Composition, for instance, is the positioning of objects — elegant and controlled in the hands of a master, or awkward and haphazard in the hands of the inept,” Florczak says in the video. “Color can be exquisitely balanced and harmonious, or garishly random and unsavory. Movement can be uplifting and dynamic, or static and perverse.”
He adds that art began to decline in the 1860s when standard aesthetic standards were slowly abandoned, leading to a vastly different view of art. Some common attitudes now held toward art include that art is simply a reflection of its time.
Florczak also mentions that many claim art is a matter of personal taste or that there’s no such thing as great or bad art.
But is this really true? This rewriting of artistic standards is largely found in the humanities and social sciences rather than the arts. A work of art can be a reflection of a certain time, but it is also much more.
“Art, by definition, is a visual medium. Therefore, its ‘meaning’ and ability to ‘make you think’ are secondary to how it looks,” Florczak argues. In art, the visual matters regardless of whether a person knows anything about the artist or the story behind the work.
Instead, the quality of artistic efforts is found in the skillfulness of the visual production. The video cites the work of the 17th-century Dutch Master, Johannes Vermeer. The oil painter uses a particular blend of brushwork and color to produce a high degree of beauty.
Modern art may still be enjoyed, but it is often based on being “in the moment” or reflecting a certain emotion apart from a display of skills that are developed over years of practice.
Florczak also makes an important distinction between quality and taste when it comes to art. “Quality is based on developed standards,” he says, while “taste” is based “on personal preference.”
The video concludes by explaining that much of modern art pushes the edge of vulgarity and inappropriate content, contrasting the beauty found in classical art. A modern piece may be considered cutting-edge, but often lacks the wonder of traditional art that upholds beauty and nature.
There is much to be learned from classical art, and it’s more than just the quality of the visual medium. Classical art inspires and sets a high standard for other artists to appreciate and learn from in order to form future works, offering a legacy that extends from past to present to future.
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Related: Why Is Modern Art So Bad? with Robert Florczak