I believe modern art (which I am not into) suffers from an anti-intellectual approach anytime the subject pops-up in my circle of technical friends.
On the other hand I went to an art school for a year and met a lot of incredibly elitist wanna be into Klein and the like that would never show up in history of arts class where they could have learned why some weird paintings were important stepstones in art (but they were capable of admiring the piece for two hours in the museum, go figure).
Well... Let's get back in 1863, France for a little thought experiment:
s/Tate\ Modern/Salon\ des\ refusés/
s/Greenwich park/Jardin\ du\ Luxembourg/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_d%C3%A9jeuner_sur_l%27herbe That was a huge scandal at that time, people were screaming their children could draw better (yes, already in those times). Although a lot of social proof is going on as well it advanced art and few are calling it garbage nowadays.
To be clear I enjoy observatories much more than painting exhibition :)
Note: I think this wikipedia article lacks some important pieces of information and doesn't go very deep into the anlysis of that painting.
On the other hand I went to an art school for a year and met a lot of incredibly elitist wanna be into Klein and the like that would never show up in history of arts class where they could have learned why some weird paintings were important stepstones in art (but they were capable of admiring the piece for two hours in the museum, go figure).
Well... Let's get back in 1863, France for a little thought experiment: s/Tate\ Modern/Salon\ des\ refusés/ s/Greenwich park/Jardin\ du\ Luxembourg/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_d%C3%A9jeuner_sur_l%27herbe That was a huge scandal at that time, people were screaming their children could draw better (yes, already in those times). Although a lot of social proof is going on as well it advanced art and few are calling it garbage nowadays.
To be clear I enjoy observatories much more than painting exhibition :)
Note: I think this wikipedia article lacks some important pieces of information and doesn't go very deep into the anlysis of that painting.