How do we know that classical art, as opposed to modern art, is so good?

We know it because it was produced within the demanding standards and refined principles

of aesthetics, the centuries-old branch of philosophy that measures artistic quality.

Painting, drawing, and sculpture employ a number of characteristics such as composition,

form, color, line, texture and movement to create beauty.

To the experienced eye, and even to the casual viewer, each of these is present in any

work of art worthy of being called art.

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.

Color can be exquisitely balanced and harmonious, or garishly random and unsavory.

Art can be uplifting and dynamic, or static and perverse.

In my previous Prager U video, Why is Modern Art so bad, I chronicle how art began to

decline beginning from about the 1860s when aesthetic standards were gradually abandoned.

Unfortunately for the arts, not everyone agrees.

I'm sure you've heard the arguments.

Art is simply a reflection of its time.

Art isn't about technical proficiency, it's about making you think.

Art is a matter of personal taste, there's no such thing as great art or bad art.

Where do these assumptions come from?

For the most part they are the result of art history's written and taught over the last

century, not by artists, but by those in the humanities and social sciences.

Not having an artist's point of view or experience, let alone artistic talent, these authors

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