Yesterday the whole family went to the St. Louis Art Museum with friends from church. We had an elegant brunch and then enjoyed the beauty of the objects d’art. Paintings, weavings, sculptures, sarcofogi, furniture, and other assorted brick a brack from earlier era’s were all quite beautiful. Then we heaved ourselves up to the modern art section on the third floor. My daughter kept asking me, “Why is this art?” I had no answer other than I didn’t consider it art, even though it was in an Art Museum. Many of the pieces were untitled – cut up golden torsos strewn about the floor; a wood cabinet filled with concrete; eight small nails connected by thin wire; an enormous burned canvas; a huge framework containing trashcans smashed flat and filled with broken glass, and broken glass on the floor in front; paintings of vague shapes that perhaps were meant to be people. It was a phantasmagoria of whatever: no talent, no beauty, no truth, no vision, no connection. Ty and Amy Wynn make more artwork on a single episode of Trading Spaces than was contained in the entire section devoted to Modern and 20th Century art at the Museum. How embarrassing for the artists of today. What a sad epilogue for the proud artistic traditon of Western Civilization. I can only speak for myself, but if that is a representative sample of what passes for Art these days, then modern art is completely bankrupt, a fraud, an insult to humanity, a desecration of the memory of all the artists who labored in the past to enrich civilization with their art and added to our rich artistic heritage. Tell me again why my tax dollars are subsidizing this nonsense.

Tags: ,