I follow the contemporary art world pretty closely, and a feeling I often get is that it's merely a giant collection of individuals expressing themselves in a way that fits into the market system of galleries, museums, auctions, etc. There are of course artists focused on political causes, but for the most part it is entirely devoid of any centralized ethos or ideal.
While this situation is freeing for the individual artist, I can't help but look at previous eras – say, the Italian Renaissance, or the high point of Ottoman miniature painting [1] – and admire the lack of complete self-expression. Instead, you had a much narrower focus of acceptable work and topics, with the result that artists were all engaged with basically the same art forms and the same topics, across the entirety of the artistic community. For example, both da Vinci and Raphael were painting Madonnas [2], whereas today you'd certainly never have two world-famous painters in direct competition working on the same type of painting – because their value is determined by their individuality and self-expression, not their expertise/skill.
This is a widespread post-modern culture thing and not limited to art, of course, and probably won't go away for a long, long time, or at least until you get a massive society-wide idea like Christianity to take root again.
1. The book "My Name is Red" by Orhan Pamuk is all about this. Great book. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Red
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_(art)
While this situation is freeing for the individual artist, I can't help but look at previous eras – say, the Italian Renaissance, or the high point of Ottoman miniature painting [1] – and admire the lack of complete self-expression. Instead, you had a much narrower focus of acceptable work and topics, with the result that artists were all engaged with basically the same art forms and the same topics, across the entirety of the artistic community. For example, both da Vinci and Raphael were painting Madonnas [2], whereas today you'd certainly never have two world-famous painters in direct competition working on the same type of painting – because their value is determined by their individuality and self-expression, not their expertise/skill.
This is a widespread post-modern culture thing and not limited to art, of course, and probably won't go away for a long, long time, or at least until you get a massive society-wide idea like Christianity to take root again.
1. The book "My Name is Red" by Orhan Pamuk is all about this. Great book. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Red
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_(art)