I have never been one to marvel at the complexities of modern art. I have always been of the opinion that it does not require the same discipline and skill that traditional art, or to give a specific example, the art of the Italian Renaissance, requires. Maybe that makes me “basic”, maybe that makes me some rube who doesn’t “understand art history”, but I think there is a reason some of the most revered paintings in the world follow a certain level of traditional beauty and standards. Modern art feels like a high-class club for misfits and, with the exception of impressionism, honestly, I just don’t get it.  

That is not to say that modern art, in all its various styles–cubism, surrealism, or contemporary, to name a few–is void of any meaning. Quite the opposite; they are supposedly riddled with significance and symbolism.  

In one of my classes this week, we began to discuss cubism and the star of the movement, Picasso. We learned the key tenets of cubism and a brief background on Picasso’s artistic periods. We spent 15 minutes analyzing and discussing his 1907 painting, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. For those of you who are unaware, this painting depicts prostitutes in a brothel on Avignon Street in Barcelona, Spain. This painting is from the beginning of Picasso’s cubism period. It is crude and has a simplistic, undetailed depiction of these five women. As we discussed the painting, we learned that their faces have the shapes and features of the African masks Picasso had in his studio. Their bodies are painted from multiple angles to show the audience the 3D nature of the women.  

Now let’s compare this to Edouard Manet’s 1863 painting, Olympia. Manet’s artwork depicts a nude woman, Olympia, who lies on a bed, making direct eye contact with the viewer. This painting is in the style of realism and impressionism.  

Both Picasso’s and Manet’s paintings are controversial. They both have representations of prostitutes. Picasso challenged his audience by showing the women as raw, lacking the traditional view of femininity, and the triangular, broken shapes. Manet’s Olympia is controversial because of the audacity of the woman to stare the viewer in the eye, making an uncomfortable truth come to the forefront. This painting also depicts a black maid tending to Olympia, adding the issue of race and slavery to the controversy.  

My point in saying all this is that if both styles of painting can have significant small details, shouldn’t the style that portrays truth and reality (in even a sometimes equally as crude and raw way) but has more detailed talent and discipline be the more favored? Shouldn’t we categorize “high art” as something that not everyone can do? In my four years of working with elementary school kids back home, I have seen more skill in some of their artwork than, say, Picasso’s Girl Before a Mirror.  

I don’t enjoy highly graphic and stylized art. As this style has grown more popular over the 20th and 21st centuries, we can see it entering other fields. Children’s media, such as book illustrations and TV shows, have ditched their soft, low-stimulating cartoons in favor of loud, obnoxious shows, severely depleted of details and characters. Those of us who were children in the early 2000s may remember watching reruns of the TV show Little Bear, inspired by the 1957 series of books written by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Maurice Sendak. Little Bear is cozy and has low stakes, with handmade illustrations. It provides a mild but engaging adventure for children while they watch the characters use their imaginations, and thereby use their own. We can compare this to the lifeless and addicting Cocomelon, which has an intended audience of children aged two to five years old. The CGI graphics are unsettling and frankly uninspired. Peppa Pig is a show that some of us may remember. This is a 2D, digitally animated series with an unruly and disobedient main character. I have spent many years babysitting, and I find it almost impossible to escape a show entitled Paw Patrol. This is a CGI animated show that focuses on a posse of dogs and a boy named Ryder who engage in rescue missions. These modern shows have simple animation, and there is controversy around all three shows where parents claim their kids should not be watching them (this could be another article entirely).  

Honestly, I think the level of animation and attention to detail in these modern examples is insulting and disrespectful to their intended audience. Don’t they deserve better? Shouldn’t our kids have rich stories full of life, beauty, morals, and truth?  

Why do we push simplistic designs and highly modern standards of beauty when they just aren’t as aesthetically pleasing? Just as modern architecture is absent of any humanity or beauty in comparison to traditional architecture, the same goes for high art and children’s media. I think we can do better.