The lack of beauty in modern art is deeper than one thinks.  It actually makes us worse psychologically.  Discipline of the heart will allow one to reflect on various issues.  Statism has placed the world into a confused state.  This is reflected in modern art.  So, the lack of beauty has created a vicious circle of degeneracy.  Art is a visual display of psychological make-up.  One doesn’t need to be an art critic to see the state of the world.

Just look at art if you want to understand society.  It’s a mistake to assume a constant state of progression.  Don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not being romantic about the past.  Yes, technology has improved our lives many times over.  However, some aspects have regressed.  It’s a mistake to view the current state of affairs as the greatest of all.  Past art glorified humans and civilization.  Modern art twists and disfigures everything.

Art today is characteristic of a declining civilization.  Beauty in art has a civilizing effect—it’s life enhancing.  The state of modern art is a direct result of statism and the de-civilizing effect it has.  Statism creates horrors, in turn, creates horrors of the mind.  Art is an outward expression of that.  Beauty in art symbolizes the state of the mind and the wellbeing of society.  Today, there is absolutely no beauty.  You can guess the current state of mind.

We won’t see another Michelangelo or Caravaggio.  They were products of a different mindset.  As Nietzsche said, “If thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.”  That is very similar to modern art.  A monstrous system of property rights has turned the minds of the masses into monsters.  That has produced monstrous art.  This goes back into the minds of the masses to perpetuate that terrible system.  Society has been reduced to savagery.

The conditions of life are not fixed.  They have changed before, and they can change again.  Art went from beauty to savagery.  It can go back.  Society must move away from glorifying the demonic.  We must escape this vicious circle.  We can recover, but only if we don’t adhere to these modern statist standards.  If art is decadent, society is.  It’s simply an expression of the unconscious.  Beauty in art symbolizes beauty in the mind.

References

Friedrich Nietzsche; Human, All too Human.

Friedrich Nietzsche; Beyond Good and Evil