on art and ignorance

This is a comment I came across on a YouTube video of a piano performance:

Also realize, capitalism and commercialism are the destruction of art, you cannot believe in both. There is no "best art". That is an idea created by those who wish to make money from the creation of artists, it has nothing to do with art. When you attempt to rank art or artists you destroy the best as well as the fledgling...art is not created through competition, and when you force it you destroy the art in all of us.

I copied and pasted the comment as it was, so some of the ideas expressed in it are probably irrelevant, if only slightly. It is mainly the first and last sentences that I’m concerned with: the ones in which the commenter asserts that capitalism is anathema to art. The first argument I will make against this position is that the opposite position to capitalism (any kind of collectivism) is overtly inimical to art – to any expression of free thought, and to freedom in general. Suggesting that art (which is by definition free expression of thought) can come of placing suffocating constrictions on artists is thus a contradiction in terms. The second fallacy which this pseudo-intellectual (I say “pseudo-intellectual” because he seems to think himself an intellectual) has come under is assuming that artists (composers in this case, but the idea can be generalized so as to apply to painters, writers, etc.) don’t aim to profit from their works.

Here is a second comment the same user made on the video:

You know, a pianist is not something that exists in art, it is just something society and our insistence on giving titles to everything has created. A clown however is free to do as he or she likes as they never pretend to society's judgements. Art is more often created by clowns than what we as critics and contemporaries call "artists".

That’s right, the pianist is just someone who gives material form to abstractions – just as the architect is someone who gives physical form to drawings of buildings. An artist doesn’t “exist” in art – if he did, he wouldn’t be an artist. An artist merely distills the essence of a work of art or an idea or an abstraction. Art doesn’t exist until it’s given material form – thus, art doesn’t exist without the artist. The argument that the user seems to make is twofold: that giving titles to things obfuscates rather than clarifies the truth; and that the creation of art is a process that is entirely independent of the physical world – that is, not influenced by external factors.

Only naïve appreciators of art are apt to hold such preposterously delusional views – and in their attempt to be poetic or eloquent, only betray the dementia under whose weight they grovel. I fail to understand how the value of a work of art is diminished, when one learns that the artist profited from creating it, and that it didn’t come into existence spontaneously in a divine moment of inspiration. (And remember, it’s a fact that being an artist is a profession – that artists “make a living” out of their art – that while the profit motive doesn’t directly lead to the creation of art, its presence gives the artist incentive not to stifle his creative ideas. So when someone, such as this YouTube intellectual – which is to say, ignoramus – comes along and claims that true art is that which is made without the expectation of profit, and indeed, without profit, you know that we have in our midst someone who is piteously disconnected from reality.) And if by “art is more often created by clowns” this commenter means that the creation of art is a thoughtless process – driven by whim or a divine hand – then he is even more ignorant than we’d initially thought.

Going back to the first comment: no, there is no such thing as “best art”. One’s taste in art is a reflection one’s values, and the experience of art is thus almost entirely subjective. If one accepts the romanticist’s definition of art (that art is the representation of the ideal, of the best in mankind), then art is also a reflection of the artist’s aesthetic and moral values. Thus only the experience of art is subjective – art itself (that is, the values the artist holds) is not. So when you attempt to rank artists or art, you’re only listing out your values – the work of art itself is completely unaffected. So it’s absurd to suggest that the idea that some kinds of art are better than others that capitalism plants in people’s minds (as if that were capitalism’s conscious endeavor) destroys art and values, that Elvis was debauched to have made more money than Cziffra ever had. The idea of “best art” is merely a reflection of the majority’s values in a particular age and culture. By eliminating competition, you eliminate the significance of the appreciator’s preferences in art, and you eliminate the artist’s need to interpret and create art – in short, eliminating competition would destroy art. (And if you consider the garbage that the governments of Communist Russia and Socialist India manufactured in the way of books and movies, and forced down the throats of their citizens to be art, then you and I disagree fatally on matters of principle, and any attempt at having a civilized, rational argument with you would inevitably end in an impasse.)