I love Beth Ditto - let's talk about sex baby

But Oliver we will never again have high art like Raphael or Bach;so why try to make the comparsion?

For instance: Bach was devout Lutheran required to produce huge quantities of music for his various princes. Have we had any composers like that since 1800 ?
You are right he is high art, but we don't even experience his music any more in the way he intended it to be heard.

Ha! As if I had anything much to say about Damien Hirst and his timewasting ilk. Lucian Freud is miles better--of course there isn't really a comparison on the same scale. He is skilled and puts genuine effort into every painting. But to me calling something 'high art' has to stand a comparison with the greats. Much of the work of Raphael or Bach is high art, for instance. Too lofty? Maybe. But that we don't have a painter, musician, or other kind of artist of that sort around nowadays is not a reason to elevate the low contemporary standard beyond what it really is, which isn't very remarkable at all.