Conventional Idealist wisdom says art is dead because normals aren’t interested in it. It’ll never be popular and if it ever were it would be ruined by this very popularity because like most popular things it would be watered down and reduced to the lowest common denominator. While this last sentiment is very close to true, and we have plenty of examples of trite stupidity posing as art in pop culture, the response to just condemn art as a whole to an eternal grave is one of lazy apathy or ignorance at best.
If people who can articulate art give up on it then it will die a slow death but that is not the case despite a general lack of art appreciation in mainstream consciousness. We can for instance wince at the constant misuse and overuse of Beethoven’s 5th and other classical pieces in movies and commercials, or we can be glad that they exist in pop culture at all, then note further that in better films they’re used appropriately and sometimes magnificently. Ultimately, their impact and meaning has stood the test of time.
For Western Classical, including visual art, we largely have the Romantic era to thank for this. In contrast to the somewhat sanitized and overly theoretical approach of Enlightenment art, Romanticists outright refused to limit the potential for strong emotion in the pursuit of higher truth in art. The possible pitfalls of this approach, whether it be in the practical, theoretical or even spiritual aspects of art, are not immediately apparent without experience in articulating, performing or creating the art itself. The upsides are more obvious: unfettered emotion naturally lends itself to drama and audience engagement which, ironically, can also make art more accessible to “uncultured” normals, depending on the specific art in question.
The mistake Idealists often make is to dismiss the Enlightenment approach entirely in favor of complete devotion to Romanticism, in addition to missing the obvious parallels they share in reviving certain aspects of forgotten antiquity. This mistake is exacerbated in the philosophical and political spheres of these two worldviews that have for better or worse shaped the West into what it is today. Clearly then it would be wise to take the best of both worlds as it were: the best of Romanticism and the best of the Enlightenment, while disregarding the bad, both in art and in life.
Future Consciousness 