" So you don't think it's Art. So what?"

At this point I think I should explain how this thread arose, since it may look like the senile ravings of a traditionalist.  I don't think that's so, and here's why.

For many years now I've had debates or discussions with friends, many of whom are involved in the Arts to varying degrees, about this central topic - what is Art, and what's it for.  And, as a corollary, what isn't Art.  And does it matter?  Some of these debates have become furious, polarised arguments (occasionally fuelled by too much wine), to the extent that we no longer raise such topics with each other.  So on that level at least it does matter.  It matters enough to have friends shouting at each other and feeling hurt by the exchanges.

But it also matters because Art has a function in Society.  It is not unimportant.  It is not a means for a few favoured late adolescents to make a lot of money at the expense of gullible Investment Bankers and Advertising Executives (and Russian Oil Billionaires, for all I know).  Because they also make money at the expense of our great public collections - because of the gullibility of the Directors (or Curators or what you will) - and hence they impoverish those collections both financially and culturally, because the money wasted on evanescent "Brit Art" (or whatever) could actually go towards buying something worthwhile - or even displaying more of the huge stock of Art works which these places usually have in their storerooms and offices.* 

At that point I should add (in text-speak) IMHO - in my humble opinion.  Because, obviously, many many people don't agree with me, although many do, and an even larger number don't give much of a toss.  Which,  is part of the problem.  If Art is only for the select few then it goes into that category of esoteric interests such as matchbox collecting or shoe fetishism - something that can be indulged in by those who enjoy that sort of thing.  Of course, you can buy matchboxes for very little money, and you can indulge shoe fetishism cheaply on the Internet (or so I'm told . . . . ).  But Art is usually big and expensive, especially if many people like a particular work, so the only fair way to enable access to such works is through large scale public collections.  And fortunately, in the UK we are blessed with these.

But Art does speak to most people, given the opportunity - look at the story of the Pitmen Painters, the play about whom is revived at the National Theatre this Autumn.  And my argument with much of contemporary Art is that it shuts out most people.  I'll have to go into the reasoning behind this next time.

* Did you know, for example, that for years one of Samuel Palmer's masterpieces, "The Magic Apple Tree", painted in 1830, and given to The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge by a Mr Anderson in 1929 in memory of his dead brother, for years that painting hung in the office of the Director of the Museum, and could only be seen by special arrangement?  For all I know it's there still.  I'll have to email Dr Timothy Potts to ask if it's still on his wall.  How many thousands of Art works are thus squirrelled away?