There is something lacking in contemporary art, I dare say we can all feel it. For the most part it is not beautiful. ‘Sound the alarms!’ Contemporary art, often labelled with the pejorative connotations of ‘modern art’, has a point. There is always a message, a meaning, a purpose even if it only lies with the audience to create it.
Meaning in this sense can be extremely beautiful. When art engages our reason to think about a topic it is beautiful to the rational mind. To know that Picasso’s Guernica is a commentary on the Spanish Civil War provides a beauty on top of the visual interplay, a beauty that originates in our ability to understand it’s historical and moral import.