PragerU doesn't know ANYTHING about Art 

The fact that Fountain has been effortlessly angering authoritarians for over 100 years speaks to how powerful it is as a work of art.

I'm amused that Robert says that people need to be told what good art is. Good art, to Robert, doesn't stand on its own merits, but needs to be propped up by authority. That's... very telling about his own authoritarian leanings.

Your microphone is perfect. This is an objective art fact and nobody can contradict it. No notes.

In my country we had a guy that was rejected from art school decide what acceptable art is. It didn't end well and basically split the whole country for decades.

My biggest pet peeve as someone who’s studied aesthetics… people thinking ‘art’ means ‘good’ so any art they don’t like isn’t ‘art’, as if bad art can’t exist 🙄

A lot of artist from back in the day also perfectly copied human anatomy for medical textbooks, mainly because cameras and x-rays didn't exist back then

Regarding Bacon's paintings of the Crucifixion, if I'm recalling correctly, he did not paint his idea of the Crucifixion itself directly, but rather metaphorical figures witnessing it suffering at the sight of it, meaning to convey the agony of Christ on the cross for the sake of humanity through their agony in witnessing it. It is in many respects a deeply religious and sincere work, albeit a deeply disturbing one, which makes the reactions that many religious conservatives have to it pretty ironic to me, but then Bacon was gay and an alcoholic, so maybe that's part of their problem with him.

The extension of this kind of rhetoric from "modern art is bad" to "only some people should be allowed to do art," is sorta the point, I think. When they look at a piece and think "I could do that," they then avoid doing it and rant about the thing. Meanwhile the normal human response to seeing art and thinking "I can do that,"...is to then do it. Art that inspires replication or whole new works is in conversation. But that's lost on these folks who want everyone to listen to their art despite them not even speaking.

How people like Robert think about art reminds me a bit of how I thought about art as a child. I had very little experience of art being anything more than a show of talent and realism, but as I grew older and gained experience/experimented with art more I started to see more of what it is/can be. Now as an adult I see art as a vessel for the person making it. Whether someone uses it purely for fun or to express a message/purpose doesn't matter because either way, it IS art. PragerU is seeing art as something that must be policed and meet a standard, not as an extension of the person making it.

prageru is literally "BACK IN MY DAYS" humanized, eugh

even prageru recognises the social power of art, otherwise they wouldnt want it censored

As a low vision person, I would like to argue against Robert’s silly idea that art is only a visual experience. Has he never touched a sculpted object? Felt the silky texture of a carved and polished piece of wood, or opposite that, the roughness or texture of something made of different fabrics? I admit perhaps my understanding of bleeds into craftsmanship, but I would argue that this is simply another path art takes, and not a unique and separate discipline. I love your essay.

Prager U's art criticism matches a lot with the ramblings about "modern art" by Nazis and other 20th century fascists in the 1920s and 30s.

I was wondering if Fountain was going to be mentioned. And I'd like to add- A lot of Duchamp's "readymades" were things he built himself, deliberately, to be so close to the actual shape of the object they represented that people would fail to notice the details that gave them away as NOT that object. Duchamp was laughing at his critics and his audience every time he made something out of sheer spite. That 100% includes Fountain- he was a capable ceramicist and probably put that together himself. And to this day people claim he simply ripped an existing urinal off of the wall and signed it.

As you inferred, this PregarU video is yet another thinly veiled dog whistle for arguments of the degeneracy and downfall of civilization, e.g. fascist rhetoric. Good coverage.

sheesh i can imagine living like this guy 💀 im an artist as well, its weird to hear his views on what he deems “good”, he sounds like a eugenicist tbh 🤧 love your commentary! just subbed ❤

I think your examples from throughout the video were good, especially the ways you cited points which may have been taken out of context by Robert in his series. My one piece of constructive criticism would be that you may want to consider putting more of the art that you are talking about on screen, which would have been especially helpful for the trilogy of paintings you talk about when dissecting color palettes. Good critical thinking and structure.

(still haven't finished the video) There's always been some phrases that have stuck to me about art, from the art teachers I've had. "Humans have the innate need to make art." "Art is an expression of humanity." "Art is born perfect." I think they go very well together, and it's something many people need to hear. Art has no rules, art just is. You can't say something isn't art when someone describes it at such. Whether it's good art, that's a different matter, and many people conflate the two (personally, I judge art based on if it achieves what it sets out to do). After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Also, the way these people talk is very dubious; they'd have a heart attack if they saw non-eurocentric art, god forbid people depict other experiences and cultures!

Funnily enough, Stalin and the USSR set laws about what art was allowed to be created. It had to be realist, representative, and positive. The pieces from this time were happy workers and children happily surrounding Stalin. What PragerU proposes is essentially the same thing, except I’m sure they’d hate any association with Stalin

i found your channel just before this video, so about an hour ago. and im not sure how but i just instinctively knew you were a fellow artist, you just have that wonderful artsy aura

It's like saying classical music is the only music that matters.

Robert spends so much time lauding classical pieces, I bet he'd lose his sh*t if he saw "Etant Donnes".

Figure skating might be the worst comparison he could have used because the state of the sport right now is all about landing extremely specific tricks, mainly four-spin jumps, or Quads, which gain extra points for their difficulty. However this has created a meta where every competitive skater has to work in Quads to compete at the highest levels, with an incredibly dangerous technique for this being way more doable for people with low weights. This has all lead to competitions where all the viable contestents in women's figure skating are teenage girls who are still light enough to do multiple Quads per routine, which ruins their legs and spine long-term while also forcing them on a rough diet that gives many of them eating disorders. As you'd expect, all of this leads to a pretty short career, too, with lots of psychological trauma. So in the search of objectively scoring the most difficult and technical moves in a routine, we've ended up with an industry that screws over disposable teenage champions that all bust out the same basic routine over and over again because it's the highest scoring setup possible, making it the most effective thing to do. This man CHOSE to compare what he wants art to be to this. He WANTED this comparison to happen! At this point, giving bonus points to someone breaking convention by just throwing themself across the ice would be a good thing! That's how bad crap is!

why no talk about the fact that artists outside europe and america after the year 1500 exist(ed) ?

I did drop out of my 2D program because of mental health reasons, but I did take 4 semesters of art history! Would love to hear about your perspective on artists like Picasso. It was/is a struggle to balance the cultural value of his work with, in my humble opinion, how terrible of a person he was. I can’t see Picasso’s works without thinking of the hell this man put himself and his wives through. A specific example, but it’s a fascinating subject to me. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I didn’t know how to ‘get’ or appreciate Georgia O’Keefe’s works until I learned more about her life story, and now I find I really enjoy seeing her creations. It’s almost upsetting to find that I struggled to find that ‘appreciation’ in the first place. You did mention the importance of context in this video, but it makes me so curious about how one’s view of art can be influenced by a projection of ‘connection’ to the artist themselves. Is that a silly thing to do? Almost para-socially appreciating art more or less due to one’s opinion of them as a human being? I always feel uncomfortable at the thought that I may do this unintentionally, and it gives me a lot more anxiety than it probably should. What if I accidentally overlook an artist I might really admire if I had known more about them? Should that even really matter? I literally get stressed out at the thought of walking through an art museum. There’s so much more information I would want and may not realistically get, and worry that I may not fully appreciate something as it is right in front of me. Or maybe I just think too much! Probably, but who knows!!

I'm not really an "art person," like I enjoy it but I don't know much about it, so I appreciate prageru u making you look into these cool modern pieces so you could tell me about them :D On a less lighthearted note. It is disturbing that their opinions on art are so blatantly fascist even I can see it. A deep commitment to removing anything not "beautiful" feels very threatening when you know they feel the same about actual human people.

I'm loving this, the picking apart PragerU reminds me of early Big Joel. Just perfect cadence and I'm loving the your view points and humor! Keep it up!!!

I just found your channel and can I just say I love your microphone, so creative!

Sad that he can't even see the artistry in his own apron. It might be ridiculous to compare it to a Pollock, but the apron itself bearing the marks of however many years of painting is itself a very interesting and meaningful piece of art with a story to tell.

I really enjoyed this video! It was interesting and I got to learn about more art. However, I think you need to turn the volume of your mic up when editing, you were pretty quiet for me and the clips you showed were also pretty quiet.

he should have compared Bernini's the ecstasy of saint Teresa, to maccarthy's "tree"; the shapes, the contours, there's something about those two that *FITs* better IMHO, but I'm not an artist, just a connoisseur Edit: holy, he consider all expressionism art as not real art XD on another note: I find the concept of ready-made art.... reminiscent of the modern discussion on AI art.

Although I would not call myself an artist, I really like painting, drawing as well as analyzing art. These people infuriate me, they are one step before starting classifying what constitutes "devient art" nazi style.

Ok not that he’s right about anything else but his understanding of the term “visual medium” is so asinine I had to pause and write this. Art being visual doesn’t mean that the aesthetic quality is secondary to how it makes you think - it means that it makes you think through/about the visuals.

I've been binge-watching CJ the x videos and he very frequently brings up miraculous ladybug for little to no reason so at 1:04 hearing you say "if you don't know miraculous-" almost made my heart stop

I've seen a million Prager U takedowns (because they're a bunch of morons). But this one really stands out, because you give a great lesson in art and art technique. My wife is an artist, and I really think she would get a lot from this, even though she has no interest in takedown videos or Prager U (just one of the reasons why I married her). Thanks so much for this, I look forward to more of your work.

I like to argue that collage work in Dadaism is a reclamation of photography as a visual art, after industrialization saw the bastardization of photography for the advertisement. By deconstructing adverts, they reclaim the artistic integrity. At least, that how I see it.

I didn't realise I was watching a video from a relatively small channel before you mentioned it at the end, so congrats on the quality of your videos !

Dada and its spiritual successor Meme Culture are so much fun to study

this guy man, shows a _Francis Bacon_ painting and is like, "garish and unsavory". _Have you perhaps considered that, that is the POINT, good sir._

conservative art criticism is just: the closest it looks to a photo the more art it is

I follow you now, I think the way you explain is not only visually and audibly pleasing, I also think that it's exeptionaly easy to understand, thank you for putting so much work into these video.

Do they even check to make sure that they aren't using the exact same talking points as literal nazis during world war 2. Hitler despised modern art and impressionists specifically, to the point where they were given their own "degenerate art" exhibition. Classical sculpture and painting was one of the pinnacle achievements of a white, aryan society in his eyes, which is why he obsessively collected renaissance works from countries he'd invaded. Modern art was new, different, and didn't place replication and beauty above all else, which the nazis thought was a sign pointing to the degradation of society as a whole.

great video! tbh the thing that really gets me is the prager vids just. have an inherent appeal to authority- things need to be Okayed and Official, which tracks for their political stances. thanks for the analysis! edit: i was about to say that the prager vid sounds like the guy has never actually met an artist or studied it, but then he said that not going to museums or buying things from galleries would do anything so that just confirmed it.

The things PragerU fundamentally does not understand could fill the library Dennis pretends he's read.

An apron can be a piece of art! That's the beauty of it. You look at it and then you think abt it and try to guess what's supposed to be expressed by it. Btw I rly like ur mic and u give yourself less credit than what you deserve your edits are rly funny

this video is amazing. so well-written. I'm so inspired!!!

Fun fact: Fountain as a work of art most likely wasn't created by Duchamp, but by Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, and he took the credit for it later on.

Robert is so afraid of enjoying something "bad." Thought policing is poison

Bravo. Very well done. Take down of the infamous Prager U anti-Art videos are always welcome. Glad your channel found me.

damn, i feel like your video really made me change my view on things. i used to not really enjoy the paint splatters and more abstract pieces because, as embarrasing as this feels to admit now, i felt they were lazy. but i feel like through watching this i found a new value to them, and can appreciate them as what they are, art. thanks for the video :-)

The line that always gets me every time I hear it is when Robert says “artists enriched WESTERN society.” I still don’t know what that means and I’ve watched that video a million times. Is he implying that non-Western art is bad or inferior? Is he saying that the west are the only ones who created works that fit his definition of art? Is he saying that no one outside the west is capable of creating works that appeal to western audiences? I literally have no idea what he means by that. Granted, my background is based more in music, poetry and photography than painting and sculpting, so I don’t have much room to critique him, but that line has never made any sense. The only reason I’ve come up with for why he said that is he was simply pandering to PragerU’s predominantly white nationalist audience who thinks “the west did everything bruh” and nobody else in the world ever did anything until we, the benevolent white saviors came in and civilized them. What a joke. And I agree with your assessment: even in elementary school, I was taught that artists were basically STORYTELLERS. They valued aesthetics to some extent, but tge priority was telling a story.

They want their art to be produced by craftsmen, as if it were furniture.

this is a great video. its so obvious that he really doesn't know what he's talking about and misses the whole point of art its actually like hilarious. u can tell he really trys to manipulate his audience to push this conservative view on art and politics but if u have a basic understanding on art history u know he's talking stupid. he's giving out useless information.

It seems like, in his opinion, art shouldn't have meaning and shouldn't be used to express anything. Basically, art's sole purpose should be decoration, which is a pretty sad way of viewing art.

You know I used to think Gerard way was exaggerating how art will be taken for granted in the apocalypse in favor of prestige for self expression; nope! He definitely wasn’t exaggerating. What the hell is PragerUs theories???

Via strange evolution, Art begins like finding where the pretty comet crashed. We want to watch it glow and fly again; into the stars to try and put it back. How could an ape acquire eye and ear? to love the music fingers can produce. But now misplaced to 9 to 5 careers, the question’s lost in shopping plaza blues. Oh like the woe of taking down a reef; somehow this magic holiday has passed. No renaissance will come again it seems unless we grant the brush to bring it back. We’ve had this power since our species’ birth; expressive like no other thing of Earth.

I grew up among people who were the opposite of this. They loved modern art and thought that people who loved classic art were just not educated enough to understand what REAL art was. They were very unwilling to let others into their little club and I hated modern art as a result. Once I was able to learn more about specific pieces and hear the explanations or reasons behind them without someone scoffing at me and telling me that if I "couldn't understand without explanation, I clearly wasn't smart enough to appreciate it," I started appreciating it a lot more. I think it's interesting that they talked exactly the same as these Prager U people. They even looked the same. They voted for our equivalent to the Republican party. It's strange how in such a short time (I grew up in the 90s/00s) the people in question changed from "modern art is the only art and if you believe in God you must believe in Santa too" faux-intellectuals to "reject modernity, embrace tradition and God had a point actually" without ever changing their behaviour or the way they speak to people.

that was amazing!! i really enjoyed the analysis you provided. More videos on "why modern art is actually good" would be nice!!

Finally. Female wendigoon.

I usually don't comment, but I just wanted to say, that I find your videos wonderful. The pacing and the presented information are both really nice and it boggles my mind that you don't have way more subscribers. Anyways I also wanna say, that i find it amazing how accessible art has become and how many different ways to present it there are nowadays. From what i remember, a lot of these new art movements stemmed from the invention of photography. Suddenly you could produce realistic pictures without needing a painter, which is why impressionistic painters started capturing feelings and moods in their illustrations. The art world expanded and it keeps expanding and that's incredible in my opinion. Anyways, I'm totally rambling and I'm not even sure whether all of this is relevant, but great video

Nicely done!! Glad I found your channel.

This is a REALLY good essay. You did a great job! I really appreciate you talking about each example piece, discussing the idea behind them, and also the artist. I remember when I first started taking art history classes in university a thousand years ago, and it just blew my mind how understanding the context behind art pieces changes how you look and think about them. Art is truly one the greatest aspects of humanity. Robert Florczak and PragerU's views on art are sadly rooted in fascist ideology. Fascists will always seek to either completely remove art from society, or control it to the point where no meaning can be communicated. Art is dangerous to fascism, and it's why the German nazis destroyed what they considered "degenerate" art, and killed or controlled artists. Keep fighting against these limiting fascists ideas. Let art flourish~

There’s so much i hate about the prager u art history videos, (i have an associates in art history, a minor in art history, and a bfa in illustration, just for my own background) but the thing that gets me THE MOST is him dropping like. art terms and definitions and they’re all WRONG. “composition is the placement of objects” is. the most basic way to define that. composition is about keeping the viewer’s attention and eye drawn to where you want it to go. robert clearly doesn’t actually understand why both images he shows have the composition the way they do. it drives me nuts to see someone passing themselves off as an “expert” when they can’t even pass muster on the bare basics lol. i’m not an expert by any means, but i have more experience than the average person, and all i can tell you is robert doesnt know *anything*

I enjoy that the card that itemizes the "profound ... " is just like a For Sale placard.

8:12 oh wowee I didn't know Jeremy Clarkson, May and Hammond had a hand in Art in the Middle Ages Lovely video already, I put it in watch later and said nah I will watch it NOW, will finish it now keep up the good work

I would like to show this prager-hole a slideshow of all the paintings of monks and nuns getting it on. They’re beautiful! Lol.

Such a great video! I subscribed, I'm looking forward to seeing what else you make!

this gives the same vibes as those people who say there is such a thing as objective personal beauty. /truerateme vibes

Classical portraiture does live on in contemporary photography. Annie Leibowitz's formal portraits remind me a lot of old master paintings.

Seeing this dude dissect art into a checklist of do's and don'ts is giving me an ulcer

by the way, i looked at some of caillebotte's paintings in person and it's fascinating how much detail was put into some parts, and how some of his pieces, if you stand at the right distance, suddenly feel extremely realistic, and then, just by shifting in place, you can suddenly see it for what it is, a mere impression. I fucking love impressionism.

my dad made me watch the prager u vid after i said i liked abstract/dada art and it was so funny. there was this painting i saw at LACMA called “Leda”. it was an abstract painting with bold colors and you had to really focus your eyes to see what exactly was happening. it really resonated with me because it was the essence of chaos as Leda was literally being r^ped by Zeus in swan form. i looked up other paintings depicting this same myth and they were all so classically beautiful. Leda had a blank almost pleasant expression on her face while being r^ped and it was so creepy. abstract art has so much depth to it and is really great at capturing certain emotions. to say art should only be literal is such a simple minded take.

14:22 Hey look it’s the ancestor of shitposting.

Wonderful video! Subscribed! And I really love your microphone ❤ Have you seen Jacob Geller’s video on modern art and fascism? It was really eye-opening for me, and it made me look for more videos on modern art - hence why I’m here. I love listening to people talk about subjects they’re passionate about. It gives me a deep hope for human kind.

This is such a great channel, very friendly and welcoming little corner of youtube with a lotbof knowledge and character :3

Heya, I’m an artist, and I love this. I learned a lot about art history. Keep up the great work

PragerU is just shy of saying actually the N-zis takes on art were fine.

10:20 A bizarre slam on "white guy", considering that both the Academics and the impressionists were predominantly white men.

“I really yam” fuck you for how hard that made me laugh. I know next to nothing about art but the video was still really interesting, good work

francis bacon is my fav painter of all time and to see this weirdass guy dog on it in such a hand waving way gave me an aneurysm

PLEASE post your notes from your classes ! i am getting more into art history and would love to read through them !

Making pragerU sound remotely reasonable is a massive achievement, I'll give that

This is your second video that I've watched and I think you're doing a really good job. Great essay! (also I love your microphone🥰)

Ironic they don’t like impercionist art, when there channel animations feature abstract stick people

Prager "U" doesn't know anything about ANYTHING.

ur analysis is so amazing and i love the way you put these thoughts into words! also ur a lot calmer than id be lol, i haven't even taken that many art classes and i want to call robert a two year old

Would love if you posted your class notes! Really into art history and would love to get a look into a formal education of it.

The "trick" that professor played on his students is silly in part because there is an actual color scheme being expressed in the "random" paint left on his smock. ..I once used all the paint scraped from a palette as though these were sticky little colorforms, with all sorts of textures, and reassembled these (w/some gesso) on a small canvas. The resulting piece, 'Landfill,' is very small but it's one of my favorite (and more innovative) paintings to date. I didn't have to choose a color scheme- it was already there, on the palette. If this guy is an art professor, he's not very inspiring. 😐

This guy is like listening to a 5-year-old talk about art "I don't like it because it's not pretty I think it's ugly >:(" really shows how reductive and lacking in critical thinking all these people are honestly and how boldly they show themselves as such. Grow up, Robert.

PragerU doesn't know ANYTHING about ANYTHING.

you had me at "prageru doesn't know anything.." :)

@3:52 It's weird how these people act as if all of these classical artworks that you see in museums and galleries today, which we can all access easily for a small fee or even for free, were just as easily available to the general masses in their day. The idea that everyday people might have finished their jobs toiling in the field or the factory and spent the afternoons with the family in an art gallery being "inspired and uplifted" by the great masters: I just don't think that's how it worked. And I guess that's at the crux of why America's current hyper-conservatism is so against modern art of all kinds. It's because it represents a societal equalisation which disrupts a conservative status quo that they favour and wish to have permanent effect. They hate the idea that art in all forms has become something for everybody rather than just for the wealthy and the privileged. And with that equalisation came so much more expression and purpose to art of all kinds. It became about the everyday lives and the people's experiences. It was used to challenge the powers that be and the authorities. It was used to motivate revolution. And it became more experimental, abstract, shocking and as diverse as the vast people creating it. And that's why this new seething form of hyper conservatism and the right wing absolutely despise modern art movements. It's just like how they despise universities and colleges, even though they themselves wear the regalia of academia in order to assert their authority and legitimise their propaganda. It's all about power, and art in the modern age (as well m more equal and egalitarian access to higher education) has done so much to tear that status quo down.

Great video! I want to throw this in the mix as well: regarding "The Holy Virgin Mary," the criticism of the use of dung specifically gives the game away that PragerU's selected chud is working with a deliberately limited conception of art, confined to Eurocentric standards. Dung has been used in several art traditions in Africa for longer than we can know, such as Imigongo in Rwanda, where it's mixed with ash to help sterilize it before adding pigment and using it to paint. Chris Ofili, in fact, stated that the inspiration for the painting came from a visit to Zimbabwe, where he would have encountered traditions of this kind. The use of dung wouldn't be seen in this cultural context as insulting. Of course, Robert here either clearly doesn't care to try to learn any of that, or is fine with pretending he's never heard it.

I really hope you keep making video essays. Excellent video!

12:50 I don't understand this diagram he's using, like why is he the point of music isn't to sound good. Like music HAS to have meaning and art CAN'T have meaning. Why?!

when you said that there is people making the art robert wants to see i remembered literally following someone on insta that 1. does repaints of classical paintings but as fanart 2. paints their own characters in that style. and i didnt even have to sell my soul to find them.

Loved the video, especially the part on art analysis!! Would love to hear more about art history and analysis within commentary vids :)

Damn. I wanted to make a video where I used one of my lego flowers as a fake mic. Now I won't be original. 😢

This guy corners people at parties, and gets increasingly frustrated as they look around fur a way to excuse themselves. I have determined this using objective principles

yooo great video. Love discovering new smaller channels before they blow up. Youre on your way!