Internal rot

If anyone should want evidence of the complete collapse of the Western artistic tradition, he could do worse than to go to the annual exhibition of the graduates of the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris. No city in the world is more saturated with that tradition than Paris, and therefore in no city is the collapse more painfully obvious.

The entry to the exhibition is free of charge, but even so not many people take the trouble to enter, not even the schizophrenics cared for in the community and homeless Syrian migrant families (actually, mainly Albanians) who hold out paper cups to passers-by for alms. The art is too painful to be endured, even by them; the discomfort of inclement weather is nothing in comparison to that occasioned by the products of modern art teaching and theory. The public that does...