I have zero artistic ability. My father is a very accomplished amateur artist. I've got into this discussion with him several times. Rather than Pollock's work,

I have zero artistic ability. My father is a very accomplished amateur artist. I've got into this discussion with him several times. Rather than Pollock's work, the best exemplar supporting the argument that artistic value is arbitrary is, in my opinion, Rothko's color field paintings [1]. My father explained to me that the reason it's in the Smithsonian is because he did something no one else had ever done before, he reduced the traditional landscape painting to it's absolute minimum. Same thing for Pollock, he did something no one else had ever done before. At least according to a very small clique of New York Jews. (Joking. Kind of. Not being anti-semitic, I'm an atheist Jew.) Of course, the fact that this guy [2] is not also in the Smithsonian is strong evidence that it is in fact completely arbitrary. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_field [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owSZs7H24UY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owSZs7H24UY