The Psychology of Overrated Art

For as long as I can remember, the "My child could do that" critique of modern painting and sculpture has resonated with me. Broadly defined, I hasten to add, modernity creates great new visual art all the time; just look at graphic novels over the last forty years. But to my eyes, high-status painting and sculpture - the kind displayed in the "modern" section of museums - almost always looks like junk. When my little boy loudly declared, "That's not art!" at the modern section of the National Art Gallery, I thought of the Emperor's New Clothes and proudly smiled.

I know that most art aficionados will attribute my philistine position to ignorance. But what's my theory about where they go wrong? I can hardly call them ignorant; they plainly know vastly more about the art they prize than I do. Instead, I blame their aesthetic errors on some well-known psychological biases. Leading the list:

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