h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It has seemed to me for a long time that when people look at art now they tend to talk about the artist and what was happening in his or her life at the time of the painting or sculpture rather than the piece itself. Some of the art that is considered to be the best looks like a 3 year old painted it but it is worth a lot of money simply because the artist was going through some kind of hardship. So maybe if I'm feeling depressed I could just trow some paint at a canvas and call it art? Who knows really. It is all summed up by a new regular segment on The Late Show with David Letterman called Ape or Artist. The game is to show a painting to Dave and Paul and they have to guess if it was painted by an ape or an artist, so far they have all been painted by apes, but the point is they look like modern art in many galleries. Which is why the game is so hard to make an accurate guess.

It's like a visual autobiography. Interesting if you find the person & their life interesting, but not necessarily appealing or skillful. I wonder how many past artists' work was principally commissions executed to earn a living, rather than what they would have liked to produce?