Markup View

Author: Unknown Troper

May 5th 2011 at 5:39:02 AM

It would fit in with the other TrueArt tropes.

There's even academic support for it: Oswald Spengler writes in ''TheDeclineOfTheWest'' that many famous western works ({{Nibelungenlied}}, Goethe's {{Faust}}, a good part of classical music) is only understandable / enjoyable for people who are artists themselves. Contrast this with the classical culture - anyone can understand Aesop's fables, or Homer's epics.

Tintoretto's Masterpiece 'Old Man and Boy' was praised as his finest work until it was discovered his daughter had in fact been the one to paint it. Then people began to talk about how it showed an obviously feminine asthetic and in that light were able to point to many flaws. If that was really the case, then why had no one been able to find those flaws when Tintoretto was the painter? Perhaps this trope is not about popularity, but about points of view. This might also tie a bit into hipsterism, 'I knew about this thing before it was cool.' The thing doesn't change as it becomes known.

Both tropes, True Art Isn't Popular, and It's Popular Now it Sucks, can then be combined with the two views expressed. The jist is "The quality of -some thing- is proportional to how well its known, with a reverse bell-curve"