Art for snobs: what's keeping great paintings from the public?

Unfashionable and undemocratic, the old masters are due a makeover – not to push their prices up, but to ensure the widest possible audience enjoy them

The other night I stood in a young, boozy crowd that roared and laughed with delight at a work of art that’s more than 400 years old. Yet now I see a depressing feature in the New York Times claims that “old master” art has lost all relevance, is no longer of much interest to collectors, and may even cease to be sold by major auction houses.

The work of art that rocked Shakespeare’s Globe theatre on Friday was not a painting – it was A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Yet it was created in precisely the same era as the paintings the market is apparently falling out of love with. Why is the visual art of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries losing favour when drama from that age can still pack ’em in?

The very term 'old master' is a horrible, destructive piece of pretension

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