Britain’s best-loved artwork is a Banksy. That’s proof of our stupidity | Jonathan Jones

Banksy’s Girl with Balloon comes top in a popular vote, despite its oversimplification of human emotion. Real art is ambiguous and difficult

• Jonathan Jones writes on art for the Guardian

People are stupid. Wait, hear me out. I didn’t say that – although in a time when Donald Trump can get elected US president and a referendum can doom Britain to inglorious isolation, haven’t you occasionally wondered?

I was merely paraphrasing the Victorian art critic John Ruskin, who in his book Modern Painters opines that “the average intellect and feeling of the majority of the public” give them zero competence “to distinguish what is really excellent”. Only a critic, such as himself, with superior sensibility and knowledge can judge what is truly great in art.

He has invented the artistic equivalent of a tweet. You see it, you get it. Is that really all we want?

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