Actually this is a very interesting comment so I do want to continue to engage. Thanks for not rising to my tone, I suppose.

> So you admitted that the public purse and what it is willing to pay to commission for public art is useful measure of a pseudoscientific constant

No I did no such thing. I said rich people paid for art they wanted to exist in the past and still do today. It measures nothing.

> I'm not sure that fountains of human excrement convey the grandeur that your attributing to modern art however.

You've quite missed my point if you're looking for grandeur in it. I see an artist pushing the boundaries of art. Your questioning of its value is the value (or, part of it).

> we so far have not.

That can't be stated definitively even if we limit ourselves to large-scale painting. But of course, we have far more media available to us today than 2D paintings and other traditional art forms. Breathable tanks of piss, films, video games - none of these existed in the 17th century. And each of them is capable of evoking great emotions, greater even than looking at a painting of a hundred Venetians beating the shit out of each other. You've never watchec a movie that left you feeling awe? Ah, even the piss? Sure. What if it was a thousand women in a tank of piss? Use your imagination - that's what art is about.

> In archeology there is a constant and agreed upon "decadent" style that can indicate when cultures have experienced conditions, for external or internal reasons, that ultimately led to their decline and downfall

I have never in my life heard of this claimed in an academic setting - only from retro-fetishist cranks, if you'll pardon me saying, making some "hard times create strong men" argument (which can't be entertained, being ahistorical). Nor can I think of any such phenomenon in ancient Greco-Roman history from Mycenae to the Visigoths. Are you able to expand on that?

Venetian Bridge Brawls in 17th and 18th Century Art