"For when you do it stops being art"

Sally and I came up with a way to make our art teacher all happy and get their glass display thing into the Louvre (a kindof "dream" type thing for them, lets not get into that...)by trading them for the Mona Lisa because Sally's mother needs it for some random thing. Thats not the point, but anyways....

So this absolutely brilliant art teacher of ours told me this in the response to us finding out how to get their window into the Louvre:
"never try to explain or defend art for when you do it stops being art."

This was my immediate question. How, if it's even possible, do we get art back to being art after it has stopped being art? Because art is definitely not just art anymore. It has become a booming industry for tourism. Case in point: The Vatican Museum. Home to two of Michelangelo most famous works, one of his Pietas, and the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. Do people care that Michelangelo hated painting the ceiling, after originally starting he destroyed his own work and then tried to flee the country, but was arrested and forced to start again? Hmm? Is that what art should be about, the human struggle behind each work? If we looked at a piece and said to ourselves, "Oh well that artist was just starting out, so that's why this piece looks so horrible" then it isn't what we think art should be, it is a failure in our harsh, judging eyes.

I find it amazing that artists still exist in today's modern world.