My Aesthetic Philosophy

The words to articulate this came to me this morning and I decided they merit recording. 

Good art makes itself more than its medium. A masterpiece is not simply paint on a canvas; it expresses a Truth so real that its relevance to the sentient world renders it incontestably present. Hamlet is great because its characters and concerns exist transcendentally and are presented by a creative entity so careful and accurate that the Truths being presented resonate in their audience as if it has encountered a flawless embodiment of the idea. It is the responsibility of the artist to express a real Truth consistently and accurately but it is the responsibility of the audience to consider all of the elements of the art as potentially accurate and question whether an innovative presentation does not more accurately reveal Truth than the tradition method to which the audience may be more accustomed.
Craft exists separately from art because it subordinates the artistic ideal (the accurate incarnation of Truth) to some other factor, often utility.
 Being innovative is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being good art; one can fail their responsibilities as part of the audience either with too closed of a mind (rejecting all innovation without respect to its potential effectiveness) or too undiscerning of a mind (admiring innovation for its novelty and not holding it to standards of efficacy). Some modern art may be bogus, but not because it's different - because it's bad.