Painting has deteriorated since the old masters, of whom Goya is sometimes considered the last. Why this happened is not something people have a good answer for, but the end of the 18th C brought increasing rationalisation, modernisation and division of labour which seems to have gradually killed the skills and ways of looking that produced previous masterpieces. It is sad.
Picasso is great, but in a very 20th C way, a lot of what carries his work is a feeling of his energy and charisma, rather than depth of technique of concept.
In contrast someone like Bosch was creating these very intensely realised fantasy scenes. Picasso couldn't have done that if he tried, nor can any movie concept artist working today. The same goes for any of the old masters. It's gone, somehow...
Pretty sure Picasso was trained in the "old master's way", his early works were more academic and following the painterly tradition, if I recall correctly.. Dali was deep into the techniques of the old masters, and more recently there's a movement sparked by Max Doerner, Ernst Fuchs et al, called Mischteknik that seems to breathe new life into the tradition.
Well, that is a matter of opinion. Picasso's early works are certainly realist/academic in style and technique but nobody gets excited about them.
Like I say, this is opinion, but as in architecture, where there is definitely no good classical building happening today, there is no credible 'old master" painting happening now. Even the whole category of figurative art is in question in the same way that ornament in architecture is effectively dead. There are still people who can carve classical architectural ornament but as a creative tradition, it's over.
I'd reiterate that the division of labour and the role of the artist means there isn't really any access to the "old master" position any more. Being an artist since about 1900 has been about ego/charisma, a largely self-selected group rather than talents discovered in obscurity and then elevated to greatness by patrons. The art business is structurally similar to how it was, in the sense that it still runs on patronage and prestige, but there is some kind of crisis in the formation of artists. Probably part of a wider loss of cultural direction and the general fact that there is now too much to know about the world and everything (paintings, careers) feels rushed. You still see flashes of intriguing visual ideas, sensitivity to colour, new combinations of different forms of art, but I don't think anyone would claim that even the best of today's art can compete with that from before modernisation took hold. It's a state of disenchantment that we can't wish away by going back to the old techniques.
I see, you were making a point about a bigger cultural and historical situation, while I was trying to find examples of artists who were/are (attempting to) keeping the old masters' techniques and the spirit alive.
Along with Ernst Fuchs and Dali, I would place H. R. Giger in that line - not in terms of specific technique, but "the skills and ways of looking" of an artist, if not a master.. That's a mere trickle though, and certainly not a tradition anymore, just individual exceptions. I agree with your point that "Painting has deteriorated since the old masters."
It rings true about the "crisis in the formation of artists", that in modern times, something essential has been lost in what it means to be an artist. The wider loss of cultural direction, the disenchantment - I wonder whether it's related to the loss of mythology and religion.
I agree with you. I think the old artists came through the tradition of artisanship. Many were also what we would call engineers.
Today art as a profession is the job of selling the person and the story. Real talent is often found in industrial design and advertising where the work is still more important than who made it.
Picasso is great, but in a very 20th C way, a lot of what carries his work is a feeling of his energy and charisma, rather than depth of technique of concept. In contrast someone like Bosch was creating these very intensely realised fantasy scenes. Picasso couldn't have done that if he tried, nor can any movie concept artist working today. The same goes for any of the old masters. It's gone, somehow...