well, yes, I totally agree with you BUT there are also countless pseudo expressive artists who spam the world with poor wannabe art while possessing barely any skills at all…
don’t get me wrong, I am actually not a big fan of a technical show off or hyper realistic high tech art with nothing to say or show than technically perfect detail execution. Most of my favorite paintings are rather rough and direct, expressive, none realistic and far away of detail obsession. I like Art Brut, I love Jean-Michel Basquiat, I prefer Picassos wild crude late period over his early classical and so on.
That said, especially if you want to express something by roughly, spontaniously slapping color on a canvas you will without a doubt get a better translation of your thoughts and emotions onto that canvas if you are well trained and have your techincal act together. When you have worked and practised so much that your hand really has become a atural extension of your guts, so to speak. that is what skills and practise are all about. you need it’ so your instabilities don’t get into the way of your imagination. it’s that simple. a broad quick brush stroke can have incredbile energy and expression , but it can also be just a weak shaky smear.
there are aesthetic rules which make images work, whether you like it or not . you either feel them naturally or you have to train your brain to understand them. you can also break them in order to achieve a different , fresh or deliberately disturbing expression, BUT to do that efficiently you also have to know them well before.
so, yes many people can acquire technical skills if they work hard enough and there is no doubt that all those digital tools have brought us quite a few technically brilliant yet hollow craftsmen which are not necessarily great artists.
technique alone is not enough, but dilettantism is certainly not the holy grail as well.
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