Art and music

Okay, first, a question that I'm sure I (and many others) have asked before, and gotten a pretty good answer to, but I don't remember it. Why don't artists make anything nice anymore? (I'm not bashing modern art) Like Renaissance art, or Dutch-old-masters style, or anything that portrays actual things somewhat realistically. Why does "modern art" always mean "something abstract"? Note that I'm not bashing modern art, but what about the great artists who want to paint a nice picture of people or a landscape or something? (Hey I really like modern art, no seriously, I like it, I'm not bashing it.)

Second, I was poking through some WRCT playlists, and I found this from last Friday, which includes a song from this album, on which my awesome uncle played bass. So his band is officially somewhat famous. Neat!