Very insightful and interesting and well written. I wonder how many artists would agree with your principles, and how that agreement lines up with their own work.
Like, I'd assume that the Pollocks of the world today would wholeheartedly disagree with your statements, and would instead want to define some other standard of critiquing.
Still, objectively...your principles feel right :)
And the thing is, the Pollocks and many other modern artists are achieving popularity today. But will future generations centuries from now agree that this is worthwhile art? Will they want to look at that and study it just as much as Rembrandt?
We shall see, but I suspect not. I think that now it's become a matter of the emperor's new clothes. Everyone says how good it is, and they are even people who are authorities (allegedly) on the subject. People who are not authorities or want to seem like they are, will agree with them.
This is not what I mean by being enjoyed by the masses, and this is why time is a very important factor. Once the artist is long dead, there's hardly any reason to cow tow to them, so then people will only enjoy it if they really want to.
I believe art from mid-20th century still may be too soon to tell.