When did the value of visual art become quantified by a virtual currency?

Has the onset of image fatigue within visual-based technologies really flattened our expectations so much of visual art?

When I stand in a gallery before a truly beautiful and successful piece of art, something with such tremendous visual power that I can't help but thirstily lap up every single detail with my eyes and imagination, it evokes something deep within; I see before me the hours of labour and persistent care within which the art has been produced, and I feel the emotional energy the artist has so selflessly invested in their creation, a metaphorical link- fleeting, yet profound- with the essence of life, the source of beauty, a temporary lapse in critical skepticism giving way to awe and astonishment.

Does anybody else experience this? Do any of the people who pump out a dozen drawings a day so their followers can trade a currency both unreal and essentially worthless for them ever take the time to experience art in the real world?

To be immersed in the raw power of a progressive music show, to have transferred to them the young-spirited energy and vitality of life from talented street performers and professional theatre artists, to spend hours in a gallery losing themselves in collections of a painter's painfully honest portrayals of pertinent issues and personal confessions... Does anybody here ever experience this any more?

But here's where my argument becomes hypocritical- I skip hundreds of images a day when I log in. I skip hundreds of images which link to pages potentially brimming with hard work, emotion and spirit. The more I think about it, the worse I feel, because at the end of the day, I too am part of the image overload. I provide crap nobody cares about, clogging up the flow of 'good' stuff, and I don't favourite or comment on a fraction of what I see of others' work, failing to contribute the necessary praise and criticism we all need in order to develop and improve.
This in itself is a true tragedy, because like all of my own works, many hours- possibly weeks, even months- have been invested in these works, and for millions of people to skip straight past them is a saddening concept.

But then, perhaps this is simply the wrong context for them? This is the internet; we scroll though news feeds, home pages, trending pages, absorbing the semiotics and moving on. We are here for quick bursts of information; we want to see the things we are interested in, the things that give us tiny doses of dopamine and snippets of empty knowledge, and we want as much of it as possible. I admit to experiencing this.

Paintings of trees are pretty boring, when you think about it. There's nothing funny about them. There's nothing erotic about them, nothing that will illicit vague recognition of positive psychological archetypes, nothing we are familiar or in love with. No Avengers, no ponies, no memes.

They're just trees. Where I live, all I need to do to see a tree is look out my window. Bam, there's your tree. Let's move on.

Maybe I have no place here on DeviantART. My art is self indulgent; I paint the landscapes which fill me with peace and make me feel at home. I haphazardly scratch and smudge musical archetypes onto paper as some sort of tiny tribute to their captivating power over my emotions. I draw to experience the process and lose myself in that which I love most in this life- Creating. Then I post some of it here and expect people to love it. Few people do.

I guess large scale image-sharing sites such as this just aren't the right place for people whose traditional art takes precedence. I'm really just an outsider. My version of 'art' is insensitive to the collective internet mind and fails to accommodate for changing visions and trending concepts. It does not focus on viewer expectations at all. My art is an expression of my own angst, spirituality and the living world around me.

Nobody cares and nobody should. This is the internet.

In closing, I just want to urge people on here who have never been to a gallery to actually, just once, give it a shot. Don't bring your iPods and mobile phones, and don't expect to see Leonardo DaVinci paintings everywhere (unless it's an exhibit of his works, then you kind of have to). Just go there, quiet your mind, throw away all the consumerist crap floating around in your brain, and make sure you spend plenty of time viewing each work.
Often, the things in life that don't immediately capture your attention are the ones which turn out the most captivating-

Their secrets are meant to be searched for, learned, absorbed... And ultimately, to make you feel something. That's what art outside the digital world is all about. I'm not suggesting the digital art community has no place in the world- quite the opposite, given how many of my biggest influences are primarily digital painters- I just believe more people need to experience art in real life so that maybe, as they scroll through hundreds of new "deviations", they resign to look at an oil painting, just because they know. They know how much work and energy goes into them. They know what it feels like to actually see something like it in real life. They know of art's true value, and maybe, just maybe, they'll care a bit less about their virtual currency.

That's my two cents (pun intended) for today. Feel free to berate me for not actually having any free points for you.