He/She is referring to the downfall of academic painting and the rise of avant-gardists at the beginning of the 20th century when aristocracy lost it's political power all over Europe. Academic painters were discredited and labled supporters of the old social order, while avant-gardists established themselves as representatives of the newly arising middle/industrial class, which - sadly - viewed art mostly as a symbol of social status. The rules and tools developed by academic painters eversince the time of the Renaissance, which mainly aimed at understanding the world in a scientific manner (think of DaVinci's studies of geometry and perspective, centuries of studying the human anatomy, light, fluids, fabrics, hair, plants, landscapes, ...) was replaced by the mentality that everything could be art, regardless of it's style and information content. The industrial middle class, which became the target group of avant-gardist painters, was a lot bigger, not quite as rich and barely had any cultural/historical education. For this reason, art experienced it's own "industrialization" with painters producing an ever increasing number of paintings, while the quality of the applied techniques steadily declined. Instead of the paintings themselves, vague feelings and supposed meanings became the main selling points; an early example of sales psychology and marketing strategy. People sceptical of the matter were labled as social outsiders or outright supportes of fascism, because the Nazis were very vocal in their refusal to acknowledge any of this art, which led to avant-gardists basically purging academic art in the western world, fueled by the most vocal profiteers like Picasso. This process was so powerful, that Romantisism and Classisism were barely ever mentioned alongside Impressionism, with the works of some of the greatest painters ever (e.g. William Adolphe Bouguereau) vanishing in museum cellars where most of them remained up until the '70s! Long story short: The turbulent early 20th century caused art to become what it is today; a wild mixture of nothingness claming to be everything, ignored by the large parts of society who supposedly "don't understand it". It is important to note that this painting here resambles the style of academic painters, NOT avant-gardists, even in it's sujet. No artist of the 19th century would have dared to paint as blatently, but homosexuality and even pederasty are obvious parts of greek mythology. Modern day homomphobia and terms like "degenerate" are a product of religios conservatism and social darwinism, which never approved of open sexuality, tolerance or scientific thinking. The Nazis would have approved of such statements.
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