Thanks for the comment, warch. Personally I never encountered the problems that Ross describes, for the simple reason that I was born in the Soviet Union, where "socialistic realism" was government-supported and Khruschev once even went as far as to destroy the abstract art exhibition with bulldozers and claim that all abstractionists are gays.
But during my visits to "civilised" western countries I encountered such masterpieces as, for example, glassroom with pots with live roses and chamber-pot with relatively fresh shit (they pour water on it) inside.
This one found in Helsinki museum of modern art.
Ross is an extremist, I agree with you, but he has the reason to be one and I see his point very well. AFAIR, on the 2nd page he has two portraits by Picasso and two very similar (composition, etc) ones by "real artists". Just look at the attached image (I know that there is a mistake - none of the portraits there is by Bouguereaus) and honestly say which do you think are "real art".
The most important and rational point that Ross makes is that originality itself means nothing at all. It can be valuable in our Internet age to entertain millions of people with another cool pic to be virally spread by e-mail. But this is not art. Playing tetris with the lights in the large apartment building is a cool hack, but it is not art. Of course, that doesn't mean that you can't make a similar project that would have artistic value, just that by concentrating on originality instead of artistic quality you decrease your chances to succeed. Speaking of Cellar examples, things like "sheep poetry" are not art. You, as a viewer, can inject the meaning into it, but you can do it with a real art much more effectively.
Art is a craft like any other activity. It can be taught and learned. There are tools, methods and techniques that are used to create art. Of course, it also requires some spark of imagination and inspiration, but to deny that there are established and effective techniques would be foolish.
When you basically say that "tastes differ" and refuse to objectively judge art, you fall into a dangerous trap. This is a cliche, a dangerous one and actually one probebly supported by modernists. You try to equate to different propositions "tastes differ" and "all art is created equal". The first one is correct, while the second is not. I am not an art critic - the best use I have for a Bouguereaus is to resize and crop the scan, courteously provided by artrenewal and place it as a wallpaper on my desktop. Sorry.
But (simplified a bit) I can see that there is no intrinsic value in modernist art and there is value in classical art, when I am shown this. This is not true about the opposite.
Ross is not against innovation per se, and there are obviously some nice paintings about modern urban life, industry, etc. He is actually urges artists in the very same speech to create art about things in everyday's world, not repeating paintings on mythological topics.
I am also not against innovation. I appreciate art (when I can see it) in computer games, demos, creative digital images, modern architecture, etc. I like artists' renderings of space, I enjoy photography, including hi-res photos of Sun, fleas, etc.
I don't think that there should be any media- or subject-related limitations. I just think that being original for originality sake doesn't make you work good.
I appreaciate artistic explorations, but you must admit that one might fail in his explorations. You try something new and original - good. But in 90% the result is utter crap and has no value whatsoever. We must admit that it is crap and move somewhere else.
P.S. Another thing. We can slightly disagree about Ross' attacks on modernists, but I think we must agree about his defence. I never seen anyone criticise Bouguereaus (because I lived in USSR/Russia), but if someone does, he is just an asshole.