Animation: The perfect artform?

Those of you who read my last post: "Animation the dying art form", might find it interesting that I also think that animation was also the most perfect art form.
In its most idyllic form.

Why.

Because it is the combination of ALL art forms.
Think about it.
All the development art, using everything from pastels to watercolors and pen and ink, YOU NAME IT! Acting and performance (THROUGH drawings)
Draughtsmanship, line quality, cinematic story telling, color and design, background and camera technique, post production and editing, rough sketch to the most elegant tight cleanup.
An art form where you have to study everything from dance and music to the way a woman walks or how a fat man picks his butt. Where you study the way animals move and behave so you can capture that in rough sketch form, to look at it and (hopefully) capture it so believably that you forget that you are looking at drawings. DRAWINGS!
Much like a symphony led by the conductor (director) conducting the trumpets, violins, oboes (development teams , animators, clean-up/inbetweeners), and of course, the triangle (storyboard artists-).

>:)

People from all departments coming together to communicate and create (again, hopefully) a fantastic piece of cinema. A fantastic piece of art.
Yup. Animation is to me the most perfect and complete art form.
Or rather, it USED to be.

Now again, don't get me wrong. I am not anti modern animation. In fact I think that its theatrically great now. Just as great if not even greater on some levels. But as I said in my previous post, the introduction of technology in such a massive way, while keeping the entertainment level on high, it has lowered the art form.
As an animator, I look at what we can do now, and it staggers me! We are no longer subject to the 2 dimensional. No longer chained to the flat world that we animate to. We have wide open skies to soar in and that's pretty frickin' insane to think about.

But....

While wonderful, I can in no way say that this is the most perfect and highest of all art forms. It simply isn't. While (theatrically speaking) there is no way to deny its benefits, ARTISTICALLY speaking it is on a par with high end 'Muzak'.
Those of you who know me, might find it staggering that I would say that. And even more so staggering to hear that I still LOVE animation...as a cinema and entertainment.
Sadly...not so much as an art form that it once was.
I know that there will be those that will say: "Handel, you ponce! There are still the designs that are drawn. Still the models that must be built, rigged, textured and painted!"

Believe me, I know. But while traditionally, animation was the marriage of so many great artists. great at what they do, following eachother up, all coming together. Today, It is the blend of some artist and allot of technical people. Sort of like a marriage of artist with allot of mechanics.
Don't get me wrong...I think on many levels that programmers and texture people are 'artists' in their own right. But the very fact that every bit of work that they do, be it texturing, programming, rigging, model building, etc.....doesn't exist.
Other than what is up on the screen...It does not exist.
And that now applies to the animation as well.

With that..how could anyone doubt that the 'ART FORM' has taken a hit. Has been lowered.
Of course it has.

It is not just in animation. Take what I MYSELF do. I do ALOT of work via my 'painter' and 'photoshop' programs. As with animation, you don't put on a tin foil hat and plug the computer into your noggin and say "PAINT". You actually paint it. Using all the techniques that you normally do in traditional mediums. You put just as much blood sweat and (well...less tears because their are so many fail safes with the tech). But your outcome...if you know what your doing will be a fine painting.
The difference is ...Unlike an oil, watercolor, or acrylic......your digital painting doesn't exist.
Just like the digital animation.
Oh it exists via whats on your monitor...and sure... You can make wonderful high end prints. EVEN stretch it on a canvas....but its not real. It doesn't exist.

I hear you arguing with me out there. Tell me...
What would you rather have? A beautiful high end PRINT of a Degas? OR an actual Degas?
A PRINT of a Jim Lee Batman? OR an actual pencil/inked Jim Lee Batman?
A PRINT of Frank Frazetta painting? OR an actual Frank Frazetta painting?
A PRINT of a Glen Keane 'Beast'? OR an actual Key from the movie?

You get me now?
Beauler?
Mcfly?

With the absence of the organic...then how can the ART FORM be anything BUT lessened.
So with the heavy development of technology today and our heavy desire to use it, the animator in me laughs with excitement. But the artist that I hope to aspire to be someday, cries for what was once, "the perfect art form".