Art is subject to arbitrary fashion.

The remark suggests that judgments about art are often governed less by stable standards than by shifting tastes—what is celebrated in one moment can be dismissed in another because “fashion” changes. By calling fashion “arbitrary,” the speaker implies these shifts are not necessarily tied to intrinsic merit, craft, or truth, but to social consensus, prestige, and trend-making institutions. The line can be read as a skeptical comment on cultural gatekeeping: art’s reception may depend on who is influential, what is currently marketable, or what signals sophistication at a given time. It also implicitly contrasts art with domains that aim for more durable criteria (e.g., empirical science), where claims are ideally tested rather than styled into acceptance.