The objects now classified as “art” have become so varied as to befuddle the most dedicated observer of the contemporary scene. The jumble that is today’s art world has reduced even the most established of mediums to just another means of attracting attention. Such is the case with painting. Notwithstanding the crowds lining up for the latest blockbuster, rarely has the application of paint on canvas seemed such a marginal endeavor.

There have been few more dispiriting examples of the current lack of regard for painting than what was to be seen this summer at the Guggenheim Museum. In the museum’s main event, “The Art of the Motorcycle,” the chrome-plated cacophony that Frank Gehry made of Frank Lloyd Wright’s rotunda could not have been further from the subdued character of “Vilhelm Hammershoi (1864–1916): Danish Painter of Solitude and Light,” which ran concurrently in the back galleries. Indeed, t ...

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