Bollenbacci's Levels of Painting from the 2004 Discorso sopra la Pittura, (ABRIDGED)

1. The highest and best order of painting is the painting which is cogniscent and descriptive of all subjects and subject matter but which does not crudely resort to mere depiction, which is shown unlit in a dark room, and is made of black paint, but is completely and minutely and accurately painted in all form, style and detail, which is outstanding, unique, and totally unknown, but which is the perfection of art.

2. Painting which includes many naked girls is superior to painting which only includes one or
two, saving that the naked girl is particularly unclothed in a particular manner, or maneri, and commands high prices. Paintings of naked men, while technically challenging, are frequently unnecessary.

3. Abstract paintings of ambition, specificity and fortitude are an extraordinarily high art, when not executed by hippies, or middle aged homemakers married to attorneys, who are taking a short break from painting pleasantly inept watercolors of flowers, or which are painted stoned without the proper training in painting while stoned, or without chips and salsa nearby, which are a superior subject for a still life to a bowl of pretty flowers in most circumstances.

4. Depictions of breaking waves on beaches where an absurd highlight is located behind the single cresting wave are mostly unfortunate, and are over-romantical, and most often peer down on curious, lonely sex acts in discount lodgings, or are purchased from filmy Thrift Stores, as a means of inferior but inexpensive irony, along with glowing Jesus, by art students who have completed only a small portion of their studies.

5. Paintings of decrepit cabins under northern lights and snow-bound food caches, or are sourced from a disposable camera shot of a moose staring stupidly at a bush near a favored but highly unattractive aunt with a vaguely depressing corporate T-shirt which suggests a total paucity of creativity, with an expression frequently confused with folksy humor, are unobjectionable, except to look at.

6. Landscape paintings which are not on decorative goldpans are to be considered generally superior to those which are on decorative goldpans, yet paradoxically landscape paintings which depict food caches or decrepit cabins under northern lights which are not on goldpans are superior to over sunlit breaking waves that are on goldpans.

7. It is a low order indeed to paint robots, zombies, or manga girls, and do not do this, unless you come through meditation and study to know what it is like to not paint robots, zombies, or manga girls.

8. Paintings of unicorns, or fantastical beasts, or other woeful girl-beloved creatures of a mythological character, which are portrayed in close proximity to aircraft carriers, woodelves, or muscle cars of the early 1970s, are just a stage.

9. Thomas Kinkade commits a kind of painting which can only be described as fradulent and morally hypocritical in addition to being cultural genocide, which would be no sort of disapprobation, save that he charges ignorant Jesus goons everywhere 8 large for a fucking mall print.

10. Nevertheless, Dale Chihuly is the worst, laziest, most egotistical painter on earth, his abstracts easily surpassed by a drunken street hippy who paints in food dye with a used Q-tip on triscuits with a beatbox tuned to classic rock at such a volume that the bass has long ago destroyed the speaker, and who is colorblind, so that his choice of colors to use is no worse than random.