A lot of artists that paint in a traditional or classical realist style seem convinced that there's some kind of conspiracy going on that prevents their art from gaining wider exposure and being taken seriously by some of the major art periodicals. They feel that their art is being ignored because it requires dedication, effort, and talent, while the work that is getting most of the exposure has none of these.
                The first thing that one needs to realize is that critics do not create art. They may ignore one type of art in favor of another but they are not the ones generating the art. Artists are the ones who create the art, and many realist painters feel that young artists gravitate towards conceptual art because of the lack of traditional training at most art colleges. If the young artists do end up using traditional methods they always seem to feel the need to put some sly tongue in cheek spin on it.
                Many of the artists working in the classical realist tradition today, that have studied at private ateliers, did not study art as undergraduates. It amazes me when I look at artists resumes how many of them list undergraduate degrees in philosophy, engineering, music etc;. A lot of them started off with a degree in illustration and then gravitated towards fine art. Very few resumes list an undergraduate degree in fine art. This may explain why so many traditional painters are mystified by todays art world.
              I went to art college as an undergraduate in the late seventies, early eighties. It's impossible to imagine, unless you've experienced it firsthand, the enormous emphasis that was placed on the students to carry the mantle forward, to make their mark on the history of art. One was led to believe that every artist has the potential within themselves to be the next Picasso, and that it was your sacred duty to give it your best shot. It was the young artists job to create a type of art that hadn't been done before. To create the effect , as Robert Hughes calls it, of the "shock of the new".
             In our art history classes it was pounded into us how every generation of artists has managed to "one up" the generation that preceded it. That new and worthy art should always be misunderstood at first until eventually the true genius of it reveals itself. The Impressionists banished Academic art, the Cubists killed off Impressionism, the Abstract Expressionists made Picasso obsolete etc; This was the way things were in the "real" art world and everything else was just hobby art.
          I can remember the long conversations that my fellow students and I would have about how we would seize our rightful place and show up our poser professors for who they really were; pretenders to the throne, aged dinosaurs, who needed to move over and make room. We weren't cynical about what we were doing, we were young dreamers who were excited to feel like we were a part of something that made us special. We had a mission.
          Things weren't much different when I went for my MFA. Even though the school that I went to was considered a bastion of realism, the professors still seemed to prefer innovation over craft. Some of my fellow students have gone on to glowing careers in the art world. One a highly touted and respected professor first gained notice with paintings that were enlarged from polaroids taken while engaged in sexual activity. I don't think things have changed much. My daughter attended an art school in a big city and she was chastized for trying to make her paintings look too "finished".
        Realist painters need to stop pining for an art world that they can never be a part of. Realist art isn't trying to be shocking or innovative but instead is interested in beauty and truth and craft; all worthwhile endeavors but not in the least bit "shocking". Installing atelier style training in more colleges and universities is not going to change the appeal of the "art revolution" to the young artist. The idea of the misunderstood artistic genius is so engrained in our culture that it has become a powerful archetype. Realist painting will always be a part of the "checks and balances" that make up the current art world but it will never be in the limelight. That's not necessarily a bad thing. The art styles that become the next big thing usually have a short shelf life and the artists end up replicating themselves, frozen in a moment, unable or unwilling to discard their established signature look. Realist painters who stay the course, on the other hand, have the promise of artists like Titian and Rembrandt whose art changed gradually and poetically into it's final full flowering.