Better than art?

Keith Gladysz over at January Blog quotes Nietzsche about the trouble with geniuses. Basically, they're bastards. Nietzsche suggests that geniuses were not great men, because great men do not act as awefuly as most geniuses did. And he goes on to say:

We have perhaps more need of great men without works than great works for which such a heavy price has to be paid in terms of human souls. But at present we barely understand what a great man without works might be.

This raises several interesting questions. For one, how good is a good work of art? Is it enough for an artist to make good/pretty art (does it even help?)? Or is art more of a personal fancy, an entertainment? And does aspiring to more make sense? Are the people educated on Mozart and Shakespeare, on Bacon and John Cage, better people? Or is the talk about educating through art, or even evolving thanks to it, pure bluff of those who simply enjoy being the elite? Nietzsche seems to be saying that one can do better than art. So here is my question: can an artist do better than art?

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