02-23-2019, 08:38 PM
(This post was last modified: 02-23-2019, 08:40 PM by Eric the Green.)
(02-23-2019, 02:40 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(02-22-2019, 05:36 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(02-21-2019, 02:30 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Economic achievement usually leads to cultural achievement. A society capable of creating an economic surplus is able at the least to ornament what would otherwise be stark emptiness of the now-defunct Berlin Wall.
People will want to be entertained and inspired.
A prosperous society can see cultural ferment, as opposed to one left in a semi-barbaric condition, but by today's standards, past societies that produced great art had nowhere near the material prosperity levels that we have, who don't.
Partly it's because modern societies are just different. Traditional societies had rich elites and poor masses, but the elites were cultured and they sponsored great art. There was also much greatness in the folk arts too. In India, a relatively poor society, the place is loaded with cultural riches everywhere you look that are not just the product of elites. Latin American folk are is also rich and high quality.
Our society has liberated the common man to a greater degree, although this has been backtracking in the neo-liberal era. But this new empowering of neo-liberal elites in a new unequal society does not lead to an aristocratic culture that sponsors great arts. Today's elites are as deaf and dumb culturally as the masses they rule over. And the masses and elites alike are programmed only to see material goals.
And our veneration of technology impresses us too much, and therefore robs us of culture as well. Tech acts as a substitute culture, and its physical accomplishments get all the prestige and the rewards, while the arts are looked down upon and left in poverty, although the elites do drive up art prices at auctions.
But high technology creates new media that artists can exploit. Artists do that when they get the chance. Just remember that when artists learned the rules of perspective, the art of the Renaissance made the medieval aesthetic. I see the contrast between medieval and Renaissance; medieval art generally looks amateurish in contrast to Michelangelo, Leonardo, et al. Perspective also made analytic geometry and good calculus possible.
Indeed. For the most part, it's not happening, not nearly as well as in poorer societies of the past, because technology itself is considered more valuable today. But there has never been a time when artists COULD be more innovative and creative than today. But without prestige or support, in our commercial and un-awakened society, it's really not happening. It takes a different dominant philosophy than the one that predominates today, in order for art to be great. From the balance of humanism with religion in the classic/renaissance eras, to the soaring religiosity and spirituality of the Middle Ages and Archaic Ages, great art came. Modern art, even if more wildly expressive, started out as promising, from Post-Impressionism to Surrealism. If the spiritualist New Age dawns, art will recover. Now though, our society is sterile when it comes to this aspect of society and culture. And American can't be "great" without it no matter what Drumpface says.
Quote:So when does art fail? Typically when it becomes pure propaganda, dumbed-down for the dullards, restricted to a didactic purpose, and perhaps having a questionable cause imposed upon it. Even advertising, with its limitations, can use artistic merit to draw attention to itself and the object or service that it promotes.
Yes.
Quote:The grand gesture, the attempt to transform the client into something awesome, is usually a failure. Surely you saw my thread on the preferred styles of tyrants that I tried to extend to dope traffickers (people on a similar level of ethics and aesthetics).Ah, I remember it well
