02-27-2019, 11:34 AM
(02-26-2019, 04:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(02-25-2019, 09:18 AM)David Horn Wrote:(02-24-2019, 06:04 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: l never really expected greatness in modern culture/arts. Maybe because I grew up watching television, which has been primarily a medium for advertising.
In general, I have hoped for material that reaches the level of good quality-but never greatness. Actually, over the years even good quality seemed to get harder and harder to find.
Agreed. Quality is around, but it finds only a limited audience. Mediocre is much more successful.
That's more like what I think. It's up to us to appreciate and support quality. If more of us do it, then the mediocre will still be around and sell well, but it just won't matter. The quality around will grow.
Do you realize what the competition was for Shakespeare's plays in the Bard's time?
Bear-baiting and drunken revelry.
The ancient Romans had a lively theater scene at the very time that they were casting Christians to "lions and tigers and bears".
The great artists do art out of the perception that their world is so empty, stale, and meaningless that the artists (including musicians and writers) must rescue their surroundings from its intellectual emptiness. Artistic talent without such a view of the philistine nature of Humanity often goes into engineering, advertising, and industrial design. Remember: Leonardo was a superb engineer.
By accident, drafting (a thoroughly practical activity) can become impressive art.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.