"People read books without punctuation (or with peculiar punctuation)."
"Never had artist and society been so far apart. Art at its extreme fringes became incomprehensible and the average person was deprived of a means of perceiving, seizing, and enjoying the world about him.
The problem of communication remained serious. The arts suffered from the specialization of the modern world. The artist was not thought of as a collective spokesman or creator of something for common use but as a specialist plying his own trade and pursuing his own concerns. Society itself was divided into busy, self-centered groups, unable to communicate except on superfiical matters, and hence in the long run less able to work in common."
---Palmer's A History of the Modern World, Ch. 14, European Civilization, Trends in Philosophy and the Arts (1870-1914 or so)
In outlining a chapter for AP Euro tonight, I read this paragraph that somehow jumped out at me as an important revelation. Re-reading it now, the point is obvious, but I had never thought of art's evolution in this light, and this point seems strikingly relevant and important. I really want to study this concept and somehow find a way to examine the good and bad points in this turn in art's purpose. Does art, in general, need another rebirth--a way to wake up out of the hyper-personalized, technical, and selfish stupor and become one with society again? Or, is this art's natural evolution, and is art in a way becoming of a higher form and even more personal, even if it does not communicate with the masses in the widespread way it used to? I don't know, but though I can't fully grasp either argument as of now, somehow this seizes me as inexpressibly important.
The problem of communication remained serious. The arts suffered from the specialization of the modern world. The artist was not thought of as a collective spokesman or creator of something for common use but as a specialist plying his own trade and pursuing his own concerns. Society itself was divided into busy, self-centered groups, unable to communicate except on superfiical matters, and hence in the long run less able to work in common."
---Palmer's A History of the Modern World, Ch. 14, European Civilization, Trends in Philosophy and the Arts (1870-1914 or so)
In outlining a chapter for AP Euro tonight, I read this paragraph that somehow jumped out at me as an important revelation. Re-reading it now, the point is obvious, but I had never thought of art's evolution in this light, and this point seems strikingly relevant and important. I really want to study this concept and somehow find a way to examine the good and bad points in this turn in art's purpose. Does art, in general, need another rebirth--a way to wake up out of the hyper-personalized, technical, and selfish stupor and become one with society again? Or, is this art's natural evolution, and is art in a way becoming of a higher form and even more personal, even if it does not communicate with the masses in the widespread way it used to? I don't know, but though I can't fully grasp either argument as of now, somehow this seizes me as inexpressibly important.