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If the thesis of this book is, as the article summarizes: > ... artistic success owes little to vision and purpose, more to self-promotion, but most to unantic
by carbonguy 5y ago
If the thesis of this book is, as the article summarizes:
> ... artistic success owes little to vision and purpose, more to self-promotion, but most to unanticipated adoption by bigger systems with other aims, principally oriented toward money, political advantage, or commercial churn. [emphasis mine]
then the question I have is - was it ever NOT this way? Perhaps these dynamics are more legible in post-war America, but I certainly don't think they're uniquely American.
Granting that I am no student of art history, the little I do know makes me think this argument is much more broadly applicable than the author suggests - to give one example, consider the relationship between Michelangelo and the Catholic Church.
- notriddle 5y agoEven if you're right, and you might be, academic anthropology has a history of making wildly universal claims that turn out to only apply to the WEIRD demographics that they have studied. It's probably for the best that they're more conservative about their claims.
- carbonguy 5y ago> ... academic anthropology has a history of making wildly universal claims that turn out to only apply to the WEIRD demographics that they have studied. A very fair point indeed. It would certainly be unusual to have the opposite be true here.
- nonameiguess 5y agoPatronage from the wealthy (especially the church) was a primary funding model for European art for the past thousand years, but I wouldn't call this unanticipated adoption. The work was explicitly commissioned, purchased in advance.
- carbonguy 5y ago> ... I wouldn't call this unanticipated adoption. The work was explicitly commissioned, purchased in advance. Fair enough - certainly in his own time he was known to the Church thus his commissions were not "unanticipated," as you point out. Perhaps in this case the term could apply more to the legend and myth that has grown up around Michelangelo as an exemplar of the "Renaissance man" - why do we know about him more than, say, Domenico Ghirlandaio?
- mrwh 5y agoYes, and in fact, why restrict this to _artistic_ success. Surely it's true of any type of success? Everything ultimately involves tapping into something greater than yourself, to go beyond yourself.
- gofreddygo 5y ago> was it ever NOT this way ? I dont think so. The mechanism was always this way. There are a lot of subtle notions that did change. what success means, is it about the destination or the journey, what price are you willing to pay for it, and for what? For Michaelangelo, did success mean selling his painting to the church? Was it just about making it big or was it about something more ?
- Blahah 5y agoThe Medici family shaped the history of European fine art very significantly with their patronage. A perfect example of the phenomenon described in the article. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo_and_the_Medici https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo_and_the_Medici
- gofreddygo 5y agoThank you for pointing this out. There's so much to that background with the Medici family. I must agree; Michaelangelo - the Opportunist.
- golemotron 5y ago> then the question I have is - was it ever NOT this way? Yes. The author thinking otherwise is cute; kind of like a child that gets a glimpse of how the adult world works.