Ex Nihilo, The National Cathedral, by Frederick Hart. Also did the soldier statue near the "Wall" at the Vietnam Veterans memorial. The "renaissance" is already there in religious art, the critics just don't notice or comment.
Posted on 08/01/2007 5:10:51 AM PDT by shrinkermd
...A primary arena for the conservative-liberal wars has been the arts. While leading conservative voices defend the traditional Anglo-American literary canon, which has been under challenge and in flux for forty years, American conservatives on the whole, outside of the New Criterion magazine, have shown little interest in the arts, except to promulgate a didactic theory of art as moral improvement that was discarded with the Victorian era at the birth of modernism.
Liberals, on the other hand, have been too content with the high visibility of the arts in metropolitan centers, which comprise only a fraction of America. Furthermore, liberals have been complacent about the viability of secular humanism as a sustaining creed for the young. And liberals have done little to reverse the scandalous decline in urban public education or to protest the crazed system of our grotesquely overpriced, cafeteria-style higher education, which for thirty years was infested by sterile and now fading poststructuralism and postmodernism.
The state of the humanities in the US can be measured by present achievement: would anyone seriously argue that the fine arts or even popular culture is enjoying a period of high originality and creativity? American genius currently resides in technology and design. The younger generation, with its mastery of video games and its facility for ever-evolving gadgetry like video cell phones and iPods, has massively shifted to the Web for information and entertainment.
(Excerpt) Read more at bu.edu ...
I was just thinking about this a few days ago, partly because I was in Spain where one is surrounded by (religious) art and sees the vitality it still has, centuries later. It occurred to me that perhaps the recently announced return to the Old Mass is going to have a very positive effect on art in the US, because it will connect artists with a past in which art flowed naturally from religion (because Christianity is a religion of images). And this will ultimately have a more generalized effect on the world of art, freeing it from the academy.
ping for later read
She touches on many excellent points which are just not PC to talk about:
Obsession with the city:
“Liberals, on the other hand, have been too content with the high visibility of the arts in metropolitan centers, which comprise only a fraction of America.”
Corruption in education:
“liberals have done little to reverse the scandalous decline in urban public education or to protest the crazed system of our grotesquely overpriced, cafeteria-style higher education”
I know I’m going to stir the pot with this opinion, but I don’t think there’s much creativity at all in singing repetitive praise choruses over and over again as the mainstay of worship music.
Ex Nihilo, The National Cathedral, by Frederick Hart. Also did the soldier statue near the "Wall" at the Vietnam Veterans memorial. The "renaissance" is already there in religious art, the critics just don't notice or comment.
Rockwell also.
Just because they don't want to make the arts part of the political process doesn't mean they aren't interested in the arts. Sheesh
the fundamental problem is that over time, people tend to have lower attention spans. Very few are willing to put the years of work required for mastery when it is much more economical to get the “good enough” out the door as soon as possible. In ancient times, people were more willing to work on a project, such as cathedrals, that would take many years to complete.
Religious music is being produced but it is basically the same crappy popular music style with different lyrics.
I would add that the teaching of world religions would have another bonus. As a retired teacher, I can attest to the ignorance of today’s teens of religion in general and THEIR OWN professed religion in particular. Perhaps knowledge would breed tolerance.
Also, “shock art” has offended so many traditionalists that it’s no wonder that they reject the elitists of modern art. Let’s face it. Anyone could have done “Piss Christ.” Just takes a lapsed Catholic after a night of beer drinking.
I agree. Try this....
www.sumphonia.com
And she ignores others, given the breadth of this diagnostic sweep of our culture.
What about NPR and PBS? The only time they broadcast arts programming is during their quarterly shakedowns. And, the quality of these performances has declined--geezer rock and pops musak replacing symphony concerts.
Previously, she declared NPR a failure, evident in the fact that classical and serious music isn't heard in every town in the country.
Another question: when will somebody within the culturati critically address the degradation of 'urban music?' (I guess the problem is that you'd be obliged to listen to it.)
This is not Paglia's best, by a long shot.
The arts have been surrendered to the secular left as much as talk radio has been surrendered to the right. That monopoly on public imagination is encouraged by a pragmatic philistinism which discourages any aspiring artist from developing his gifts, and thus removing any challengers to the status quo.
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