You read Gardner – I mean that’s enough. You learn world history; you get a vague grasp of technological history -most of art history is the evolution of representational technologies on the one hand and mythos (symbolism) on the other.
Monumental art is expensive, and empires can afford the expensive, and it’s one of the few things that is extremely difficult to imitate without equal expense, so it has extraordinary signal value. Monuments are profoundly good investments in reality. There is no equivalent.
When you understand its all just money, and that military empires create good art because they both can afford to and politically need to then it’s all rather obvious.
From that knowledge base you can focus on the mastery of each of the crafts – all of which combine both technical knowledge with extraordinary repetition (training). And so I found working in fine art as tedious as playing chess: in order to be good enough you must spend ten years getting there and only after that have you any chance of making a difference.
As such, either you find an innovation in representational technology young and use it (like mathematicians do) or you develop deep talents like all craftsmen do.
The problem with literature at present (meaning) is that (((they))) have been working through marxism, POMO, feminism for over a century now to destroy all forms of excellence via critique – essentially soiling everything that is beautiful and excellent with the fecal matter of marxism/feminism/postmodernism.
I know that I read encyclopedias and history young, studied art and see human history as the evolution of arts and technologies. It was after I added economics and economic history that I developed a wholistic understanding of man.
Hence why I have a low opinion of the history of thought: it consists largely of the middle class writing opposition literature against the status quo by proposing ideals that are existentially impossible but agitating and cathartic none the less.
May 19, 2018 10:57am