question #6

Question 6

historically, at least from what we can conduce from relics/ artifacts left from ancients, one sees artists in the past being much more revered than today. it seems it was felt support i.e., money, patronage etc,,, of the individual as artist was as if not more important to society then the massive build up of armies and techniques of defense/ destruction. Now we cut funds to the artist to an almost nonexistent amount and we bury ourselves & our progeny in debt to fund war & destruction. how does this effect your output as artist? #A. do you think this is a "good" for our society, or not? #B do you believe the ancient (Greek) ideal of a well rounded civilization is worth emulating?/ as opposed to where our current society seems headed?

Big question, again from david, (ok, I am a bit behind but it is my game so :P )

I would like to preface this with some commentary to set some things on the table.

First off, I think that war and art go hand in hand as some of the oldest cultural inventions and primal instincts of humanity. Conquest has often been the subjects of the arts as a glorious endeavor almost as a religious ecstasy, not to mention the recording of historic fact. There was less of a “protest” of war until as of late. Goya is the earliest example of war protest that I can think of, then there is Otto Dix and Picasso, and maybe Max Beckmann are some later examples. Da Vinci was a well known weapons designer, and war machine innovator. Hitler was a failed artist. The Greeks were fierce warriors and their arts were an important part of life, along with the Egyptians and Romans etc...

Ok, this is just a little ramble of thought that will lend to what I now have to say (I really could write a theses about art and war in a historical context (book title could be art and war, the intimacy of love and hate)).

Now to the questions at hand and I might sound cynical, but art funding at currant rates is completely wrong and despicable. I think the government would rather have people in front of the tv and passive instead out in the world thinking and making a stink about what is really going on. Artist can change perspectives and also change the course of events by allowing people to think and by saying something. This war is draining funds the growth of America, and making the world even more dangerous then it was before the towers fell. I do say that when conflict is abound, the arts and artist do seem to get more active and concerned with what is going on so that might be the silver lining.

I think part #A was answered but on to part #B, I really don’t think that the Greeks were perfect, they had some great ideas and we should be aware of them, but they were a warring culture also. My wish is that we could learn from the past and have a fusion of the best parts of all cultures and beliefs. I do have to say the road we are on now is dangerous and we need to change course now.

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