"The downfall of classical ideals made all men potential

That's why we have capitalism, you sensitive faghole, to weed out the nerds.

> When art depended on solid construction and careful observance of rules, few could attempt to be artists,

That doesn't follow at all. If he means 'coincidentally, classicism coincided with the period of greatest social immobility', then he may have an arguable point, but I suspect he doesn't mean that.

>>7636336
>That doesn't follow at all.
You're going to have to elaborate. Simply saying "That doesn't follow" doesn't demonstrate that it doesn't follow.

>>7636324
Capitalism accelerates social progressivism in art though. Capitalism creates an audience and a purpose for mediocre art; namely, the acquisition of social and financial capital.

>>7636346

It doesn't logically follow from solid construction and careful observance that few could attempt to be artists. The reverse would be just as logical if not more so.

>>7636346

You do understand that prior to the rise of the middle classes, art was just entertainment for the rich, don't you?

>>7636361
In the age of classical ideals, few men could attempt be artists because the rules and materials of solid construction were limited to a select few. You could not attempt to be an artist because you needed an education and a patron first.

>>7636367
Yes, that's sort of the point.

>>7636299
This presumes that the rich would have taste and thereby would "make" better artists though. There are going to be more bad artists without a patronage system just because there are more artists, not because patronage made them good.

>>7636367
poor people had art, too. art isn't just symphonies and novels and oil paintings.

I 100% agree OP but while the overall quality of art has gone down the variety has exploded. People still paint intricate paintings and amazing symphonies and they also create piles of horse shit and just say it's art but they're are diamonds among them.

Basically I wouldn't want to give up all the alt art that I enjoy and consider skillful and genuinely good and impassioned just to raise the overall quality of art.