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Anonymous
Who /arthistory/ here? 2016-08-04 03:29:07 Post No. 2626557
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Who /arthistory/ here? 2016-08-04 03:29:07 Post No. 2626557
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“In painting or sculpture, the conventions of 'style' play a less prominent part, and it might thus be thought that the break in tradition affected these arts less; but this was not the case. The life of an artist had never been without its troubles and anxieties, but there was one thing to be said for the 'good old days'—no artist need ask himself why he had come into the world at all. In some ways his work had been as well defined as that of any other calling. There were always altar-paintings to be done, portraits to be painted; people wanted to buy pictures for their best parlours, or commissioned frescoes for their country houses. In all these jobs he could work on more or less pre-established lines. He delivered the goods which the patron expected. True, he could produce indifferent work, or do it so superlatively well that the job in hand was no more than the starting point for a transcendent masterpiece. But his position in life was more or less secure. It was just this feeling of security that artists lost in the nineteenth century. The break in tradition had thrown open to them an unlimited field of choice. It was for them to decide whether they wanted to paint landscapes or dramatic scenes from the past, whether they chose subjects from Milton or the classics, whether they adopted the restrained manner of David's classic revival or the fantastic manner of the Romantic masters.
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>>2626557
CONT'D
But the greater the range of choice had become, the less likely was it that the artist's taste would coincide with that of his public. Those who buy pictures usually have a certain idea in mind. They want to get something very similar to what they have seen elsewhere. In the past, this demand was easily met by the artists because, even though their work differed greatly in artistic merit, the works of a period resembled each other in many respects. Now that this unity of tradition had disappeared, the artist's relations with his patron were only too often strained. The patron's taste was fixed in one way: the artist did not feel it in him to satisfy that demand. If he was forced to do so for want of money, he felt he was making 'concessions ', and lost his own self-respect and the esteem of others. If he decided to follow only his inner voice, and to reject any commission that was not reconcilable with his idea of art, he was literally in danger of starvation. Thus a deep cleavage developed in the nineteenth century between those artists whose temperament or convictions allowed them to follow conventions and to satisfy the public's demand, and the others who gloried in their self-chosen isolation. What made matters worse was that the Industrial Revolution and the decline of craftsmanship, the rise of a new middle class which often lacked tradition, and the production of cheap and shoddy goods which masqueraded as 'art', had brought about a deterioration of public taste.”
-E. H. Gombrich, “The nineteenth century”, The Story of Art
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ok, I assume you want to discuss on this subject. But it's a broad subject and you need to chose a more narrow starting point. Like, put a question.
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too long, did not read
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>>2626938
you dont read you dont draw
non make
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