076 - Mean Reversions
Will the classical make a comeback in a world of chaos?
The other day I was driving across an old village route that is fast changing form. I was with my uncle and we spoke of how many people would have born and died here, who wouldn’t recognise this place anymore. How chaotic will their known and familiar surroundings seem to them, if they showed up through a hole of time?
But what if we were projecting our own insecurities of the chaos of our world on to those poor dead souls?
Yet the question lingered, and in fact, it joined a big catalog of my thoughts on the matter, which I can summarise as just this - are we seeking a way back culturally to classical structures and orders? Are we on the lookout for a common denominator through our history to decide what is beautiful and valuable? Is art ceding space to craft? Are the new gate keepers of postmodern culture going to have to cede ground to those less literate?
Today culture in its pluralism is devoid of singular meaning or purpose. Without a known and agreed order, what is valuable is decided not by the idea but by the person holding it, and their influence. Craft is no longer table stakes, and art has become too meta to be understood by those ignorant of its context.
This means no one buys books anymore, the masses have shunned poetry and pictures, no one can figure what is an object and what is sculpture, very few palettes are satiated by Michelin star meals, no one knows what they are traveling for, no one watches anything that takes time, no one contemplates, no one changes, everyone only seeks validation to be.
Culture has peaked.
Are we, then, at a point in the curve of our cultural progress where we revert to the mean?
This is a strange place to insert one of the best pieces of cultural writing I encountered this decade, but Helen Rosen’s Christ in the Garden of Endless Breadsticks, which is a review of Olive Garden chain of restaurants, is a cultural artefact in my humble eyes, and carries the spirit of this letter.1 From taking us to 1889 Paul Gaugin, to Marc Auge’s non place and sliding in the true history (and recipe) of an Alfredo sauce, all perched on the garden of memories that is Olive Garden and their idea of Italian food, the whole piece is a delightful meal.
Elsewhere, I am still thinking about Amor Scendi’s video from last year on Arthur Danto’s The End of Art. 2
Art Renewal project however is steadfast on the ideas of standards and excellence in visual arts, and craft based approach to image making focussed on realism and figure art. Here’s their 10 point mission statement.
And incidentally this week I chanced upon the Hyderabad based Samsara Academy of Art, that is affiliated with the Art Renewal Center.3
Let me leave you with Mark Crotov’s 2022 accusation - We live in undeniably ugly times:
an ocean of stuff so homogenous and underthought that the world it has inundated can feel like a digital rendering — of a slightly duller, worse world.
In fact, let me leave you with this book review of Mearsheimer and Rosato’s How States Think, which shows the importance and influence of literature and philosophy on nations and their policies.
Although I doubt that was ever Rosen’s intention, or that she echoes the sentiment even of this reversions to mean
Danto’s theory is a counter to the mean reversion to classical art, and as Scendi explains provides more context to understand contemporary works of art, but my own thought feels that conclusion needs a revisit
I found Samsara strangely through Russian artist Ivan Loginov, who came down to do a workshop at the Indian atelier.