Omg it’s a beautiful piece of art in of itself— Jarman uses Caravaggio’s own chiaroscuro style in the film, it’s homoerotic, it’s aesthetic, sensual etc I’m sure you’d really like it! I’m loving this episode thanks! :)
Loved this. I think China over the past few decades is a really good example of this tension that you articulate between social control on the one hand and the need for organic soft power on the other. The government was set on promoting only very traditional forms of Chinese art, constantly emphasising its “5000 year history,” like an almost self-orientalising impuse, and at the same time quite fearful of young innovative artists with a new vision of what it might mean to be Chinese. You could see it for example in the fashion designers that received state recognition versus those who did not. Not sure how things have unfolded in the last decade or so however!
Hi, really enjoying the show. I had a question for the Q&A but as I was not sure where to send it I will post it here.
You lament the loss of aristocratic patronage because this is what produced so much of the great art in early-modern Europe.
However, in a previous episode you identify a landed aristocracy as a parasitic class—which, when occasion calls, requires a violent revolution or state redistribution to rectify.
But if aristocratic society is what allows a culture to produce great art, then how do you reconcile your economic/political beliefs with your aesthetic beliefs?
Not to bring down the high intellectual tone, but while I was listening to the discussion of "what makes a Caravaggio possible" I started thinking about Alex Van Halen's memoir, _Brothers_. A great audiobook listen because Alex reads it himself in his wonderful gravelly voice.
Anyway. You get a real sense from the book that a huge part of Van Halen's secret sauce was just hard-earned musicianship: their dad was a gig musician (among other jobs) and Alex as a teen would go around with him as drummer for their middle aged guy band, playing I am guessing ballroom standards. Alex and Eddie's own band originally just went to parties to play covers, and there were a lot of parties that charged a fee and paid the band out of it in 1970s California.
The Beatles were also a working band in the late 1950s, earning money at gigs, I am sure playing tons of covers. Ditto the genius of Motown: there were a lot of black musicians playing music at black clubs for paying customers in the lead up to its emergence. Ditto country music: Hank Williams started playing at honky tonks as a lil nipper.
The point is that one thing that permits real creativity is a very high level of basic competence. The existence of 1970s parties, or late 1950s dance halls, at which you can earn money just repeating / imitating what already works, is also part of what allows new brilliance to emerge. Not from everyone -- I am sure there were zillions of bands from those times that did just fine as workaday musicians but never created something new.
But it's not just "how do we foster the occasional genius" but also "how do we create circumstances for the craft in question to flourish as a craft"
I do think that's relevant to the milieu from which Caravaggio emerged. Not everybody was Caravaggio. But there were a lot of workshops and apprenticeships were first you spent a few years standing in a corner painting fruit and flowers over and over again and you got kicked out if you did it wrong. Caravaggio came out of that as much as he came out of Medici star search patronage.
Today's attitude toward "creativity" in art and music gets this all wrong. First instead of being paying gigs a lot of the studios are paid gigs: you are a student paying for art school as a customer, not being paid as lowly apprentice. The incentives are to praise your efforts, not to yell at you to go fix your awful bowl of peaches. Ditto music: kids who dream of becoming rockstars do it mostly to an audience of nobody, or their friends, and they think the trick is to leap straight to genius -- it's not "oh we like making music, let's try to get hired at a dance hall doing covers". There are no dance halls, clubs play recorded music, there is no way to really do the working stiff middle bit. It's not the kids' fault but there it is.
I'm the last person on earth to ever pour cold water on "it was the CIA wot done it" explanations but I think the crashing to earth of the rock scene after 1989 was not really caused by the end of the Cold War. In the 90s there was still a live music club scene but it was the swan song, that's not what kids today do for fun. You need that scene at some level for musicians to learn how to be consistent and competent, and then the ones who are going to be geniuses emerge from that.
Andrew Tate's stint into MMA was brief as Sean said (4 wins, 2 losses) but he was a very successful kickboxer (76 wins, 9 losses. World champion in 2 weight divisions). Also his dad was Emory Tate, a world-famous chess international master.
This was such an interesting discussion. I think your argument about the gains that arise from channelling anti-social forces is spot on. There should be much more of this, out of charity, if anything! However, I also wonder if what manifests as anti-social isn’t in fact an excess of the social. Could it be that such people are too social for accepted norms?
I hope you encouraged Sean to also watch Derek Jarman’s iconic 1986 Caravaggio!
I don’t think I’ve seen it but I will. Thanks!
Omg it’s a beautiful piece of art in of itself— Jarman uses Caravaggio’s own chiaroscuro style in the film, it’s homoerotic, it’s aesthetic, sensual etc I’m sure you’d really like it! I’m loving this episode thanks! :)
I love that you’re talking about Caravaggio!
Loved this. I think China over the past few decades is a really good example of this tension that you articulate between social control on the one hand and the need for organic soft power on the other. The government was set on promoting only very traditional forms of Chinese art, constantly emphasising its “5000 year history,” like an almost self-orientalising impuse, and at the same time quite fearful of young innovative artists with a new vision of what it might mean to be Chinese. You could see it for example in the fashion designers that received state recognition versus those who did not. Not sure how things have unfolded in the last decade or so however!
By the way if Caravaggio were alive today he’d have been swiftly lobotomised by Abilify and Prozac
Hi, really enjoying the show. I had a question for the Q&A but as I was not sure where to send it I will post it here.
You lament the loss of aristocratic patronage because this is what produced so much of the great art in early-modern Europe.
However, in a previous episode you identify a landed aristocracy as a parasitic class—which, when occasion calls, requires a violent revolution or state redistribution to rectify.
But if aristocratic society is what allows a culture to produce great art, then how do you reconcile your economic/political beliefs with your aesthetic beliefs?
Not to bring down the high intellectual tone, but while I was listening to the discussion of "what makes a Caravaggio possible" I started thinking about Alex Van Halen's memoir, _Brothers_. A great audiobook listen because Alex reads it himself in his wonderful gravelly voice.
Anyway. You get a real sense from the book that a huge part of Van Halen's secret sauce was just hard-earned musicianship: their dad was a gig musician (among other jobs) and Alex as a teen would go around with him as drummer for their middle aged guy band, playing I am guessing ballroom standards. Alex and Eddie's own band originally just went to parties to play covers, and there were a lot of parties that charged a fee and paid the band out of it in 1970s California.
The Beatles were also a working band in the late 1950s, earning money at gigs, I am sure playing tons of covers. Ditto the genius of Motown: there were a lot of black musicians playing music at black clubs for paying customers in the lead up to its emergence. Ditto country music: Hank Williams started playing at honky tonks as a lil nipper.
The point is that one thing that permits real creativity is a very high level of basic competence. The existence of 1970s parties, or late 1950s dance halls, at which you can earn money just repeating / imitating what already works, is also part of what allows new brilliance to emerge. Not from everyone -- I am sure there were zillions of bands from those times that did just fine as workaday musicians but never created something new.
But it's not just "how do we foster the occasional genius" but also "how do we create circumstances for the craft in question to flourish as a craft"
I do think that's relevant to the milieu from which Caravaggio emerged. Not everybody was Caravaggio. But there were a lot of workshops and apprenticeships were first you spent a few years standing in a corner painting fruit and flowers over and over again and you got kicked out if you did it wrong. Caravaggio came out of that as much as he came out of Medici star search patronage.
Today's attitude toward "creativity" in art and music gets this all wrong. First instead of being paying gigs a lot of the studios are paid gigs: you are a student paying for art school as a customer, not being paid as lowly apprentice. The incentives are to praise your efforts, not to yell at you to go fix your awful bowl of peaches. Ditto music: kids who dream of becoming rockstars do it mostly to an audience of nobody, or their friends, and they think the trick is to leap straight to genius -- it's not "oh we like making music, let's try to get hired at a dance hall doing covers". There are no dance halls, clubs play recorded music, there is no way to really do the working stiff middle bit. It's not the kids' fault but there it is.
I'm the last person on earth to ever pour cold water on "it was the CIA wot done it" explanations but I think the crashing to earth of the rock scene after 1989 was not really caused by the end of the Cold War. In the 90s there was still a live music club scene but it was the swan song, that's not what kids today do for fun. You need that scene at some level for musicians to learn how to be consistent and competent, and then the ones who are going to be geniuses emerge from that.
Andrew Tate's stint into MMA was brief as Sean said (4 wins, 2 losses) but he was a very successful kickboxer (76 wins, 9 losses. World champion in 2 weight divisions). Also his dad was Emory Tate, a world-famous chess international master.
This was such an interesting discussion. I think your argument about the gains that arise from channelling anti-social forces is spot on. There should be much more of this, out of charity, if anything! However, I also wonder if what manifests as anti-social isn’t in fact an excess of the social. Could it be that such people are too social for accepted norms?