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December 20, 2015
One is hard pressed to think of great names in the realm of contemporary culture.
A few performing musicians, two or three strong symphonic conductors, an actor or two, but not much else comes to mind.Concerts of symphonic or chamber music are attended mainly by people 70 and older. Once strictly classical music festivals now need to give way to more and more pop and rock performances to pay their way. If there are any powerful novelists now at work, I do not know who they might be. Contemporary painting and sculpture have long seemed more about money than about art. Dance lives chiefly off the great choreographers of the past, from Marius Petipa to George Balanchine. The condition of poetry is perhaps saddest of all, for it has become little more than an intramural sport, read only by the same people who write it. People continue to churn out vast quantities of art -- novels, plays, poems, musical compositions, painting, sculptures -- but nothing very much seems at stake in any of their productions. Whatever Happened to High Culture? | The Weekly Standard
Posted by gerardvanderleun at December 20, 2015 10:37 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.