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We take beautiful art for granted today, but imagine how breathtaking and inspiring it must have been for an Ancient Roman to see these mosaics, in a time when

We take beautiful art for granted today, but imagine how breathtaking and inspiring it must have been for an Ancient Roman to see these mosaics, in a time when beautiful art and artistic form had not yet been commoditized as they are today.

airstrike 6y ago
> We take beautiful art for granted today Many but not all of us do. Every time I think about all the beauty that was created in the Classical Antiquity or the Renaissance (or any other less Eurocentric moment of widespread creative spark), and how it contrasts with nearly everyone today who is seemingly hellbent on making "critical" pieces for the sake of being critical. I understand that we need to raise awareness of certain issues, that art is also politics, that a lot "has already been done", that art expresses intent and not only depicts reality (or idealized imagery). I understand all of that, but it seems we've somehow lost track of how art can also be made just... for the sake of beauty There's a reason hordes of tourists flock to Florence all year long, you know? Let's build more of that unquestionable beauty that transcends generations.
- telesilla 6y ago
  Some art is imagination-drawn, lusciously-filmed cinema, some art is raw documentary. These days, many in between.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Ralfp 6y ago
Oh, but it was conmoditized even then. Roman society was suprisingly „modern” on many fields, and their approach to art was no exception. Rich paid the creators to create such art on their properties to increase their value.
- toyg 6y ago
  Yeah but it was more like “Kanye West paying someone to paint his crib” than “‘middle-class couple hiring a local guy to do up their flat”. Rich people were few and far between.
  - Ralfp 6y ago
    This is not really true. The rich (patricians) formed entire houses and used combination of wealth and political influence to maintain their positions. Even if their number wasnt greater than few thousands, they de-facto owned the Italy during Roman Republic. Relatively speaking, they were most numerous within Rome, but they also owned lands they had lower class people and slaves farm for them that they sometimes visited.
  - woofie11 6y ago
    Fine art was available to more of the population than you'd think. The world population doubled in the past 45 years. In contrast, during the Roman period, the world population took about 500 years to double. Wealth accumulated over generations. In that time, if your great-great-great grandfather had a piece of artwork, there was a good chance it was yours now. We have negative stereotypes of the past, and there were periods of history when that was true, but there were advanced periods too. The Bronze Age empires were pretty impressive until roughly 1300 BC. We had a dark age for a while. The Roman Empire was very impressive. Then we had a dark age for a while. And you also want to think of the social structure. Rich people employed poor people in households. Even if I owned nothing personally, I'd be exposed to art in my master's household.
    - Ma8ee 6y ago
      Except something like 98% of the population were farmers and most of them were never allowed into a rich man’s house
      - Retric 6y ago
        More like 70% to 90%, just the city of Rome got up to 750k-1M people let alone all the other cities in the empire. A great deal of this was due to Egyptian farmers ability to grow multiple crops per year on the same land. Fishing was similarly extremely productive in terms of labor to food production.
cmurf 6y ago
Imagine how inspiring it would be for modern folks today to see these mosaics in their own homes instead of... carpeting. Rugs are cool. Wall to wall carpeting is gross, and unimaginative. I am not a fan. A few years ago I was in Fez, stayed in a 600 year old riad with original tile. And yes it was breathtaking and inspiring every day. A few days before, I was in Volubilis (وليلي)a long abandoned Roman town. Every home had these mosaic tiled floors.
- asdff 6y ago
  Even 100 year old buildings have a craftsmanship about them that is gone in modern stick frame apartments. I wonder if we would ever see a real art deco building again, with all the polish and craftsmanship, and not something that's just art deco 'style' and severely diluted into a cheap generic building, but the real deal. Maybe there just aren't enough people trained in those stone working skills anymore. Maybe no one is willing to pay for nicer things.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    Replacement cost tends to factor greatly into how much things stick around. Cheap stuff gets replaced over the years, expensive stuff gets maintained and fixed up so you get a lot of survivorship bias. Additionally, labor becomes cheaper relative to materials the farther back you go in history so older stuff has proportionately more labor put into it. Having a bunch of fancy ornate wood work in your house was the 100yo equivalent of having a bunch of granite countertops.
    - asdff 6y ago
      But that's the thing, even the fancy stuff today doesn't have much of the fit and finish of modest stuff in the past. Go find a new construction apartment commanding top of market rent in your town, and I bet you can hear your neighbors through those paper thin walls and the appliances are new, but the cheapest ones possible. Mansions became McMansions. Compare the Broad in LA to the library build 100 years before; the materials in the $140mm Broad are bare concrete and latex paint, while the LA central library looks like a Byzantine palace.

airstrike 6y ago

> We take beautiful art for granted today Many but not all of us do. Every time I think about all the beauty that was created in the Classical Antiquity or the Renaissance (or any other less Eurocentric moment of widespread creative spark), and how it contrasts with nearly everyone today who is seemingly hellbent on making "critical" pieces for the sake of being critical. I understand that we need to raise awareness of certain issues, that art is also politics, that a lot "has already been done", that art expresses intent and not only depicts reality (or idealized imagery). I understand all of that, but it seems we've somehow lost track of how art can also be made just... for the sake of beauty There's a reason hordes of tourists flock to Florence all year long, you know? Let's build more of that unquestionable beauty that transcends generations.

telesilla 6y ago
Some art is imagination-drawn, lusciously-filmed cinema, some art is raw documentary. These days, many in between.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Ralfp 6y ago

Oh, but it was conmoditized even then. Roman society was suprisingly „modern” on many fields, and their approach to art was no exception. Rich paid the creators to create such art on their properties to increase their value.

toyg 6y ago
Yeah but it was more like “Kanye West paying someone to paint his crib” than “‘middle-class couple hiring a local guy to do up their flat”. Rich people were few and far between.
- Ralfp 6y ago
  This is not really true. The rich (patricians) formed entire houses and used combination of wealth and political influence to maintain their positions. Even if their number wasnt greater than few thousands, they de-facto owned the Italy during Roman Republic. Relatively speaking, they were most numerous within Rome, but they also owned lands they had lower class people and slaves farm for them that they sometimes visited.
- woofie11 6y ago
  Fine art was available to more of the population than you'd think. The world population doubled in the past 45 years. In contrast, during the Roman period, the world population took about 500 years to double. Wealth accumulated over generations. In that time, if your great-great-great grandfather had a piece of artwork, there was a good chance it was yours now. We have negative stereotypes of the past, and there were periods of history when that was true, but there were advanced periods too. The Bronze Age empires were pretty impressive until roughly 1300 BC. We had a dark age for a while. The Roman Empire was very impressive. Then we had a dark age for a while. And you also want to think of the social structure. Rich people employed poor people in households. Even if I owned nothing personally, I'd be exposed to art in my master's household.
  - Ma8ee 6y ago
    Except something like 98% of the population were farmers and most of them were never allowed into a rich man’s house
    - Retric 6y ago
      More like 70% to 90%, just the city of Rome got up to 750k-1M people let alone all the other cities in the empire. A great deal of this was due to Egyptian farmers ability to grow multiple crops per year on the same land. Fishing was similarly extremely productive in terms of labor to food production.

cmurf 6y ago

Imagine how inspiring it would be for modern folks today to see these mosaics in their own homes instead of... carpeting. Rugs are cool. Wall to wall carpeting is gross, and unimaginative. I am not a fan. A few years ago I was in Fez, stayed in a 600 year old riad with original tile. And yes it was breathtaking and inspiring every day. A few days before, I was in Volubilis (وليلي)a long abandoned Roman town. Every home had these mosaic tiled floors.

asdff 6y ago
Even 100 year old buildings have a craftsmanship about them that is gone in modern stick frame apartments. I wonder if we would ever see a real art deco building again, with all the polish and craftsmanship, and not something that's just art deco 'style' and severely diluted into a cheap generic building, but the real deal. Maybe there just aren't enough people trained in those stone working skills anymore. Maybe no one is willing to pay for nicer things.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Replacement cost tends to factor greatly into how much things stick around. Cheap stuff gets replaced over the years, expensive stuff gets maintained and fixed up so you get a lot of survivorship bias. Additionally, labor becomes cheaper relative to materials the farther back you go in history so older stuff has proportionately more labor put into it. Having a bunch of fancy ornate wood work in your house was the 100yo equivalent of having a bunch of granite countertops.
  - asdff 6y ago
    But that's the thing, even the fancy stuff today doesn't have much of the fit and finish of modest stuff in the past. Go find a new construction apartment commanding top of market rent in your town, and I bet you can hear your neighbors through those paper thin walls and the appliances are new, but the cheapest ones possible. Mansions became McMansions. Compare the Broad in LA to the library build 100 years before; the materials in the $140mm Broad are bare concrete and latex paint, while the LA central library looks like a Byzantine palace.