How come religion was a driving force for artistry and human expression for most of history, propelling artists to make great works, but these days seem to absolutely wreck everything it touches?
Is it an american phenomena, with christianity deeply tied to deeply un-expressive, repressed demographics? Is it a greater focus on conversion and exploitation rather than individuals expressing their faith? Even in recent history you could compare works like Passion of The Christ to Ben-Hur. Or (probably a bit unfairly) God's Not Dead.
Fundamentalism is a pretty new phenomen and is antimodern in its nature, which threatens concepts of art and science based on modern thought.
Good shit doesn't make the headlines.
It sometimes makes the history books though.
>>989498
What a bunch of crap. The vast vast majority of what the arts community appreciate and generally huge labors of art are not religious anymore, and it's not just a social climate trend, people are simply not driven to create these things as much anymore. And I mentioned Ben-Hur because it's relatively recent and was a massive project with strong marketing, compared to a modern massive project with strong marketing
it's not an outlier either, there are many modern religious works that are very weak, and many religious works 60-70 years ago that are considered very strong, both now and then.
Religion wasn't a driving force so much as it was extremely common. For most of history, religion was a rational and practical necessity; it accomplished both A: maintaining social order in incredibly difficult times and B: providing the only real explanation (at that time) for our existence. Because of this, most artists were religious because most people were religious. And because it's common in art to create for some higher (often political) purpose, artists tended to write for God. Now that the world and all its creatures can be explained without a God, nonreligion is growing to a great extent. People now view making art for God on quite the same level as they do pandering. The image of religious people is being molded into something much darker than it was before, partly due to the rise of religious fundamentalism and extremism (which, itself, was partly due to the rise of nonreligion). It's often fairly easy for some to forget that many religious people don't take the literalist stance that these fundamentalists do.
Spirituality is a fundamental part of the human experience.
And Americans are just stupid.
>>989630
what about places where religion is an incredibly omnipresent element? You can look at semi-recent cultures like the Amish. They're incredibly artistically repressed
>>989758
>Artistically repressed
Amish woodwork is pretty ornate.
>>989758
>incredibly artistically repressed
>this nigga hasnt seen amish woodwork
>>989470
>with christianity deeply tied to deeply un-expressive, repressed demographics?
it's protestants m8 they're plebs
>>989813
Why? Because they're not paintings?
Good lord, please return to Reddit.
Religion has lost the central place it once had. Society was organized around it, from public to private life. Big works of art are important to project your power as well. So a city or a certain church or ruler would commission great works to be made.
That role is no longer needed. Religion no longer has that kind of influence. Major works of art don't need the patronage of religious bodies s they used to.
