There is no doubt that the art of the last century or so has reflected massive social change and that both the technology used to create art and the subject matter would be unrecognisable to Ruskin.
Much has been written about the idea of originality in art but in the end just what does ‘originality’ mean? Before the 20th century it wasn’t a term much considered. Artist studios were places where apprentices went to learn from the master and with the advent of Art Schools, nothing much changed. The cult of originality is a 20th century obsession and yet it ignores or neglects that much great art was produced within the western tradition using traditional techniques.
The narrator hypothesises that all artists owe allegiance to a moral contract
The equivalent of Proust’s cahiers are my note and sketchbooks. I record, interpret and examine continually both as a painter and a writer.
Historically we can look back over the last century and see how art reflected the time in which it was made.