{"id":9227,"date":"2021-01-22T17:38:25","date_gmt":"2021-01-22T22:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/?p=9227"},"modified":"2021-01-22T17:38:36","modified_gmt":"2021-01-22T22:38:36","slug":"who-needs-culture-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/2021\/01\/who-needs-culture-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"Who needs culture anyway?"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest shocks of my life and one of my biggest disappointments occurred when I went to France for the first time in 1993. France! home of great artists–David, Delacroix, the angelic Ingres, Manet, Monet, and many others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writers? Balzac, of course. The master. I made a pilgrimage to his home which is now a museum. Situated on a slope, it’s the perfect house for an artist. When creditors knock on the front door, you can escape out the back to the alley and into the Parisian streets. Perfect, like I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more<\/span>Robert Smith<\/span><\/a><\/div>

I wasn’t prepared for the thick layer of American pop culture covering the city and distorting the culture for which I’d come searching. In the cafes, I heard the same pop songs I heard back in New Jersey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the hell happened? Paris overpowered by American pop culture? Yes, and now it’s obvious. Who visits Paris in 2021 expecting to find, well, Paris? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more<\/span>Painting: Mother Nursing Infant<\/span><\/a><\/div>

This is a bad thing. Culture in America now is Jimmy Kimmel and the fifteenth remake of a movie based on a comic book. Oh, and naked power, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Painting is irrelevant in the face of those mighty achievements, amirite? In fact, painting has been irrelevant during my entire lifetime <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest shocks of my life and one of my biggest disappointments occurred when I went to France for the first time in 1993. France! home of great artists–David, Delacroix, the angelic Ingres, Manet, Monet, and many others. Writers? Balzac, of course. The master. I made a pilgrimage to his home which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":9229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[251,139,253,343],"tags":[472],"class_list":["post-9227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aesthetics","category-bio","category-culture","category-turpentine-diaries","tag-paris"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/garg.jpg?fit=474%2C319&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8311,"url":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/2019\/03\/turpentine-diaries-3-3-19\/","url_meta":{"origin":9227,"position":0},"title":"Turpentine diaries 3\/3\/19","author":"Tom Hudson","date":"March 3, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Bah! I am grinding my way (trying to anyway) through a volume of Clement Greenberg's essays. In case you haven't heard of him, Greenberg was once considered the preeminent writer on post-war American art. Greenberg's writings are filled with hilarious pronouncements hurled from the Marxist Olympian heights. As a champion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "aesthetics"","block_context":{"text":"aesthetics","link":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/category\/aesthetics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/studio-2019-3-3b.jpg?fit=800%2C1001&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/studio-2019-3-3b.jpg?fit=800%2C1001&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/studio-2019-3-3b.jpg?fit=800%2C1001&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/studio-2019-3-3b.jpg?fit=800%2C1001&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2136,"url":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/2013\/06\/bad-boy-my-life-on-and-off-the-canvas-by-eric-fischl\/","url_meta":{"origin":9227,"position":1},"title":"Review: Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas by Eric Fischl","author":"Tom Hudson","date":"June 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The contemporary figurative artist Eric Fischl has written, with the aid of\u00a0 Michael Stone, his autobiography--Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas. Because Fischl's work stands to the side of several currents in contemporary art, he has a (mild) reputation as a rebel. His lifestyle, according to this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Artists"","block_context":{"text":"Artists","link":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/category\/artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5087,"url":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/2015\/05\/book-review-the-war-of-art\/","url_meta":{"origin":9227,"position":2},"title":"Book review: the War of Art","author":"Tom Hudson","date":"May 7, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Steven Pressfield's the War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles \u00a0offers pop psychology advice to struggling writers and artists.\u00a0Pressfield is most known for his novel and film \u00a0The Legend of Bagger Vance.\u00a0Before reading this book on my Kindle, I'd read nothing by the author.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5246,"url":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/2015\/07\/how-art-became-irrelevant\/","url_meta":{"origin":9227,"position":3},"title":"How Art Became Irrelevant","author":"Tom Hudson","date":"July 8, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Michael J. Lewis' long piece in Commentary titled, How Art Became Irrelevant, is a tour de force of cultural analysis. \u00a0 \u00a0In his\u00a0well-written and long article (did I mention it is long?), Lewis' breadth of knowledge provides a wealth of thoughtful observations and quotable passages. To\u00a0buttress his main thesis, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "aesthetics"","block_context":{"text":"aesthetics","link":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/category\/aesthetics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9085,"url":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/2020\/11\/review-of-human-bondage\/","url_meta":{"origin":9227,"position":4},"title":"Review: Of Human Bondage","author":"Tom Hudson","date":"November 1, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I've had this experience a lot lately. Maybe you have too. You reread a book that you once admired only to discover that it doesn't resemble in the least what you remember about it. When I originally read Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage, I thrilled at Maugham's description of Bohemian\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Maugham","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/s.maugham.jpg?fit=474%2C639&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9722,"url":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/2021\/07\/thomas-crow\/","url_meta":{"origin":9227,"position":5},"title":"Thomas Crow","author":"Tom Hudson","date":"July 30, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Thomas Crow is an American art historian. For a short time, his interests overlapped with mine, which is how I became aware of him. Some readers might know that I am a fan of the French artist J.L David. Early in his career, Crow wrote a book focused on David\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "aesthetics"","block_context":{"text":"aesthetics","link":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/category\/aesthetics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/crow2.jpg?fit=474%2C244&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Gw6F-2oP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasparkerhudson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}