The degradation of fine art is a process linked with the decadence of modernity, and the philosophical issues it carries since two centuries ago. Some areas resisted more before the downfall, but slow, or fast, it catched up.
Behind that is the proble of subjectivism and relativism plus the antropological turn (Svolta Antropologica in theology). Modern man tries to see himself as a Demiurge, capable of warping reality according his whims, and the result, is terrible, as happens with rejection of nature and the created order. Because of that, ugly scribbles are pased as High Art, while beatifully crafted works and seen as low brow, or commercial. Is like the revenge of the mediocre.
Doesn’t some of it have to do with the creation of photography, though? Like, it’s pointless to paint an elaborate portrait of someone when a camera can capture their face exactly, so it makes a certain amount of sense that art would drift towards the abstract after an invention like that.
I think what’s really interesting is using art to capture not the way things are, but the way we percieve them. That’s part of why I like animation; it doesn’t show me life, it shows me a certain interpretation of how events feel. Things are exaggerated in different ways, and in that they capture the essence of things without getting bogged down in the logistics of real life. But people make fun of it for that- for the big eyes anf goofy expressions and other things. I guess they don’t have to like it, but I’ll take exaggeration over either pure realism or pure abstraction any day.
Yes, nerdy stuff from some years ago is enjoying the mainstream status, with the afluence of new fans, and the hipster-like reaction of some people that dislike that their once exclusive fandoms, are now being invaded by the inexperienced, etc.
Fandom dynamics are interesting to look at.
Haha, yeah. On the one hand I can kind of understand taking a certain amount of pride in how much one knows about a fandom or medium, but on the other hand, I would think people should be happy that others like the things that they like, too. Especially since more people buying means better products for everyone.
The part of the quote in cursive, that was a type of identity search?
I can’t see whatever you’re referring to as “cursive”, sorry. Not sure if it’s because of my computer or what. But yeah, it was kind of an identity search. I spent a lot of my childhood defining myself in terms of how I was different than others, trying to be more mature than my peers and know everything. I was kind of insufferable sometimes, to tell the truth. I perceived nerdiness as something desirable, and thought I had to work harder at it than others because I was a girl, and all the nerdy people I knew were boys.
I like to think I’ve become a lot more tolerable since discovering anime; I don’t know a lot of other people IRL who like it more than I do, so I’m just here for the sheer joy of watching and analyzing. It’s helped me to realize what it means to really enjoy something, without just complaining about it or trying to be “better” at it than other people are.
I remember when I was watching that series 8 years ago, aprox.
It was interesting, and quite intriguing.
While it had lots of problems, is not something terrible to rewatch, I think. Last year I was rewatching some episodes, still interesting.
It’s only been three years for me. But like I said, I didn’t think that Eva was just interesting. I gushed about it non-stop for weeks on end- how there were female mech pilots, and this was the
coolest thing ever. In fact, mecha in general. I had never seen an anime that was more complex than Dragon Ball Z or Pokemon, so Evangelion seemed like something incredible.
The backlash was just as bad when I watched it the second time and noticed all the problems. Eventually I came to a pretty balanced view of both the flaws and the good bits, but that first rewatch was painful. That’s what happens when you build things up as the best story ever; you have to answer for all the flaws they have.
Religious imagery in that series seems like and example of adding things because these look cool. Only a few elements had some deeper meaning in the context of the series.
It had other references, like psychology too.
Yeah, most of it was just thrown in.
The ending was rushed because lack of money and certain problems they were having back then. It was very polemic, so they made a movie called The End of Evangelion to show the “true” ending and try to end fan polemics.
Some years ago, I found the wiki and some forums that explained lots of things about the series. There is plenty of secondary material like manga, artbooks and games that show various things the series didn’t explained clearly and expand certain scenes, small moments, elements and such.
I tried watching End, but it’s so… Eh. I can’t make it through. I love these characters, and I don’t really want to watch their mental anguish for a solid two hours, especially if I know it isn’t going to make any sense at the end anyway.
I heard that the lead writer became really depressed when he was writing the ending, so that might be part of it, too. The fact that they had no animation budget is pretty obvious, lol, given that half the final episode is scenes recycled from the school setting. On the other hand, the new Rebuild movies have plenty of awesome animation and the writer is rewriting it while mentally stable. I’ve heard it’s just as dark as the original series, but the story works this time. I haven’t heard from anyone who didn’t love them, so I’ll probably have to check them out eventually.
