7 Jun 2008

British MP talks of New Renaissance in The Arts

Recent article from The Guardian, concerning arts funding in UK. Astonishingly, the MP in question seems to have a profound understanding of the arts and even talks about a "New Renaissance"! Well these are strange times and anything can happen! He even talks about a multi-million pound investment in UK arts! This is difficult to believe in the current economic climate, however we can only wait and see!

Oddly, there have been snippets of good news over recent weeks, common sense that in the UK we haven't witnessed since the beginning of Tony Blair's reign. However, these are only a few instances of positive news amongst reports of impending recession, public service funding cuts, redundancies and increasing home repossessions! One must remain forever hopeful!

It is also important to recognise that the Renaissance in the 1500's, largely concerning the rediscovery of Greek texts, affected many more areas of intellectual life than the imaginative arts. For example science and the humanities. In fact, its legacy has probably affected all areas of Western life, ever since. Indeed, an artistic Renaissance would be very unlikely to remain independent of other areas of thought.

My new group on Flickr, reflecting the views expressed in the article.

New Renaissance

Simon

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