Alt text: a post from @lolennui.bsky.social that says: Once my German friend asked what creative people do without arts grants and other support in the US and I felt like a parent trying to explain to their kid that the puppies can die sometimes

  • sundray@lemmus.org
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    3 months ago

    If you have some free time and aren’t easily depressed, go ahead and look up the backgrounds of your favorite, recently ascendant artists. Many, if not most of them come from privileged backgrounds, have wealthy spouses, trust funds, or familial industry connections.

    And while I personally don’t think that such advantages necessarily diminish the importance of their art, just think of how much more potentially moving and profound work we’ll never see just because the people who should be making it never got chance to develop, since they’ve been too busy just trying to keep a roof over their heads.

    • Mac@mander.xyz
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      3 months ago

      I’ve thought this for a long time about other things. it’s truly a shame.

      • Master@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        We could have cured cancer years ago but the scientist grew up poor and ended up working the graveyard shifts in the mines.

        • Codex@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.

          ~ Stephen Jay Gould

    • trolololol@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      More than that, you’d get better diversity in motifs and techniques if you expand the population base to a representation of society.

    • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      This is how societies fall. Everyone just trying to keep a roof above their heads.

      • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
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        3 months ago

        I was a very talented artist and musician growing up and all through high school, from a nice poor family.

        Had to join the army and become an engineer, no trust fund to write books and make music. Luckily at this stage in my life both are possible in my free time, but wished I could do other things than engineer.

    • underwire212@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Well also because of this we only see a very small representative sample with the art that does end up making it out into the open.

  • expatriado@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    They have seen what happens when you don’t let an aspiring artist grow professionally, and perhaps continue their education, for instance, in a place like the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts

    • MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      Nah lmao Adolf was a talentless hack. The man had absolutely no understanding of angles. Have you seen his paintings? They suck.

      • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        Nobody falls out of the crib painting Rembrandts. Maybe if he was allowed to go to school it would have been different.

    • Pilon23@feddit.dk
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      3 months ago

      Yes, Germans were Nazis. A round of applause for rehashing the joke for the billionth time.

      • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        I didn’t see it a “Germans were nazis” joke as much as a “Every country has its crazies, Germans do now care for theirs” joke.

      • soloner@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        You got my upvote! Fuck the reddit trope of constantly bringing the same punchline over and over and expecting gold or whatever.

        • Wes4Humanity@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          I assume from context that you mean they support Palestine and are against Israel’s genocide… Which doesn’t make them Nazis… Actually kinda makes them not Nazis… Not sure how/why it’s possible that Israel turned into Nazis, but they did.

          Correct me if I misread the context

          • مهما طال الليل@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            Have I been misled? I thought Germans in general were pro-Israel and anti-Palestine. Perhaps just the government, media and police? I have seen German police brutalizing pro-Palestine protestors, I just thought it was a minority that are protesting.

            • Wes4Humanity@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              My apologies then… I misinterpreted your original comment… I’m pretty sure you’re correct that the Germans in general super support Israel… or at least what I’ve seen in the media or online makes it seem that way… But yeah, it could also be the government vs what the people really think kinda thing… Like in the US

    • I_Clean_Here@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      To this day Germans are afraid of all painters because these guys are just another Holocaust waiting to happen.

      … Is what you are saying. Not very funny.

  • squirrel
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    3 months ago

    European people: But… but what if we had a system of medical care for puppies, so that they do not die so often?