This is one of my favorite quotes because it totally captures the futile nature of the mind and on a more fundamental level desire. No idea is greater than the experience of life happening before you right now. I chose the Parthenon as a background because in many ways the Greek culture was the peak of human spirit and intellect, now dead and decaying. Everything passes on. It's the fundamental nature of the universe that there is no closure as Terence Mckenna would say. The Greeks were dominated by the Romans. The Romans went on to imitate all of their art. All true artists carrying the Greek spirit were killed or exiled. In many ways we live in a culture empowered and enlightened by the broken remnants of Greece, and this soulful creative force that lives on inside us is dominated by Roman imperialism, and it seems this struggle is taking place in every person existing in the modern world.
Also, do you think renaissance art is overexposed? It was earth shattering for its time, and now it seems all the art history majors have been latching onto the nipples of their superiors over generations for far too long. Yeah it's cool, but there's plenty of modern art that's just as good. I feel like the love for renaissance art is more a need for pathological experts to gizz their refined and elegant taste all over people. But that's just me, renaissance art is good, I just don't think it's the best thing that ever existed.
