Rachel Ronnow: What is the difference between art and entertainment?

Brian Brown: The poet said truly unique artists understand tradition…but what he meant by tradition might surprise you.

Anyone who has paid attention to the Academy Awards over the past few decades knows that Hollywood prides itself on showering awards on films that hardly anyone even saw, let alone liked. Philosophically, this trend is nothing new—elites have always felt the need to distinguish themselves as elites.  When one thinks in these terms today, [...]

In my previous post, I hinted that there was significance to the way in which we design our art and architecture.  The argument against this, of course, is that art is about expression, not truth.  If we want truth we should study science–art as an objective medium is meaningless.  Today I was reading Michael Ward, [...]

A painful anecdote: I recently re-watched the 2006 German film “The Lives of Others,” and I was moved yet again by its quiet poignancy.  The story is set in Cold War East Germany, where the secret police monitor anyone perceived to be a danger to the party (which, in practice, means anyone the powerful folks [...]