Synopsis
Review of Larry Shiner's lucid book "The Invention of Art: A Cultural History," which traced the role of art and artists all the back to the Greeks, through the Middle Ages, Enlightenment and to the present day. I wrote "A must-read for anyone active in the arts, however unsettling they might find the book's implications.... Without denying that any number of barriers have been erected from inside the art world, some of the public's unease has roots in a lack of historical perspective. Because the simple fact is this: Like such concepts as marrying for love and intellectual copyright, the current vision of the artist's societal role is a relatively recent development."
