I love reading about the history of philosophy, and about how culture has changed and evolved. I’m looking for a book about the evolution and history of a particular idea/historical theme that I really don’t know how to explain concisely or well:
you know the idea that ‘fine art’ (ie non-functional art, oil painting, decorative sculpture) is higher/more evolved than functional art like woodworking, pottery etc? like the idea that functional things can’t be or aren’t as beautiful as non functional things? we think of things existing ‘just-for-beauty’s-sake’ as an appealing idea because the implication that things can exist for no reason other than to be beautiful is the implication that we have evolved past the need for functionality blah blah blah
does anybody have any idea about keywords I might use to find books about things like this? books about the evolution of our idea of ‘higher/more evolved’? im sure there would be some interesting crossover with religious evolution in a book like that. Is any of this even coherent, sometimes I think i’m insane.
by Next-Macaroon-2074