Two good questions this morning from Andrew Simonet. The second is one I don’t think we talk about enough: you can’t just have the greatest art from the greatest artists, without the whole cultural ecosystem that produces and nurtures them. The minor artists and the failed experiments all play essential roles too.
A comment about “winnowing” reminds me of another way I’ve heard* this idea put more succinctly: “You can separate the wheat from the chaff, but you can’t grow the wheat without the chaff.” (And in art, we don’t have to decide which is which.)
*Anyone know who said this first? I don’t remember where I heard it.