We take beautiful art for granted today, but imagine how breathtaking and inspiring it must have been for an Ancient Roman to see these mosaics, in a time when beautiful art and artistic form had not yet been commoditized as they are today.
Relatively speaking, they were most numerous within Rome, but they also owned lands they had lower class people and slaves farm for them that they sometimes visited.
Wealth accumulated over generations. In that time, if your great-great-great grandfather had a piece of artwork, there was a good chance it was yours now.
We have negative stereotypes of the past, and there were periods of history when that was true, but there were advanced periods too. The Bronze Age empires were pretty impressive until roughly 1300 BC. We had a dark age for a while. The Roman Empire was very impressive. Then we had a dark age for a while.
And you also want to think of the social structure. Rich people employed poor people in households. Even if I owned nothing personally, I'd be exposed to art in my master's household.
Art is just a thing we expect to see now and is easily reproduced. We are surrounded by it. This is why I chose "commoditized".
A few years ago I was in Fez, stayed in a 600 year old riad with original tile. And yes it was breathtaking and inspiring every day. A few days before, I was in Volubilis (وليلي)a long abandoned Roman town. Every home had these mosaic tiled floors.
Additionally, labor becomes cheaper relative to materials the farther back you go in history so older stuff has proportionately more labor put into it. Having a bunch of fancy ornate wood work in your house was the 100yo equivalent of having a bunch of granite countertops.
If someone wants really nice wood trim, mantlepieces, panelling, and such in a modern house, it seems they usually loot it from an old house. The materials and work are too expensive now to make it from scratch. Ditto doors, of all things. Modern interior and exterior doors are awful compared to solid wood doors that were common not even that long ago, but, though you can still buy them, new solid doors are impractically expensive, so buying salvaged old doors usually makes more sense.
Not really true, I rented more upscale apartment once and, unlike my previous apartment, I couldn’t hear neighbors due to much better sound isolation. Appliances and cabinets were much nicer too.
Many but not all of us do. Every time I think about all the beauty that was created in the Classical Antiquity or the Renaissance (or any other less Eurocentric moment of widespread creative spark), and how it contrasts with nearly everyone today who is seemingly hellbent on making "critical" pieces for the sake of being critical.
I understand that we need to raise awareness of certain issues, that art is also politics, that a lot "has already been done", that art expresses intent and not only depicts reality (or idealized imagery). I understand all of that, but it seems we've somehow lost track of how art can also be made just... for the sake of beauty
There's a reason hordes of tourists flock to Florence all year long, you know? Let's build more of that unquestionable beauty that transcends generations.