Beginning of a Thesis

So, my dad emailed me this the other day and said he wanted to share it with the collective.

''Much of the art which inspired me as a young man was not made in Paris, London or 

New York but in the cultural backwaters of rural france. From impressionism onwards 

these artists did not come from the peasant communities they adopted but chose them 

as a both a retreat from the restrictions imposed by the academic art establishment 

of Paris and as a source of inspiration. 
 

Over 100 years later France has changed very little. There is still an insular and 

restrictive elite in Paris, and there is still space for an artist to reflect upon 

and develop his work in the still reputably backwards countryside. As a practicing 

artist in rural france, I appreciate the pace of life, and the lack of distractions, 

but I have no desire to become the stereotypical struggling artist whose value is 

only recognised after his death. 
 

Looking at history, this post mortem recognition is very much a phenomenon of late 

19th century artists working in France and yet it has become a modern myth which is 

still part of the popular imagination of an artist starving in the garret  only to be 

appreciated when the rest of society ‘catches up’. In this sense we are still labouring 

under that 20th century concept of the avant garde (notably a french expression).
To study modernism however is to see the artist in a very conventional role as an 

entrepreneur - the initial struggle to find an identity followed by a degree of 

success which enables them to create and develop a ‘brand’.''
 
I can't see that post modernism has changed anything really

the artist who calls himself padi