Dissertation on the Progress of the Fine Arts

The author analyzes why major fine art has historically appeared in simpler societies by examining the social conditions that supported it, using sculpture (and by extension poetry) as the example. He attributes artistic flourishing to small, decentralized communities where public ritual, bodily display, and communal functions made artists intimately connected to popular life, producing original, native work. He contrasts that with contemporary complex societies that foster technical and intellectual achievements but lack the conditions for powerful art, and he proposes that enlightened social reform could reconcile modern complexity with the communal features necessary for major artistic creation.