Even if I say so myself, a very nice sky this morning. An artistic picture (a bit presumptuous of me, I know) allows me to talk about one of the books I’m about to start reading. Actually, it’s more about why I am reading it.
The Story of Art by E H Gombrich, published by Pahidon, purchased around 1995, never read, until this week. Let us go back to 1994, I was just getting to a point where accessing the internet became possible. Probably around 1994 I joined Demon, but before then I was with Compuserve. Do any of you remember it? It was clunky, and you had to use their software, but it did work. The structure was based on forums or groups.
Somehow, I found myself in the Fine Arts group, and become involved in talking about works of art. There were a number of key players in the discussions, a chap who called him Sungod, and was very strident about his art, Abigail, whom I believe is quite well known in the art world now and a few others. We had a few, sometimes quite angry arguments. It was quite entertaining. As you can probably imagine, I must have been (and was) infuriating to the likes of Sungod, and goodness knows what Abigail must of thought of me. Anyhow, it soon became very apparent that I had no knowledge on the topic at all, and was arguing on how I felt, rather than what I (didn’t) know. With that, Abigail recommended that I buy the story of art. I did so, but have never managed to read it. That’s going to change.
Slowly, but surely, the closed, highly managed community that was Compuserve faded away, it could not survive the vibrancy, activity, and sheer anarchy that was the internet. I did try several years ago to see if Compuserve was still about. It seems to be, but is it the same one? Clearly not. Sometimes, I hanker back to those days. I’d love to know who Sungod was (is).
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