
Marshall Mcluhan used to say that "when you surround a slow technology with a fast technology, the slow technology crumbles." I like this idea because it partially explains the state of today's world. With the internet you can see this even more clearly. It is only natural that the thing with which you identify crumbles, it shakes up your identity. It makes you anxious, angry, etc. Social disruption.
When Guttenberg brought in movable type it changed the world, profoundly, but very slowly. The internet, satellite technology, is doing the same thing to our world. It is happening so fast you can actually see it happening.
........Cave painting......Religous painting......Secular painting....Painting event's honestly painting(Goya)....Painting influenced by science painting(Impressionism)....20th Century painting of a fragmented world(Picasso, Matisse)...21st Century anything goes Painting.
I once read that when Picasso saw Bonnard's paintings he said, "That's not painting, that's piddling."
I feel a strong kinship to the way James Ensor saw the world.
I read somewhere that Matisse claimed to be an athiest, except when he was painting.