Hi Warmup,
I feel at times that if I read widely enough I'll find someone who has expressed my fabulous genius insights way earlier and possibly in better words than I. When I do find such writing I have a mixed emotion of thrill and dismay.
The trill comes from finding a member, or perhaps, leader of my intellectual tribe. The dismay from wondering now what do I do with this idea I had.
Further reading finds either they developed it well and I sigh and determine that I'll send up a citation, like a trail marker, to show how to climb to the peak.

Or, better, they treat their insight as a detour, leave implications for further thought to their readers and move on to other ideas. Now I see an opening, and something of value I might add.

Case to the point: I'm preparing for a review of a Y York play, Framed, about artists and the acceptance of their works (meaning the criticism and selling of their works, I presume). About all I know about art criticism is Tom Wolfe's famous Harper Magazine article, The Painted Word, and someone named Greenberg had a lot to do with the criticism, and thus promotion, understanding, and sales, of modern art.

So I forget what I was reading, but a passing mention is made of John Dewey's Art as Experience collection of lectures. These he gave as the first William James lecturer at Harvard. I know thy name, John Dewey. Written in 1934, I can start here with my prep work and come forward to recent times. I'll skip about the chapters and see what interests me.
First chapter I sense I'm possibly in for the whole book. Point by point, Dewey notes things I have recently felt I discovered that no else had noticed before. Like David Sedaris says a teenager feels about sex.

But Dewey is here on the page waiting for me. Art once was part of living but has been unraveled from the day-to-day. Agree. The needs of empire for places to show their rulers' good taste and the spoils of their conquests led to the invention of galleries and museums. Agree. Capitalism's ability to spawn freshly rich classes spurred the development of a separate art market for works which end in private hands. Agree. Because artists cannot 'scale' to mass production, they are shifted towards the margins of commercial life. Some even embrace this marginal position with exaggerated claims to a need for self-expression. Agree.

I'm on page 12. Sigh,
Revu2