The Mother of All Arts: Agrarianism and the Creative Impulse by Gene Logsdon PDF

whilst Gene Logsdon learned that he skilled an analogous artistic pleasure from farming as he did from writing, he suspected that agriculture itself was once a kind of artwork. hence begun his look for the origins of the inventive impulse within the agrarian way of life. the mummy of All Arts is the end result of Logsdon’s trip, his account of friendships with farmers and artists pushed through the urge to create. He chronicles his lengthy dating with Wendell Berry and discovers the playful humor of a number of new agrarian writers. He finds insights gleaned from conversations with Andrew Wyeth and his kinfolk of artists. via his organization with musicians equivalent to Willie Nelson and his involvement with Farm reduction, Logsdon learns how music—blues, jazz, nation, or even rock ’n’ roll—is additionally rooted in agriculture. Logsdon sheds new mild at the paintings of rural painters, writers, and musicians and means that their artwork will be created merely by means of those that paintings in detail with the land. not like the gritty realism or summary expressionism frequently preferred via modern critics, agrarian paintings conjures up favourite emotions of neighborhood and luxury. most vital, Logsdon convincingly demonstrates that diminishing the relationship among paintings and nature lessens the social and aesthetic worth of either. the mummy of All Arts explores those cultural connections and strains the advance of a brand new agrarian tradition that Logsdon believes will ultimately change the version led to through the commercial revolution. funny and introspective, the publication is neither traditional cultural feedback nor conventional artwork feedback. it's a targeted, vigorous meditation at the nature and goal of art—and at the existence well-lived—by one of many actually unique voices of rural America.