Arts and Humanities Through the Eras

Scotland presently has a Cultural Commission looking at many aspects of the country's culture from production to consumption and considering how central, regional or local policies can be devised or developed to support the whole process. My only caveat in all this is that culture, especially in its artistic manifestations, is fundamentally a grass‐roots spontaneous activity, or whole series of activities. At least, it should be in a culturally thriving society: modern history gives us plenty of grim examples of official state art, usually monumental, normally vainglorious and frequently either hideous or banal; ancient history, on the other hand, as...