High forum art! With appropriate context restored, and some [explanatory notes inserted in bracketed red text—for I was too subtle]:

Quote from: friends1980 on November 07, 2020, 09:22:13 AM

Quote from: nullius on November 07, 2020, 05:29:10 AM

European culture in 1808: [...nude statute of a beautiful woman, Pauline (Bonaparte) Borghese, in a classical pose as Venus...]
Fun fact: Pauline had an affair with Paganini.

[nullius now adds: A painting of Paganini with a beard was deliberately hereby selected. Paganini was a man. How manly? He fucked Napoleon’s sister.

For her part, the aristocratic voluptuary Venus usually had a taste for soldiers—warriors, as Nietzsche said: men of violence—but she loved men of violins, too!

Quote from: nullius on October 30, 2020, 03:03:37 AM

Quote from: Last of the V8s on October 28, 2020, 02:23:25 PM

Oh, my: The subject line has a Nullian onion-layered multiplicity of meanings. Violence (done) to violins. Or: From violence, to violins. Either way bespeaks passion, in some sense. Paganini’s violins set Pauline on fire.

]

THIS SPACE IS INTENTIONALLY LEFT NULL.

Modern, democratic ~~European culture~~ Eurovision (like “Satoshi’s Vision”?) in 2014:
[—snip image of countercultural arson against the arts: An androgynous bearded thing in women’s clothes, Conchita Wurst, holding the trophy for the 2014 “Eurovision Song Contest”—]

If a similar competition as the "modern democratic Eurovision" would have existed back in 1808, do you really believe that "the people" would have voted for Paganini?

I don't think so.

Alas! I have been caught out with my cunning, and quite intentional attempt to slip by a juxtaposition of high culture and popular culture. I did that to be succinct, for I doubt that the ~~unmitigated savages~~ fine folks here would understand all the nuances of my point—not without a five thousand word essay that nobody would read.

In lieu thereof, I will pose for you a question: Why are so many classical music pieces named after folk dances? Especially from the Baroque. Just for instance, the gigue (‘jig’). There are not a few J. S. Bach instrumental movements named “Gigue”, but who was dancing the jig to them? ;-)

High culture and popular culture form a feedback loop...

E.g., ~~vide~~ audi BWV 1011: Convenient legal download link outside the U.S., where this sound recording’s copyright has expired (DO NOT CLICK, IF YOU ARE IN THE “LAND OF THE FREE”!!), unfortunately globbed together as a single 25-minute MP3. The whole layout of the movements is derived from ballroom dances related to folk dances; and most of the movement names are somehow derived from folk dances:

Quote from: https://imslp.org/wiki/Cello_Suite_No.5_in_C_minor,_BWV_1011_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)

7 movements:

Prélude
Allemande
Courante
Sarabande
Gavotte
Gavotte
Gigue

Quote from: Nietzsche

I should only believe in a god who would know how to dance.

(My previous reference to IMSLP for WO folks.)

Quote from: friends1980 on November 07, 2020, 09:22:13 AM

[ed. I think there's even a realistic chance that some other singing bearded woman would have won the competition in 1808 anyway]

Zeroth of all, that is not a “bearded woman”: It is a man in woman’s clothes.

And first of all, no. Not outside of a circus-style freak show—though strictly speaking, that may be anachronistic when considering 1808.

Either you have a terribly low opinion of commoners, or your view of history has been distorted by postmodern pseudohistory. Orwell’s observation was astute: “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

Now, given that my example of today’s pop-“culture” was Conchita Wurst, I will draw on a German counterexample. I think that way back when, the popular “Eurovision” of guildsmen was embodied by the long and illustrious tradition of the Master Singer—which in turn inspired high-cultural works. (I have not reviewed any of the audio downloads from that page—of which there is currently only one small clip; I cannot attest the quality thereof.) Other examples, not dissimilar, could be drawn from other social strata, and other European countries; parallels could be drawn from not a few non-European cultures.