Over the past 200 years, Western civilization has increased its wealth dramatically, but has its morality been able to keep up with its material progress?
Throughout history, several empires that were very prosperous eventually fell. The Roman Empire, one of the greatest civilizations known, eventually collapsed. The 19th-century French artist Thomas Couture might give us insight into the fall of Rome through his painting “Romans of the Decadence.”
The Decadence of Rome
Scholars attribute Rome’s fall to many causes: invasion, inflation, political corruption, excessive spending, and so on. However, in his painting Couture is concerned with just one thing: morality
Eric Bess
Author
Eric Bess, Ph.D., is a fine artist, a writer on art-related topics, and an assistant professor at Fei Tian College in Middletown, New York.
