Art is an important part of every society. It tells of the history of the people, their culture and it depicts at each phase, what the society is going through. In today's fast paced era, people are almost always preoccupied with the chores of today and the concerns of tomorrow and they hardly find time to devote in appreciating various artforms which may have been one of their several childhood interests. Also, people's interests are increasingly changing and aligning with the art attractions of the latest century like metal music over classical or carnatic, plastic decorative furniture over ancient terracota for their homes and so on. Thus, largely lack of government funding can endanger the flourishing of arts and their availability to all people.
Government ignoring the arts can lead to a loss of history. An example is Nigeria. All around the country are works of art were exhumed from the ground years ago: the figurines in Esie, the works of Nok, the golden tusks in Benin. The government doesn’t fund the arts and today works of Nigerian arts are found in museums all over the world . They are in the Louvre in Paris, museums in Italy and London but can hardly be found in Nigeria. The few ones left are in such a terrible state; information provided on the work seem bogus and inaccurate. Whereas in other nations like Italy, France, the original works of arts hang in such places as the Louvre and Vatican city and tells the story of the people because Government funds the arts there. Paris is a well known destination for artists.
Opponents may argue that the federal art funding is yet another superfluous bureaucratic function that justifies yet another wasteful spending of taxpayer money. However, their rationale that the truest, greatest art will eventually surface as evidenced in history is fallacious. What they fail to acknowledge is that even history attests to