The Division Between Art and Science, And the Decline of the Study of Greek and Latin

This is one of those posts where I offer no answers, but simply pose a question which has struck me recently. In this case the question is: can the division between the arts and the sciences in Western society seem natural only to those who have not studied ancient Greek and Latin?

In case there are readers to whom it is not already obvious: I have no idea whether the art-science split has occurred in other societies, nor how it might seem to observers from other parts of the world.

Back within the western world, I have greatly admired admired contemporary and recent authors, such as Bronowski and Pynchon, who clearly reject the notion that art and science are incompatible. I don't know how conversant those two are in the Classical languages, but when we go further into the past, there's often no longer any doubt: Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche were all very familiar with ancient Greek, and all three published in Latin. And none seemed to have the slightest inclination to separate the arts from the sciences. 

Travel back a bit further in time, to the 17th century, and Galileo wrote sonnets, and Milton wrote treatises in logic. These efforts have not become famous, non-one seems to consider them particularly brilliant, but no one of their contemporaries found it strange that they crossed the art/science divide. It takes a more recent perspective to find it strange. It requires a more recent perspective to see any divide between art and science. 

Back farther in time, to the 16th century, and we have the archetypal "Renaissance Man" -- archetypal from the point of view of some more modern commentators, that is: Leonardo da Vinci. And we are told -- by some recent and contemporary pundits -- that it is no longer possible to be such a brilliant artist, and at the the same time such a brilliant scientist. 

But who exactly is telling us this? And who goes a bit further still, in some cases, and tells us that the decline in the study of Greek and Latin was a necessary outcome of the rise of science brought about by people such as Leonardo?

Was the decline in competence in Greek and Latin necessary? Is it a good thing? 

I'm not saying that no people who are fluent in Greek and Latin have accepted such assertions. Obviously, many have. But I'm asking whether these ideas could have spread and taken hold to begin without mistaken ideas being aggressively spread by people with no knowledge of Latin or Greek, and, therefore, no idea what they were talking about, no idea of where art or science had come from.  

 Books by J Bronowski on Amazon: https://amzn.to/424W3Qu