People have said similar things about artists throughout history. Oil Paint? Non-religious/mythical subjects? Impressionism? Fauvism? Cubism? Modern Art? Etc.
Throughout art history people have often not valued the new, but only the existing. Beaux-Arts de Paris in the late 1800's was the premiere art school in Europe training traditional artists; yet many eventually turned to impressionism, etc. and abandoned the old styles. I do "computer art" today and go in directions that are new. If all you do is what came before, everything including art will stagnate. Evolve or die is not just for biology.
Throughout art history the good stuff always floats to the top as it will always.
> This leads to Eliot's so-called "Impersonal Theory" of poetry. Since the poet engages in a "continual surrender of himself" to the vast order of tradition, artistic creation is a process of depersonalisation. The mature poet is viewed as a medium, through which tradition is channelled and elaborated. He compares the poet to a catalyst in a chemical reaction, in which the reactants are feelings and emotions that are synthesised to create an artistic image that captures and relays these same feelings and emotions. While the mind of the poet is necessary for the production, it emerges unaffected by the process. The artist stores feelings and emotions and properly unites them into a specific combination, which is the artistic product. What lends greatness to a work of art are not the feelings and emotions themselves, but the nature of the artistic process by which they are synthesised. The artist is responsible for creating "the pressure, so to speak, under which the fusion takes place." And, it is the intensity of fusion that renders art great. In this view, Eliot rejects the theory that art expresses metaphysical unity in the soul of the poet. The poet is a depersonalised vessel, a mere medium.
> Great works do not express the personal emotion of the poet. The poet does not reveal their own unique and novel emotions, but rather, by drawing on ordinary ones and channelling them through the intensity of poetry, they express feelings that surpass, altogether, experienced emotion. This is what Eliot intends when he discusses poetry as an "escape from emotion." Since successful poetry is impersonal and, therefore, exists independent of its poet, it outlives the poet and can incorporate into the timeless "ideal order" of the "living" literary tradition. [0]
> Throughout art history the good stuff always floats to the top as it will always.
No really. For example, you have political art, conceptual art, and topical performances that, while interesting, soon become irrelevant and likely won't float on top for very long. Likewise, many past excellent artists disappeared from the museum chart, so to say, and periodically resurfaced.
Depends. Ancient Egyptian art didn’t evolve that much and it remained for millennia as current without the feeling that it ‘stagnated’. There is nothing that says things need to eternally evolve. There is some advantage in some systems in evolution, but not all systems and not for every species and not even for man.
The question about Egyptian art is more difficult than it seems. Almost all the artifacts are the ones that could survive 1,000s of years and is quite sophisticated. What we don't get a good sample of is woodworking which is much easier to manipulate. The difficulty of stone work has a built-in limiting factor.
I’m not sure your assertion regarding ancient Egyptians’ feelings on art trends of their time can be tested :P
People create with what is at hand — this includes ideas, not just physical media. In my opinion, suggesting there is society-wide progress (or lack of it) in art is silly, like suggesting the same for fashion or cooking.
Exploration, technical evolution, yes. And progress in ideas, in society? Of course!
People do not value the new because the new has no value.
Tell me the importance of a x1SjelifbOoo. It's not important because it has no importance.
Value, in this way, is formed by way of merit; of doing. That which fails to be valued greater or equivalent to another is less valuable, and lesser than another.
Throughout art history people have often not valued the new, but only the existing. Beaux-Arts de Paris in the late 1800's was the premiere art school in Europe training traditional artists; yet many eventually turned to impressionism, etc. and abandoned the old styles. I do "computer art" today and go in directions that are new. If all you do is what came before, everything including art will stagnate. Evolve or die is not just for biology.