Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/06/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Bob, Thank you for a chance to state what I meant with a bit more precision. I argee with you. Art history progresses. So does musicology. New techniques are discovered. Newer, more accurate information comes to light. Old things long lost are found. I also agree that art, at least some of the time, builds on what came before. But, I do not think that art "progresses" in the same sense that science does. I would argue that it was progress when we abandonned the notion that infection was caused by foul humors and nasty spirits and figured out that it was caused by microbes. One notion is demonstrably not correct and the other has helped create a healthier place to live. Matthew Brady's photographs are certainly different than those of Diane Arbus. I hesitate to call the journey from one to the other progress because it's much harder to make the case that one is superior to the other. I much prefer to say that art changes or evolves. There are, of course, people who are more than glad to attempt to make the case that one form or art is superior to the another. And, I agree, this is where the notion of method comes into to play. I don't think that you can demonstrate that folk music is "better" than rock in the same sense that you can demonstrate that the acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the earth is 16 ft/sec/sec. Quite the contrary. Art is exempt from this requirement. Science isn't. If art progresses, and I don't think it does, then it certainly progresses in a very different sense of the word than science. I certainly argee with you in that method makes them different. But, I also think that these vastly different notions of progress are also one of the things which make art and science different. I don't mean to quibble. For me art and science move in such different ways that I prefer to use totally different words to describe this motion. We may disagree. That's fine. After all, it's the LUG. Barney Bob Walkden wrote: > Hi, > > > The philosopher and theologian in me loves to get people to say, "humbug" > > because I like to get people thinking about their presumptions and prejudices. > > [...] > > > Science, I think, does progress > > by building on what came before. Art doesn't. That's what makes them different. > > Humbug. What makes them different is scientific method. > > By 'Art doesn't." do you mean that > > a) art doesn't progress, or that > b) it doesn't build on what came before, or > c) it does progress, but by other means than building on what came before, or > d) it does build on what came before but doesn't progress by it? > > The most rudimentary knowledge of art history is enough to demonstrate > that art does build on what came before. Most major artists and art > experts would probably consider art history to be progressive, too. > > --- > > Bob