# Does art/music evolve?



## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

In art do we consider the cave paintings at Altamira, Spain inferior as compared to Vermeer?



















In music do we feel the music of Perotin to have less worth than F.J. Haydn?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Does the word evolve necessarily mean going from worse to better? I was under the impression that you could use it interchangeably with "change".


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

+1 to Violadude's comment. Art certainly does evolve in the sense that it changes, but that says nothing of how good it is.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

There are different ways of seeing or theorising about the history of the arts, incl. music. One is the "grand narrative" view that is kind of linked to new generations of artistic creators taking the baton from earlier ones and developing further the old ideas. It's like a relay race. I'm not a subscriber to this view, I see it as outdated. There are other views and theories, I'm not an expert in this, it's been a while since I've picked up a book about this. But you do read about this in books on the arts, definitely.

I agree with the gist of what the two guys say above. Eg. I think that things like Antoine Brumel's_ Earthquake Mass _of about 1500, if I remember correctly, is just as complex and sophisticated as something like Ligeti's _Requiem _of the 1960's. The recording I heard of the Brumel has 3 organs, also a brass band and the choir. Ligeti's I think only has the choir and brass orchestra. But this is a superficial anaylsis. However, it does give an inkling how Brumel's work would most likely have been admired by the likes of Ligeti or composers today. This Brumel piece is only rivalled in complexity by Tallis' roughly contemporaneous _Spem in Alium_, which is more famous but I haven't heard it lately.

I don't know if the grand narrative view works with the Brumel &/or Tallis comparing it to something by say Ligeti or Penderecki, etc. It may work in comparing the cave painting & the Vermeer, but like all theories it has it's limitations. In some or maybe even many cases, examples with more "grey areas" involved, it will fall down flat and be of little or no use in viewing the sweep of art history...


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## Head_case (Feb 5, 2010)

violadude said:


> Does the word evolve necessarily mean going from worse to better? I was under the impression that you could use it interchangeably with "change".


Probably not: to 'evolve', cannot be consubstantial with the concept of 'change'.

For instance; it is within human nature to change; every moment, you are changing - thus, one man states, 'no man steps into a river twice'; the river always flows; always changes, therefore it is river in nature only, if its substance (water) flows and changes.

The concept of cultural evolution, itself has to ex-volvere: to revolve, or to change, is the normal cycle of things, like beings; like music, which the Romans and Greeks understand. To ex-volvere ... to stand out, from this very normative process of change, is the root of what it means conceptually, to 'change'. That is - something new, has come about, rather than just the usual run of the mill on-goings.



> In art do we consider the cave paintings at Altamira, Spain inferior as compared to Vermeer?


Surely not. The cave paintings, were 3 dimensional, experienced in the light of a darkened cave - only an artist of the light, could see the very virtue of this very act. Vermeer himself would not have considered so: his expression of light, is very different from that of the cave paintings, and seeks neither to express nor transform it: Vermeer's work here, is an outdoor scene, filled with people, not animals.

This is often why in crits, the person who asks the question, shudders before asking. Does it make sense to ask if there is a 'hierarchy' of inferiority, or superiority, in the aesthetic realm? We are not dealing with value judgements: otherwise, comparing apples and bananas, both operate within a classification of edible fruit, and little else, in the same way that cave paintings and Vermeer, are both classified as 'art'.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Head_case said:


> ...
> This is often why in crits, the person who asks the question, shudders before asking. Does it make sense to ask if there is a 'hierarchy' of inferiority, or superiority, in the aesthetic realm? We are not dealing with value judgements: otherwise, comparing apples and bananas, both operate within a classification of edible fruit, and little else, in the same way that cave paintings and Vermeer, are both classified as 'art'.


Comparing is okay, eg. things from earlier with later things. But it has to be done in a commonsense way, and not to degrade one thing and elevate the other. Otherwise it becomes about a certain person's agenda not really about what's the subject of the comparison. I don't even mind dodgy comparing, esp. on this forum when it's not an academic journal or something. But I don't like this kind of rubbery logic when so-called "evidence" is called up, like a slew of youtube clips, etc. to ram home a certain "point" (read agenda or ideology) with a ten tonne crayon. It doesn't tick any boxes with me, it's just treating me & most others here who can think like a baby in diapers. Eg. in another thread, "comparing" a purely concert hall work with a slightly earlier piece originally meant for the ballroom is just ridiculous, it won't wash with me at all. I mean if the point of the comparison is to elevate one and correspondingly degrade the other.

Venting and ranting as usual but these points may well be relevant here. In any case, Headcase, what you wrote there made me think of these things...


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## Head_case (Feb 5, 2010)

Yes...

it reminds me of my first crits in photography when I was 18. We worked in a small group with our tutor every week, asked to work around analysing our peers work. One of the guys would always come out with "well that's a bit shhh*tt innit?" 

The knee jerk laughter was hard to stifle, but he couldn't quite handle it, when the tables were turned. His turn ..! I think we learnt more from listening to our colleagues work around a crit, than purely from the image itself. Years later, speaking with those not involved in imaging work, there are a lot of reactions which raise a smile. That cave painter must be laughing in stitches more than Banksy's graffiti on the London Underground


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

Of course, you are right. For some reason, my education, I suppose, I always think of the word 'evolve' as meaning 'from a lower state to a higher one'. And, if that were the case I would say that art does not evolve.



violadude said:


> Does the word evolve necessarily mean going from worse to better? I was under the impression that you could use it interchangeably with "change".


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

NightHawk said:


> Of course, you are right. For some reason, my education, I suppose, I always think of the word 'evolve' as meaning 'from a lower state to a higher one'. And, if that were the case I would say that art does not evolve.


Of course, it's extremely important in biological circles to recognise that even biological evolution is not about moving from lower states to higher states - it's about adapting to selective pressures, and sometimes that can mean _reducing_ in complexity.


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

Very cool.  I just had a lightbulb moment, there











Polednice said:


> Of course, it's extremely important in biological circles to recognise that even biological evolution is not about moving from lower states to higher states - it's about adapting to selective pressures, and sometimes that can mean _reducing_ in complexity.


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

Polednice said:


> it's about adapting to selective pressures, and sometimes that can mean _reducing_ in complexity.


Couldn't help thinking about today's headlines re the massive demonstrations in Moscow, and here, in the US, it would seem...the decline of the new world. And, election year is upon us.

Let's see, something about music...oh, Hans Werner Henze - _Barcarola per Grande Orchestra_, (1979) - stunning.


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## hespdelk (Mar 19, 2011)

From my perspective, I'd say it does "evolve" in the sense that future generations are able to build from what has come before. This does not imply an inherent qualitative improvement - great works of the rennaissance and baroque are no lesser achievements to those of the romantic and 20th century even if the latter had the benefit of the former's experience.

As an example pulled out of the air - even on superficial viewing, its pretty clear that Ravel had more tools to work with than, say, Palestrina. _Tools_ both in the theory of music (harmony, rythm, counterpoint, melodic structure) and also from the extra possibilities presented by the quality of modern instruments (apart from the voice, just about any other instrument had come a long way from its forebear of the 1500s - and though harder to determine, possibly the theory of vocal production as well).

The substance of music had "evolved" with each new contribution that made the common practice, thus expanding the possibilities and options available to a composer. We can define this with the word "change" as well, but I don't think evolve is out of place as there is a process of building and adding on. We can say that composers are adaptive, adapting to technical changes but this could be a chicken before the egg question as most technical changes were spurred by composers and musicians. 
Social changes are a different story.. they more often cause de-volution.. :lol:

As for the music itself - I don't see the difference as qualitative, as each composer was a master within the forms and means of their time - and in my view transcending those temporal limitations for all times. For example, much as I love Wagner I sometimes long for the classical clarity of Mozart and Haydn - or the harmonic purity of Palestrina. Then again, I believe some things transcend their time and are always valid.

Regarding de-volution - less common, but I'd say it is not only possible but has happened at different times - usually due to social upheavals though (thus my previous quip).. I'll cite an example from literature. Recently I was reading the Arthurian Romances by Chretien de Troyes - much as I love them for what they are, in just about every literary quality you could cite they are.. rather severly lacking compared to the great works of antiquity which the medieval authors would have been familiar with, and again with the works of the "modern" age that would begin to emerge again in the rennaissance.


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## Air (Jul 19, 2008)

It's a bit disheartening that every little change needs to be objectified as either "good" or "bad". 

Can't change simply be change? There is no consistency in such things. We're not "changing for the better", we're just changing for the, well... different. And whether a certain "different" is good or bad is a completely "different" matter.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Technique tends to improve, which doesn't necessarily say anything about value.


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

*hespdelk wrote:*



> As an example pulled out of the air - even on superficial viewing, its pretty clear that Ravel had more tools to work with than, say, Palestrina. Tools both in the theory of music (harmony, rythm, counterpoint, melodic structure) and also from the extra possibilities presented by the quality of modern instruments (apart from the voice, just about any other instrument had come a long way from its forebear of the 1500s - and though harder to determine, possibly the theory of vocal production as well).


I do wonder to what degree that is true. Knowledge about Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music was very limited in Ravel's day and having some theoretical knowledge but little abilty to actually realise it in performance isn't necessarily all that useful -they're tools that are only partially understood and might merely create a faux version of the past. Obviously it is true that someone like Ravel would've known a lot more about harmony than Palestrina and would 've been well grounded in counterpoint too, so I'm not dismissing your argument by any means as it's certainly true in some respects.

While instruments might seem an obvious point I do question that too (aside from the question of which of Palestrina's instrumerntal compositions you think would've benefited from modern instruments...). I'm just not convinced that's how the creative process works, at least most of the time -I think that the creation tends to come from working with the tools (instruments in this example) you have rather than from some abstrct conception which is then frustrated by the limitations of the tools to hand.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Technologies can improve (giving painters a wider range of colors to work with, for instance). This can be called improvement. 

Tastes change like fashions. This cannot be called improvement, except in polemics.


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