My knowledge of post-modernism is vague and secondhand. However, one valuable thing I’ve gotten from the neighborhood of post-modernism is that, unlike the modern idea of the lone genius communing with the universe because of having a superior soul, people’s heads are full of prior art, and this makes a difference.
I’m not sure whether people believe that art can be devoid of precedent, but I do think that a lot of what drives high art for the past century more or less is the desire to have as little precedent as possible.
My knowledge of post-modernism is vague and secondhand. However, one valuable thing I’ve gotten from the neighborhood of post-modernism is that, unlike the modern idea of the lone genius communing with the universe because of having a superior soul, people’s heads are full of prior art, and this makes a difference.
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I just meant that people generally build on art they’ve already seen/heard/read rather than being completely original.
The difference is that criticism is mistaken if it only praises things for being completely new.
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Depends what you mean by “seriously”. The copyright industry largely feeds on said myth, for example.
I’m not sure whether people believe that art can be devoid of precedent, but I do think that a lot of what drives high art for the past century more or less is the desire to have as little precedent as possible.