TWO SUGGESTIONS AS TO WHY LANDSCAPE IS DEAD.

TWO SUGGESTIONS AS TO WHY LANDSCAPE IS DEAD. This article (link via Arts & Letters Daily) suggests an answer to Jackie Wullschlager’s question about the death of landscape (the question was “Why?”). Theodore Dalrymple gives two reasons for the abandonment of past art. He begins with the lack of interest in art history on the part of art students, giving the example of a student who is in her second year of art school and is taking a course in art history—she is currently studying Roy Liechtenstein, whose art career began in the 1950’s. He then identifies what he believes are two errors: “The first is the overestimation of originality as an artistic virtue in itself….What the new art ideology means by originality is that which has the power to shock… Only the rebellious is original and creative.” Dalrymple’s second reason is “the false analogy that is often drawn between art and science in point of progress…..Art teachers and critics use the false analogy with science in order to deny the importance of tradition in artistic production.” He points out that science builds on tradition. Scientists rely on the discoveries of those who went before. He denies that there is progress in art, with those who came later being superior to earlier artists.