Please consider the term "historic division" in the following context, (paraphrased for clarity from Art Through The Ages, Eighth Edition; by De La Croix and Tansley; pg. 809):

The bifurcation of the pictorial arts into optical realism and imaginative figuration is a historic division.

Does the author mean that this division up until this point was unprecedented and was in fact the first time it occurred in history? Or, rather, is he saying that there was a precedence as can be evidenced more than once throughout all history?

I think this is a sticking point in that field (visual arts)—whether artists throughout the ages have always aspired to achieve literalism/realism in their paintings, until the 19th century (minimalism, pointilism, expressionism, impressionism, etc.)... Perhaps the author is trying to make a case for one or the other, but I can’t tell from the limited context provided exactly what the author is endorsing.

Would you care to expand the context for us?

-Tim

[quote author=Tim Ward link=board=idiom;num=1074841289;start=0#1 date=01/23/04 at 10:05:24]... Perhaps the author is trying to make a case for one or the other, but I can’t tell from the limited context provided exactly what the author is endorsing.

Would you care to expand the context for us?

-Tim

Ahh, context ... I just went over the text again and discovered I had overlooked a statement (in bold below) that makes it pretty clear the author had in fact meant what I had felt, that this was a first; the usage being is in line with yourdictionary’s definition. (So, turns out this question was a gramatical one and not an idiomatic one after all. Oh well. It was late.) For the record:

[sub]... What we do perceive by mid-century is a bifurcation of the pictorial arts not heretofore seen. It is a bifurcation of specialty and purpose: one branch, optical realism, leading to the photograph and the motion picture; the other, imaginative figuration, leading to the abstract art of the twentieth century. The former is directed to the public and popular taste; the latter, for the most part, to a select, specially trained audience.

It is necessary, finally to point out the factors that contributed to this historical division…[/sub]

Thanks.

I don’t know about the rest of the Agora, but I’d personally ignore the opinions of anyone seriously using the word "heretofore".

- PW

[quote author=Palewriter link=board=idiom;num=1074841289;start=0#3 date=01/23/04 at 22:17:36]I don’t know about the rest of the Agora, but I’d personally ignore the opinions of anyone seriously using the word "heretofore".

- PW

But why? Seriously.

PW is a curmudgeon

Possibly, but I didn’t get this way overnight.

Heretofore is the kind of word I’d expect to encounter in a legal tract. And I don’t like legal tracts much. "Before" would work just as well in the context and not distract the reader (me) from the point of the ariticle, which is an interesting one. Just my 2¢.

- PW

I tend to agree with PW here… "Heretofore"...?  This is the 21st Century, after all!

-Tim

[quote author=Tim Ward link=board=idiom;num=1074841289;start=0#7 date=01/25/04 at 08:05:39]I tend to agree with PW here… "Heretofore"...?  This is the 21st Century, after all!

-Tim

Alas, inarguable evidence of the fleeting power of language, destined to be discarded and trampled underfoot by us Moderns. Would you believe that the author’s (Miss Helen Gardner) language was considered to be "fresh" and "simple" within academic circles of her time (first edition was copyright 1926, many times since)? I’d like to think I take her seriously because I have an empathic ability to forgive circumstance to a large degree. That’s not intended as a shot across anyone’s bow here, just an observation, without judgement, of two very distinct and equally valid points of view. But I dare you to admit it’s at least partially disconcerting that any and all of the ideas you and I have are bound to be sloughed off and dismissed by future generations—likely to simply die—in a world culture that values experience over knowledge, technique over universal meaning.

Kurt

[quote author=KatyBr link=board=idiom;num=1074841289;start=0#5 date=01/24/04 at 11:17:09]
Ends, welcome to our lil fambly,   First thing you need to know is that PW is a curmudgeon, he practices curmudgeonly ways in all areas at all times.

However heretofore is a bit pretentious eh?

Katy

Thanks for the warm welcome Katy! It’s good to be back (I admit to posting under Quaternity a few moons ago).

Kurt

Quaternity… It’s been an eternity!  Welcome back!

I admit to feeling disconcerted about future generations vis-a-vis ideas and their value.  Ironically, your closing remarks are akin to those opinions expressed for thousands of years, eh?  It’s possible that these feelings of discontent come with age…?

One of my undergraduate professors made it a point in a music history course to spread her opinion regarding the paintings of the Middle Ages.  These paintings were a particular style, she said; if the artists were living in the late Romantic era, they likely would have been impressionists or expressionists, etc.  They weren’t incapable of the technical accomplishments of the Renaissance; they were simply painting in a different style.

My 2¢—I don’t buy it.  The paintings speak for themselves, in my opinion…

-Tim

[quote author=Tim Ward link=board=idiom;num=1074841289;start=0#10 date=01/26/04 at 20:37:10]It’s possible that these feelings of discontent come with age…?

In my case, just ossification beyond my years!  ;D

One of my undergraduate professors made it a point in a music history course to spread her opinion regarding the paintings of the Middle Ages.  These paintings were a particular style, she said; if the artists were living in the late Romantic era, they likely would have been impressionists or expressionists, etc.  They weren’t incapable of the technical accomplishments of the Renaissance; they were simply painting in a different style.

My 2¢—I don’t buy it.  The paintings speak for themselves, in my opinion…

I would have to agree with you here. Seems to me, and I could be wrong, that both of the eras you mention are related in that it was experience, and therefore technique that was most important, not some haughty, pretentious formalism. And to argue that technique is so easily interchangeable is in a sense like saying that there are no unique experiences or lifelong set of experiences.

But the same token, some claim a solidarity of individual experience, too (the homogenizing nature of democracy declares the one thing we all have in common is our differences, for example). And any realization of an idea whether it be based on experience on one side or idealism on the other, must become materialized into some—if it’s good—recognizeable form, and thus in time will become sufficiently and neccesarily fatigued.

Whew! I’m now going to get drunk and go streaking.

Kurt