michael_nielsen

.@Noahpinion Verifiable in principle. Imagine experiments that claim scribbles are "great art" and see how many agree.

Sure. But try this experiment: Show the Mona Lisa and a photorealistic portrait by a modern artist to a random non-Western person...

...and ask "Which of these two is great art?". I bet people not conditioned to value 14th-century Italian paintings will say the modern one.

Yes. Like saying that a paper which uses Special Relativity is greater than Einstein's original papers (i.e., it's wrong).

What makes great painters great is (in part) that they introduce - discover isn't too strong a word - new techniques.

Yes, I understand that history is very important to many art appreciators. That's why many think modern art is "great".

It's direct appreciation that Smith produced far more lasting insight than did his modern, superficially better counterparts