Tradition and Innovation

Maria do Rosário Monteiro, Mário Ming Kong, Maria do Rosário Monteiro, Mário S. Ming Kong

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000396539
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Sociologia

The texts presented in Proportion Harmonies and Identities (PHI) Tradition and Innovation were compiled with the intent to establish a multidisciplinary platform for the presentation, interaction, and dissemination of researches. They also aim to foster the awareness and discussion on the topic of Tradition and Innovation, focusing on different visions relevant to Architecture, Arts and Humanities, Design and Social Sciences, and its importance and benefits for the sense of identity, both individual and communal. The idea of Tradition and Innovation has been a significant motor for development since the Western Early Modern Age. Its theoretical and practical foundations have become the working tools of scientists, philosophers, and artists, who seek strategies and policies to accelerate the development process in different contexts.

Part I
Tradition and innovation

Introduction

Mário S. Ming Kong

CIAUD, Lisbon School of Architecture, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4236-2240

ABSTRACT: “A tradition is kept alive only by something being added to it.”

Henry James (1843–1916)

“I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research, and you learn the basic facts.”

Bill Gates

Keywords: Tradition Innovation Shapes Artes Architecture

DOI 10.1201/9780429297786-1

1 Tradition and Innovation

We understand tradition as a repeated practice of acts, based on knowledge and procedures developed over time, in a society.

By innovation, we mean the development and use of new products, methods, or concepts.

Each civilization has developed its methods and codes of conduct throughout its history to regulate life’s various aspects. However, a society based only on tradition does not evolve, remains stuck in the past, and refuses what is different and does not fit its view of the world.

When a society focuses only on innovation and progress, when its focus is only on the future, it loses its own identity forged by its history and the knowledge and methods developed and accumulated over generations.

In this sense, we can say that a society might be characterized by its ability to harmonize tradition with innovation. This balance will be reflected in the various aspects of life, whether in its codes of social conduct, the justice system, art, architecture, urban planning, design, technologies, etc.

Let us look at some examples.

The existence of humanity presupposes an action that creates shapes. Shapes that provide, for example, shelter, tools, ornaments. In this sense, shapes represent a continuity of man’s achievements, a way of overcoming his mortality through the immortality of created shapes and forms. Being the protagonist of creation, he transmits his identity to the shapes he creates. Henri Focillon said that life is shaped, and that shape is the living form of life. (2000, p. 12)

Humanity seeks through the creation of shapes and forms to achieve eternity. In this search, the human being is influenced by experience and knowledge, which depend on the culture in which s/he operates; this context changes proportionally to the variety of cultures, to a certain extent, it is subject to time (time) and space (nation), as referred by Wassily Kandinsky (2018, p. 16).

Figure 1. The School of Athens 1509–1511 (Italian: Scuola di Atene) is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. 500 cm × 770 cm (200 in × 300 in). In the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.

Consequently, the human being relationship with forms and shapes acquires very diverse concepts depending on a given culture (Schulz 1969, p. 220).

Thus, individuals acquire a cultural dimension, as each civilization has its ways of knowing its forms, relating to them, understanding and assimilating them (cf. Langer 1953, pp. 96–98 and 372–373). In this sense, wrote Hall, that individuals who belong to distinct cultures speak different languages but inhabit different sensory worlds (Hall 1986, p. 113). Only by knowing these realities can one understand the origin and development of things, shapes, and forms created within these cultures.

Because the shape is a contained form, being a strict definition of space, it is also a suggestion of other shapes. Therefore, it can produce a pleasant or unpleasant effect, look beautiful or ugly, harmonious or disharmonious, skillful or gross, etc. These notions are relative, which is very clear if we consider the infinite series of existing shapes and forms.

We consider shapes and forms as a kind of loom, through which we can enter an uncertain realm, which is neither physical nor mental space, but a glimpse of a multitude of images waiting to be born. The form continues and spreads in the imagination (Langer 1953, p. 373). Rudolf Arnheim mentions, following this line of ideas, that artistic imagination can be described more closely with the discovery of a new form for old content, or - if one does not want to use the comfortable dichotomy between form and content - as a new concept of an old subject (Arnheim 1980, p. 132).

Humanity always had the longing for order because it needs an intellectual balance for his mental satisfaction. The need for the order shows up in the various manifestations of everyday life, whether in its material or spiritual aspects. In the book Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, Rudolf Wittkower states that our psychophysical nature requires the concept of order, particularly a mathematical rule (1995, p. 207).

Plato stated in Timaeus that God wanted all things done well and that, as far as possible, none be wrong; and so, picked up all that was visible but against the rules and in a disorderly manner and changed them from disorder to order, considering what the better way (1984, p. 261) was.

In fact, it becomes more agreeable to the human being when the difficulties of life are softened through an adequate organization. In this sense, we agree with Raymond Bayer: order is a regularity, a hierarchy, a rhythm, a multiplicity in unity; therefore, it can become an aesthetic concept (1978, p. 42). Consequently, it is natural that this search for order also manifests itself in any expression of art, the fruit of human creative imagination, and transposed into plastic forms, evocative of vital phenomena.

Inventions are practically always innovations which, in turn, are almost always new disguises of things already known, or, at least, part of things previously known. The observation that nothing emerges from nothing has been attributed to Parmenides. If for Aristotle, the enchantment comes, even and mainly, through recognition (XII-3-1178-1). Freud explained the strange as something already known, but in a different context (1919). One way or another, innovation, even in a disruptive process, is more articulating thought than the emergence of something completely new.

Between innovations and traditions, the human being inscribes himself in the world and writes his history. Inventions are the hallmark of history, itself an invention. One may present a simple proof: the assumed landmark for the passage from Prehistory to History was the invention of writing in approximately 3,500 BC.

These facts help us to assume that tradition always starts with an invention. Today’s traditions were once innovations that reached us due to cultural assimilation, maintained, and spread over time and space. Tradition and innovation are elements of culture. Innovation is the origin of the tradition, even before these two concepts were conceived and understood.

Thus, any imaginative creation requires a stimulating principle that always comes from outside, allowing the spirit to operate the conversation between inspiration and creation. In this perspective, the human capacity to think and visually associate with other assumptions is simultaneously his reverie and a method of materializing the creative impulses.

However, we can assume that at any time, in any culture, society’s ultimate goal will always be to provide quality of life to its members.

acknowledgment

This chapter had the financial support of CIAUD through the strategic project sponsored by FCT (UIDB/04008/2020).

References

• Aristótles. Metafísica, XII-3-1178-1.
• Arnheim, Rudolf. (1980). Arte e percepção visual. São Paulo: Pioneira Thomson Learning Ltda.
• Bayer, Raymond, (1978). Históriada Estética, Lisbon: Editorial Estampa, Lda.
• Focillon, Henri. (2000). A vida das formas. Lisbon: Edições 70.
• Freud, Sigmund. (1919). Das Unheimliche, IMAGO, 5/6 297–324.
• Gates, Bill. (2011) Interview: Was the $5 Billion Worth It? Wall Street Journal (July 23rd).
• Hall, Edward T. (1986). A dimensão Oculta. Lisbon: Relógio D’Água Editores.
• James, Henry. (1888). Robert Louis Stevenson. Century Magazine, XXXV, 869–879.
• Kandinsky, Wassily. (2018). Gramática da criação. Lisbon, Edições 70.
• Langer, Susanne K. (1953). Feeling and Form. A theory of art. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
• Platão. (1984). Timeu, II, in Diálogos IV. Lisbon: Europa América.
• Schulz, Cristian Norberg. (1969). Meaning in Architecture. London, Charles Lenks & George Baird.
• Wittkower, Rudolf. (1995). Architectural Principles in the age of humanism. London: The British Architectural Library.

Claus’ opera?

Aleksander Józef Olszewski

Faculty of Art, Kazimierz Pułaski University of Technology and Humanities, Radom, Poland

ABSTRACT: The introduction presents general comments on art’s philosophy and the relationship between curator, sponsor, and author. The second part presents necessary information about the author’s creative path and information about the use of morphological analysis in creative activities and showing its functioning in practice on the example of colleagues’ works.

Keyword: Art philosophy curator art management aesthetics morphological analysis

DOI 10.1201/9780429297786-2

1 Introduction

There was an inscription at the entrance to Plato Academy: Medeis ageometretos eisito mu ten slegen - “No one who does not know geometry has access to my house.”

Art has always been connected to the “mansion” … with power. The consequence of this was a work that realized the aims of the mansion. In my opinion, it is similar to contemporary art. Instead of the courts of kings, princes, there are European funds, foundations, grants, etc. Consequently, when choosing an art option, you have to realize the curator’s ideas, who organizes the funds. The source of financing influences the character of art. In my opinion, contemporary art can be very generally divided into progressive, conservative, and exploratory. Progressive struggles with homophobia, religion, climate, sex, and politics; the form for this art is usually action, installation, and provocation.

On the other hand, there are artists called conservatives who explore and interpret the visible world’s eternal themes. There is also the art of discovery, which searches the invisible areas to the eye, often related to science. This kind of art is expressed not only by traditional techniques but also by new technologies. If you do not follow the philosophy of some “stable,” a curator, you do not exist financially and artistically. The third option usually finances itself, but in this way, it retains its independence and freedom. Freedom in art seems to be something self-evident in the general sense, but it is not easy in the individual dimension. Each of us seeks freedom. Each of us tries to find our ideal of art. When we cover the ideal with it, we achieve freedom, but don’t we become slaves to form? I do not know how it is and how it should be? So much for the introduction. Below are a few sentences about the beginning of my work…

Freedom in art, as I mentioned above, seems to be something self-evident. However, St. Augustine of Hippona claimed that past states determine free will. What does that mean? Is it a kind of college, studio, environment, a tradition of the environment? So, I wonder how much free will is in my actions and what part the past determines me. For a long time, I have described my actions as systemic art, and in the broad sense of the word, they are. I have derived this term from design arts, which must act strictly to achieve the goal. At this point, I want to return to the past for a moment and explain the “deterministic” nature of my diploma works, which I realized in the studio of Lech Kunka, a student of Władysław Strzemiński. Lech Kunka introduced me to the wor...