My view is essentially that objective qualities are a moot point if not supported by the people, essentially rich sponsors which was a required thing during Renaissance. Without the general public acceptance, a work of art will never become really "a work of art", but will stay forever or until ultimate acceptance "trash". There's been an ongoing development of art since the times of our ancestors painting on the walls of their cave, but I feel that, at any given time, that development would have been different if, say, Poussin hadn't been named First Painter of Louis XIII, or if the Medici hadn't shown much interets in art back in Florence during Michelangelo's time. Obviously, everything human has been at one point steered by the ideologies of each eras, but while we can't dispute the results of Science, I will always feel like we can dispute the results of Art.
While this is true, we can't speculate what art would've been if its history was different. We have no ground to even think about it. History doesn't deal in the subjunctive. We can only work on what we have. This is true for all history though, not only art. We don't know what would've happened to France if Robespierre hadn't enacted his Reign of Terror for example.
Originally Posted by Apocalypse
Opinions are essential for scientific progress. It just that one of the core concepts about those opinions is that you should be able to proof them right or wrong at some point in time and transform them into scientific facts.
I don't think those are considered opinions though, I'd classify them as hypotheses.
