What's your opinion on the "old knowledge"?

Darth_Biomech 2020-07-19 13:28:53 UTC #1

Every time I went to study something, my parents always were there drilling my head "why did you read this stuff, go read the X book, it was written couple decades ago and thus is tested, reliable and best to learn from, drop this modern junk written by fools that have no idea what they're talking about." (Note: and oversimplification of what they were really saying to better transfer their point of view across).

I've found this view again and again all over the place from various people - old textbooks are better than the new ones because they were written by more respectable people. That 1965 encyclopedia tome on the bookshelf is infinitely better than this yours "wackypodia" because the book was written, reviewed and published by an institution, and not "some random anonymous dipshit from the Internet".

This book on learning how to draw is shit, you better go get the actually good copy of anatomy for artists from 1950s.

But I often find myself disagreeing on all of these statements.

Old encyclopedias ruling because they were edited and reviewed? Rubbish with short generalizing articles (many of them being shorter than a tweet) that sometimes omit some information or even outright censored by the state or heavily biased in certain aspects (soviet ones for example), they define computer as "expensive scientific tool used to perform complex calculations", have no article on what's a modem or HIV is, and homosexuality is defined as a mental illness.

Old scientific theories being better than new ones? The most ridiculous claims that I've heard, they're either outdated or just plain wrong by modern day's discoveries.

Old anatomy books being the critical step in being good at drawing? Maybe they were written by titans of artistic fields and absolute masters of the brush, but I find modern books on same topic being incredibly asier to digest: there's informative and VERY useful generalizations, easier to follow language, more structured and defined study of the human anatomy rather than just a hyper-realistic ecorche rendering of a human forearm with all the muscles marked and insistence that in order to be good at drawing it is VITAL for you to memorize ALL of these latin names.

History... Well, let's not touch that, since it is a bit of a radioactive pile of mess. On one hand there's stuff like "actually, everything you thought you knew about the middle ages is a lie invented either during Renaissance or Victorian eras", on the other hand we have the "actually, the USA had singlehandedly won the second World War and Soviets did nothing in it except pillaged and raped the innocents because that's what russians do" modern "improvements".

On a tangential thought, I also remember our history textbooks from the school days: out of the six books for six grades, information about anything that had happen after 1940s span just few chapters at the end of sixth book, almost an afterthought, all the while theme of the ancient Greece and Egypt took the entirety of the first textbook, if not more. Despite arguably modern history should be more relevant and important to teach and know in detail than some Macedonia shenanigans from over two thousand years ago.

In general I caught myself on thinking that any modern take on something is going to be inherently better and more refined than the old one, with the only exception to that rule being the computer software. New Photoshop is an ugly mess and nothing will ever be better than the ol' trusty and simple glorious CS3 version. =P

So in general rule of thumb it's far more advantageous to search for some modern textbook on a subject, rather than dig up a dusty tome published in the 80s.
What do you think?

jensrichard77 2020-07-19 13:50:27 UTC #2

Yep. You said it right there.
But do not be a fool, be critical to all new and old materiel

DukeOfOool 2020-07-19 13:55:07 UTC #3

I think it's a common misconception, a misinterpretation of facts. The classics aren't better because they're old, but because they're good and withstood the test of time; being published over and over again; and they still rake in tons of money.
But some people turn this fact on the head and claim everything old is better. Not realizing at all that most rubbish got sorted out over the years.

Also we shouldn't forget that progress exists and new things might very well trump some of these classics. So I'd say the modern, but not too recent media is the best. That way some guinea pigs will try out these things, without wasting your own time.

Another thing is personal preference and the movement of trends. Some things are understood as good, untill it's so overdone it's seen as garbage. Go the other direction and rinse and repeat. So we'll always have a "good" time where something is new and inovative followed by a trend, always ending in a garbage pit. At these times saying previous works in the same media were better is mostly correct, but that's only a time difference of a few years.

To people with tunnel vision it seems like things are getting worse, they then take the later improvement as a small step in the right direction, only to see it fall into another trash spiral. That's because humans are way more sensible to bad imputs, about 10X more sensible than to the good input. So mentaly it turns into something like -10, +1, -10, +1, -10....
Creating the illusion of deterioration, but that's only our lizard brain trying to trick us out of complacency and make us work better.

skicoak 2020-07-19 14:36:00 UTC #4

I think you run the risk of over generalizing, in the opposite direction, to oppose what your parents are saying.

There's generally an advantage to not referring to outdated material but when I was in academia what you most frequently found in "updates" were attempts to completely rework terminology and re-conceptualize everything to a modern bias. That behavior just creates an endless loop of ignoring the source material and re-updating the latest update. This does eventually create inferior and increasingly muddled attempts at creating a superior copy of the original.

Think of it as a variation of the party game Broken Telephone...except in book form.

IdiotWithPencil 2020-07-19 15:27:52 UTC #5

a yes like newtons law such a flawed theory, or Einsteins general relativity or all of geometry and math dating back to 10000 BC, all wrong.

Science is build upon old theory being tested and proven, new theories are the ones being disproven time and time again by the simple fact that they are trying new stuff that may or may not work hell just look at nutritional science either wine is bad or good depending on what new study appears, of course some new theories disprove old ones but that is few and far between compared to new theories disproving relatively new theories.

old books are actually quite good (have a 1950s book and art and it is better than most ones I have read) also some books just can't be beaten by modern standards just look at animators survival kit, that book is pushing 100 and it is still the go-to book for beginners in animation by the simple fact that it was written by one of the biggest names in animations. Also, you don't need to memorize the muscles names but it does help you to know they exist hell I was drawing this recently

and in the armpit I got completely confused with 3 muscles and I had to read their names just to know where they started and connected, it's more of a reference tool

this is more an education in general, read actual history books and most are conjecture to a point because they didn't keep records or the records where basically propaganda (vikings and critianity for example) but something are written in stone and can be said to have happened for such and such reasons, hell in the middel ages we basically know almost everything by the fact that we have millions of books about it

No,nononononono NO, I wholeheartedly disagree you should read ALL, modern and old, from the 80s back have some of the most detailed and best books in subject pertaining to fundamentals of drawings and compositions, hell modern books are only useful cause they copy/paste summaries of older books, it's like saying the movie is better than the book, or that the Tesis I made about romeo and juliet was better than the actual play.

these books have passed the test of time and are used to this day still, why wouldn't you want to read them? even to just see what isit all about?

Authors like Andrew Loomis, Richar Williams, George Bridgmanare, etc are pillars of modern drawings why the hell would you not want to learn from them? why limit yourself?

Darth_Biomech 2020-07-19 15:36:32 UTC #6

Movies can't be better or worse than books, since movies are not books.

IdiotWithPencil 2020-07-19 15:37:29 UTC #7

no but the movie is an adaptation of the information of the book, the same can be said with modern books, they adapt old knowledge and information from older books and water it down, just like a movie

let's put it this way if I am studying for and exam why would I read a water down summary of the subject instead of the full blown text book that goes in depth and explained every detail of the subject?

you don't see a movie to make a thesis on a book and you don't read modern books without also reading their predecessors, you end up in both cases with the same problem. An incomplete picture

Darth_Biomech 2020-07-19 15:43:25 UTC #8

Well, the ones I had read shat on any art style except classical realism, along with actual art teachers. Either you're trying to draw like Rubens, or you don't know how to draw at all. Illustration? Stylization? Phssst, THE ARTIST should not lower himself to this plebs shit.

IdiotWithPencil 2020-07-19 15:48:37 UTC #9

and? ignore that shit and get the techniques, if the dude is calling others shit he better have the skill to back it up if not then fuck it, Andrew Loomis went on a 3-page rant about modern art but you can skip that and go straight to the actual teachings. Also if you learn realism stylization becomes easier cause you know where everything is

you can't draw this

without knowing this

art, like life, has no free lunches you want to learn how to draw then practices, read and learn everything you can, there are no short cuts, even photobashing or using 3d models won't help if you don't have an understanding of form, light and anatomy.

Jenny-Toons 2020-07-19 15:49:05 UTC #10

I'm going to be frank: to assune all modern knowledge is better than older knowledge is a bit ignorant.

Modern knowledge is just as vulnerable to propoganda and bias that don't focus on truth. I think we ought to put that out there.

Not to mention that most of what we have NOW is based on science and knowledge that worked 3000 years ago.

Ancient Egypt? India? Astronomy still works on the knowledge they created and used.

The Americas had advanced civilisations in both sexuality, sanitary systems, and sustainability.

Gravity. Just Gravity and the Space time continuum.

We learn from the old to do better. Modern technology always has room to improve, and we base that improvement on what we did and learned from the past. Sugery from the 1910s didn't have high success rates compared to now. But without that old data and research, we wouldn't have better success rates either in 2020.

Old technology might not be better, compare to some of what we have now, but we use it to get better and "try" to learn from our mistakes.

Also, if you're reading books that obviously have a bias, it's your job as a critical thinker to acknowledge that bias and find more books with less of one.

Darth_Biomech 2020-07-19 15:59:28 UTC #11

There's also a thing that I've learned much more on how to draw humans from this twitter
https://twitter.com/taco1704
than from any teaching book I've ever read, even considering that I have no idea what is actually written in there. It's just so disturbingly more ample, clear and to the point.

I do admit that probably these are crippling shortcuts and not a "real" knowledge and if I'll use them I'll never be able to learn how to draw in a "proper" way. That's fine. I am not intend to pursue career as a painter or a professional illustrator. I'm making an amateur comic and I need to spearhead my quality into specific things as fast as possible while sacrificing everything else, because I do not have time to spend four years to learn anatomy the proper way, nor can I afford that in all meanings of the word.

IdiotWithPencil 2020-07-19 16:12:47 UTC #12

lovely you have no idea what it sais and yet you can undertsand it more than a book in english, you sir are a treat X'D

yes, cause comic artist has no need for anatomy, perspective, composition, light and dark, or anything and artist needs to learn good luck with that.

most of the old-timey books are free online while modern books with comparable knowledge are 100 to 500 dollars, again excuses.

the last post since you seem to be stuck in your ways and really don't want to listen or accept dissenting opinions X'D

kitschensyngk 2020-07-19 17:12:55 UTC #13

One of humanity's most unique gifts is that of self-improvement.

Every new discovery is based on an old discovery and provides a clearer picture on previous discoveries.

Old knowledge is the foundation from which new knowledge emerges, and new knowledge improves upon old knowledge.

Learning is an endless cycle of what we knew then begetting what we know now.

Inspector_Spinda 2020-07-19 17:26:43 UTC #14

this makes ZERO sense. I mean old stuff in terms of fiction that have become classics are generally pretty good, but old non fiction is just outdated lmao

Darth_Biomech 2020-07-19 17:57:12 UTC #15

I was talking more about arts college education, really. Since I don't know how to self-educate if texts from textbooks don't cling to my mind while some Korean drawings from twitter do (Or, as you put it, "don't accept dissenting opinions"). =\

rajillustration 2020-07-19 19:43:43 UTC #16

When it comes to art, often we turn to older books for anatomy because when Modern art took over illustration and fine art--we basically stopped teaching figure drawing in art school for like 30-40+ years (in the States, at least). My art teachers were not taught figure drawing when they were in college, they had to look that up in Andrew Loomis (which was a VERY rare book for a long while), and figure drawing and realism as a standard for art students to learn did not come back until we recently realized that animation and concept art are like--reallllly lucrative fields (and even then, if you are a Fine Artists and not an Illustator/Animator, you may never have to sit in front of a figure and memorize anatomy and muscles.)

Nowadays there's really good books out there on figure drawing, help yourself, but we don't have quite so many on realistic landscapes or realistic oil painting because--again--trends just kinda...collectively decided it was crap for a really long time. Which is why we refer to old style painters, because we want to figure out how they did it historically and put it into a modern context.

NickRowler 2020-07-19 20:52:29 UTC #17

The upside to old art books is that there was a bit of a gap in art teaching due to a mindset during the Contemporary Art era which said not to learn basic and instead paint how you feel. It lead to a lot of artist who wanted to make realistic/repressive art to have to rely on studying older artist. Thankfully the mindset has shifted in current years, however there is now a gap in art education from the 20th century.

On the downside. Some older art education can sometimes be a bit bias and Euro-centric. I was given this guide in a drawing class and it recommended drawing women with the larger proportion to make her "more ideal for fashion". And it lacks in addressing stuff like somatotypes and most old refs tend to be white people.

thedude3445 2020-07-19 20:57:33 UTC #18

History is not objective! I mean, there are objective facts involved, but the telling of history is entirely subjective through different lenses of analysis. Even which facts are mentioned and which aren't is part of the subjectivity. While you may disagree and dislike the way that older history books present themselves, a lot of time they are extremely useful to analyze when you want a contemporary view on how people of that era viewed certain events. It helps to color that era more than the historical stuff the book talks about.

So when bad public school textbooks barely mention entire sections of history because they wanted to focus all their energy on the full-page illustrations of Antebellum times, you can actually analyze the book pretty well through the lens of past-deadline, underfunded textbook writers trying to meet state standards in whatever time that textbook was written. And I think that might be the most important reason why a lot of those textbooks are missing crucial historical events or poorly interpret the chain of events.

Snickerdoodles 2020-07-19 21:29:13 UTC #19

I can think of so many exceptions that the generalization becomes useless. Xenophon's treatise on horsemanship compares favorably with contemporary equestrian thought. Medieval swordmanship manuals remain authoritative among modern martial artists. Adam Smith's magnum opus still has much to offer today's social scientist. There are fields of study like philosophy where the very earliest writing are just as important or even more important than the very latest.