Art Rabbithole

“Tradition is the record of imaginative experience.” — Kathleen Raine, Blake and Tradition

When we speak of the tradition of art making, we are talking about something much larger than “traditional” art. These two terms are often confused, yet they describe very different ideas.

The tradition of art making is the vast, ongoing record of human creative exploration. It is the cumulative legacy of countless artists over centuries — individuals who have questioned, experimented, and stretched the boundaries of what art can be. This tradition is alive and evolving. It is the collective memory of artistic imagination, passed from one generation to the next, enriched and reshaped along the way.

By contrast, traditional art refers to the products of that exploration in a specific time and place. These works — whether Renaissance paintings, Japanese woodblock prints, or Aboriginal rock art — reflect the aesthetic values, cultural beliefs, and technical capabilities of their respective eras. They are snapshots of creative thinking frozen in time, invaluable for their beauty and historical insight, but belonging to a particular context.

The distinction matters because tradition is not a static preservation of the past; rather, it is a dynamic process. It is a living conversation between artists across centuries. Each generation inherits not only artworks but also questions, discoveries, and methods. The role of the artist is not to copy the past, but to respond to it — to interpret, adapt, challenge, and expand upon it.

Art always speaks of the world in which it is made. A painting, sculpture, or installation is not just an object; it is a record of its moment in history. Through it, we see the values, anxieties, and dreams of its time. This is art’s enduring gift: it tells us where we have been and helps us understand where we are.

When we stand before an Impressionist landscape, we sense the urgency of capturing fleeting light in a rapidly changing 19th-century France. In a Cubist still life, we feel the disorientation and excitement of the early 20th century as artists embraced new ways of seeing. In contemporary works, we encounter reflections of today’s interconnected, technology-driven, and often fractured world.

Recognising the difference between tradition and traditional frees us from the misconception that respecting tradition means simply repeating the past. To contribute to the tradition of art making is to step into an unbroken chain of imaginative acts, adding our own voice to a chorus that began long before us.

Every artist is both a recorder and an innovator. The tradition of art making grows with every brushstroke, carved surface, or conceptual leap. It is never complete. It expands with each act of imagination — each one carrying forward echoes of the past while signalling possibilities for the future.

In this way, tradition is not a weight holding us down, but a current that carries us forward — a living, ever-changing record of human creativity.