Classic = Neat, Modern = Crazy?

[lovelove]

As in Go, art, music, etc. Is the title or the subject my wrong assumption?

[jts]

Etymologically, classic refers to something that is exemplary, sets the stage, defines its class or provides the best example of its class. Modern refers to the current time (as modish still means "fashionable").

Over time the meaning of each term got a little convoluted. "Classic" can mean best or earliest in its class (as in, "classic rock"), or it can mean pertaining to Greco-Roman antiquity (whence we get the classics of epic poetry, of stage tragedy, of philosophical dialogue, of statures and architecture...), or it can mean pertaining to the schools of art, music and literature inspired by Greco-Roman antiquity.

"Modern" can mean innovative as opposed to traditional (and it was used this way as early as 1300, which can be confusing - by now most "modern" philosophy is quite old, for example), or post-antiquity as opposed to antiquity ("modern languages"), or opposed to classical aesthetics.

I'm not sure why chess players started calling indirect control of the center "modern", though. It may merely mean that it was innovative (although, as with 20th c. Go openings, many of the modern openings are very old), or there may be a perceived connection to the conflict between classical aesthetics and modernist aesthetics.

[RobertJasiek]

Mostly, modern go is not crazy. In comparison to classic go, modern go can, but need not, be far more sophisticated strategically. Often, standard strategies are sacrificed for the sake of hard-2-decipher-strategies. Play what your opponent does not understand (well enough) is the modern attempt. In the classics, such was used mainly for tactical trick plays. Nowadays, it is used for everything. But this is not the same as "crazy".

[lovelove]

... there may be a perceived connection to the conflict between classical aesthetics and modernist aesthetics.

Thanks for the etymology, jts; and maybe I have used the wrong words to explain sth. I liked the last sentence quoted above.

Well, I think there should be some examples to explain what is in my head.


In go,

Classic - http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/9167
Modern - http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/34626


In art,

Classic

캡처1.PNG (689.09 KiB) Viewed 6558 times

Modern

캡처.PNG (1.03 MiB) Viewed 6558 times

In music,

Classic - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3217H8JppI
Modern - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAPNu1CGWp0 <-- this one is actually "contemporary"


And for the word "contemporary" as in "contemporary music", is the meaning same with "modern"? What I found from my dictionary (Oxford) is,

Modern: of the present time or recent times
Contemporary: belonging to the present time

where the only diffenence in meaning I see is "or recent times"

[snorri]

I think it relates to the problems any modern individual has with the fact that we're stuck in ambiguous relationships relating to influential figures of the past. See Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence for this view in the context of poetry.

[jts]

The issue with "contemporary" is that every era names it's own innovations "modern", and then we need a new name to distinguish innovations that are more modern than modern - we've pushed "contemporary" and "post-modern" into service for this, where contemporary generally just means "still happening now" and "post-modern" means "rejection or radicalization of modern".

Your first painting is classical in all three senses. It has a classical theme - despite the fact that we're in Egypt, we have a Roman bridge and togas. It has classical aesthetics - geometric shapes, lines of symmetry, unity of theme, explicit musculature. And it has old fashioned technical tricks - the blue background and green foreground create an illusion of depth, for example. Here's a similar painting showing the same triple classicism (warning, large image):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... in_052.jpg

Now, as for the Go games - I don't know. I'm not as strong as you. You should tell me what makes one classic and the other not! Just from the opening, the '65 game starts on a 3-3 which seems quite modern to me, whereas the 2013 game has two 3-4s, tenuki on the 3-4 approach, a tenuki on a pincer of a 3-4 approach... later on there's a long, headache-worthy ko... that seems more reminiscent of an older style of play. But maybe I'm wrong about old and new fashions. I'm certainly not qualified to say anything about classical aesthetics and Go.

[Bill Spight]

As jts indicates, modern, in regard to style, is problematic. E. g., if art of 100 years ago is modern art, what is the art of today? The Modern Era, in the West, started around 500 years ago, and in many ways broke with the Classical Tradition, which had previously been considered the height of civilization. But innovation did not stop. So what is called modern can be quite old fashioned or traditional.

As for go styles, both games strike me as classical, although both are modern in time. Go figure.

[leichtloeslich]

In music ... Classic ... Modern

Aww, yeah, can I do one of these? In fact, forget the classic part, here's some "modern" ... "music".
Listen to at your own risk! Parents are liable for their children.

Modern "Classic" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41-_556CqbU
Modern "Jazz" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXcgg7WC7LI
Modern "Electro" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4om56W1FwE

Let's derail this thread. Everyone post weird modern "art"! Bizarre pictures drawn by drugged out French surrealists, twelve-note compositions, whatever!


@OP's question: I seriously think the value of "style" is overrated (or even "joseki". I believe a strong player will be a strong player in any time and regardless of the fashions of the time he originated from). Looking at your game examples, except for the slightly more peaceful opening in the "classic" example, in the end they just seem to try to kill each other. So not much change there, imho.

[Boidhre]

In music,

Classic - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3217H8JppI
Modern - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAPNu1CGWp0 <-- this one is actually "contemporary"

Strictly, the first isn't Classical, it's Romantic and the second isn't music it's organised noise.