Imagine that every generation gets to paint its Representational Painting. Each generation cannot fully see the previous generations' paintings, but older generations can see how the new paintings are being made and can compare them. After hundreds of years elapse, no one can really know the actual experiences and intentions of the generations that were viewing each other's paintings. In 2100, the reactions against 'paintings' of 9/11 will be neatly historicized--shaped into almost a Cliffs Note in a few paragraphs by the youngest generations. After all, they never could see all the previous 'paintings', even though over five generations of archival information was available.
We only really understand something through the limitations of our own actual experience. I can see newer paintings, but you can't see older ones. You may be painting your 'Guernica' but it looks much different than the one I painted. The oldest generations can see up to five paintings and they all look wrong in different ways.
In my view, the best series by far that simulates the 'views' through a lifetime is Thomas Cole's
Course of Empire.
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