A Thought on Making Timeless Art
Are there necessary elements that art must have to make it survive history? If so, what is this necessary substance?
To have a long term effect art must have a perceived benefit within its recipients. This, generally, must initially occur in the first generation to have contact with it in order for it to survive. Exceptions would be work from other decades or millennia that have been pulled from history without anyone but the creator knowing about it. A couple examples would be finding a roll of undeveloped film, or archeologists discovering remnants of cave drawings that had only been seen by the hands that made them. The participation of generations in these cases are skipped.
Whether or not this is common, the work is still confronted by value judgements of those that are alive. The art, then, only has life if it can find some kind of reign in the corners of minds that are breathing. The information may have sat and "waited" for someone to stumble upon it, but it only fulfills its potential if it becomes known.
The survivability of art, as a result, is often determined by whether or not various waves of humanity though history have experienced it in some way and believe it to be useful. This belief doesn't ultimately stem from an authority deciding whether something is good or bad, but from it having universally applicable and practical features. Humanity is interested in its own survival, and will adopt anything it can leverage to continue itself when confronted with a problem. This is something even morality is subservient to (whether good or bad) and art is no exception. And if art, as I've said in other posts, is a medium for information, it will be protected by those that find it relevant and will most likely be passed along to others.
Why isn't all art passed on if it contains information though?
The short answer is that most art says very little, or that it doesn't say enough, i.e. it doesn't offer novel insight. We can even use what I'm writing here as an example.
What I'm saying in this post will most likely never survive history. This isn't necessarily due to its truthfulness, but because the concept is (or will be) contained in other books and media that cover this idea in more fertile ways. Because of limitations of time and energy in life, we naturally devote ourselves to resources that contain as much condensed information as possible. This post will not last through the ages, because the information will be/has been funneled into something more concise. A cynical outlook would conclude that there's no point to saying any of this then, but this is a false sentiment.
We can never calculate what the future will be, because it's random. If we can display novel answers to problems with conceptual thoroughness though, we can potentially create work that will outlast us. Art that seems to hold something true about life becomes a heuristic to guide progress and development. These rules of thumb are always worth sharing in the same way an amazing restaurant is. It’s how art transmits itself through time.