Stanley Edwards said:
The Dama de Baza is now exhibited in Madrid. It's very advanced for it's estimated age of 1800 BC, but the world and the world of art has undoubtedly moved on.
The ability of man to recreate reality is as important as Picasso's abstract understanding and conveyance.
Some people will even argue that photography was the defining art form of the 21st Century.
But for those of us who do not accept that 'the world of art has moved on' statements like 'very advanced for its estimated age' are just patronising to another culture and time.
Also 'the ability of man to recreate reality' is also to me a false trail. You probably mean the move from symbolism to optical perspective and illusion here.
In Western art pre-Rennaisance times figures were scaled according to their significance in the Bible. Art was commissioned by the Church or wealthy patrons with their after death futures in mind. Christ or Mary were drawn large while lesser mortals were drawn small.
The artists were not trying to create picture depth or illusion. The blue of Mary's cloak was symbolic and also the rarest and most expensive colour. This art is in no way less advanced than later perspective pictures of Canaletto who used the camera obscura to get perspective lines.
Of course when the Rennaissance really got under way perspective ruled which meant that pictures got scaled in proportion to that of a man. The eye-level was what created the scale.
One of the first at this period of time to experiment with perspective was Giotto. His early pictures of interiors of chapels at Padua show what looks like wrong perspective, he has multiple vanishing points instead of one. I don't think this makes them inferior artistically to later paintings with correct perspective. They have artistic merit beyond that one technical feature.
To equate realism with success in art is to miss out on possibly most of world art. Stanley, your own link to the aboriginal art source refers to a kind of art which had spiritual meaning to the aboriginals in relation to ancestors and was by no means realistic but more ritualistic.
The fact is that art in most periods of time and across cultures and continents has mostly been linked to religion. for many years Western art became about history or biography and the depiction of individuals. Much of this art was not of great importance. However it is very useful as historical evidence for the appearance of things and people. We all know what Henry VII looked like courtesy of Holbein for example
By the nineteenth century there were artists employed to paint portraits of people who wanted to publicise themselves. These artists were of various quality and there were cheaper ones for the slightly less well off. When photography was invented many of these cheaper artists adopted photography because it was easier and I imagine also fashionable.
Now that the camera could replicate reality it caused a challenge to art. If all that art was about was realism then photography would replace it. That didn't happen. Impressionism did though. It was a new aesthetic, an art about the way we see with shimmering light and a controlled pallette of complimentary colours - all inspired by scientific theories of vision. We are so familiar with impressionism today and most people like it a lot. It is the art of the nineteenth century and the origin of modern art. That does not mean that it represents progress. I say that it just represents its time which is no better than any other time.
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