That seems just very obviously untrue. Take an example, say literature: Are you saying the classics of literature were produced shortly after the invention of t

That seems just very obviously untrue. Take an example, say literature: Are you saying the classics of literature were produced shortly after the invention of the pen/paper (clearly untrue)? Or maybe after the invention of the printing press? (Also clearly untrue). It seems like a banal observation to say when there is a technological breakthrough there are new discoveries made. Like say astronomy, every time we invent a new method to see further/measure better we discover new stuff. And equivalently in art as new media and methods are discovered, artists take advantage of them to produce new work. It's obvious both that this is the case and why that should be so. Otherwise, we are clearly going to evaluate works that have stood the test of time to be "classics" and have difficulty making an objective evaluation in many fields of how new works stack up relative to them. History winnows out the things which aren't that great and then you have a new generation of classics that "by pure coincidence" (not really) are closer to when the new medium or technique than your time of observation.