In the 1980s, many influential American critics argued that the best new contemporary art broke radically with the past. They believed that the culture had changed so drastically that only entirely new art forms could be intellectually challenging. Now in the twenty-first century we can see that they were wrong. Today, as in the past, all great art builds upon tradition. This is true in Europe- and of course it is true in China, whose artistic culture embodies a very sophisticated view of tradition. The most distinguished living American art critic, Arthur Danto, has argued that in our post-historical era everything is possible. Hegel was correct, Danto argues, to claim that the history of art has ended. And this means that nowadays artists can employ styles from all periods and every culture. The artist who best exemplifies the relationship of tradition and innovation is Sean Scully (1945-). Building upon the achievement of American Abstract Expressionism, he makes abstract paintings that employ the rhythms of contemporary urban life.