Sir Isaac Newton famously said, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants," which essentially meant that no matter how impressive his own accomplishments were, they wouldn't have been possible without the brilliant thinkers of the past who laid the groundwork for him.
Indeed, this quote applies as much to scientific discovery as it does bold paradigm shifts in art. The development and increased complexity of both, whether they embrace or reject the ideas of the past, built on them because somebody launched an idea into the void.
We have to start somewhere and both those who set up that starting point and those who knew what to do with it deserve credit for their work.
And so, we celebrate the brilliant ideas of past and present.