On another thread were we were arguing that in fact art is not subjective and can be judged as good or bad by the informed viewer. My new FF Kev summed it up better than I could: Art is a form of communication. And like all communication, there are smarter things, more profound or insightful things, funnier, wittier, or sillier things, scarier or dumber things relayed from communication to communication. There is also articulateness, character, flourish, authority, command of syntax and grammar, poetic feeling, suggestiveness, tropes, rhythm, cadence, craftsmanship, etc. There is the flow of thought, the logic, the whismy, the composing of sentences, passages, sections, and whole works as a structural matter. There is the total statement versus the brief, the deep versus the merely flip. There is the wide scope of reference, the command of the factual or the general, the ability to summarize without losing the essence of the issue. If one understands the above, then there is sufficient grounds to judge good from bad, the true and beautiful from the bull and the ugly. Or, to be more blunt, to separate the artful from the awful. If the above are not the grounds by which a person judges art, then that person isnt really judging the artfulness, but something else. And there are people, many, who are immature or naive or insensitive or driven by ulterior motives in the way they analyze art. I have no qualms about dismissing the opinions of such people. Yes of course, some art has certain qualities in the win column, while others have other qualities. Nobody argued against this idea. There is also, and has always been, sensible distinctions between suggestive work and indicative work. The former being art and the latter being text or allegory or mere realism. There are also sensible distinctions between deep and shallow work... the shallow work being often more fun, the deep work being more artful... and thus better art, definitionally.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 23:45:44 +0000
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