When I visited Deviant Art (DA) today I stumbled upon the question: Is quality in art subjective? I would not have bothered to think further about this question if the result of the voting was about 50% Yes and 50% No. - - - The first thing to notice is that the question was not if art as a whole is subjective. The question was if the quality is subjective. Before one can answer the question if quality is subjective or objective one first needs to agree on what quality is. In many different areas there are ISO Standards that define quality. Web sites that host images often feature some standards for the quality of images that are submitted. One of those standards is the image size: In 2007 a good quality web image was about the size of 1280x720 pixels. Then the Full HD 1080p standard with an image resolution of 1920x1080 was introduced. In 2014 / 2015 we will see the introduction of 4K resolution monitors. Many people will have a look at the images we produce at a resolution of 3840x2160. The standard for the image size seems to be a very objective criteria for quality. Either the image meets the criteria to be have a minimum resolution of 1920x1080 or it will not. But even in this simple example the subjective part may be to actually agree on the standard first. Is 1920x1080 still a reasonable large image size at the end of 2013 to be considered as a standard? For the web the answer may be yes. You will not yet find many people looking at the web on monitors with larger resolutions. But if you walk with that image into your local print shop you will find out that your image will not meet the standards to print it on a A4 paper. - - - The very subjective part of quality seem to be actually choosing the standards that define quality for a specific field or use. On web sites like Deviant Art that focus on showcasing art you will find those standards defined by the set of rules the different Groups have set in place. - - - As of this moment 47198 deviants participated in the survey Is quality in art subjective? 71% voted Yes 23 % voted No 6 % voted Other To me it seems that once standards are set and agreed upon for many cases it is quite an objective matter to judge if they are met or not. Nevertheless the quality in art as a whole seems to be considered as subjective because a lot of people have different ideas what kind of standards art should have, if any at all. - - - In any case the next time you observe someone claiming: This work is of low quality. You can go ahead and ask them: Based on what standards? Just make sure to have enough time to actually deal with that can of worms you just opened up.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 05:08:35 +0000
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