On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 16:22:59 -0400, George M. Middius
wrote:



S888Wheel said:

Wouldn't you have to simplify your definitions of "art" -- as well as
the standards for judging -- to a ridiculous degree? For example, to
judge whether a painting is "good" or "bad", you would have to rate its
use of color as one component. But the artist might be using horrible
colors, or appalling smearing, to make a point, no? So you couldn't pull
out a single aspect like color as a benchmark. You'd have to consider
the work as a whole before judging individual aspects. And since art's
effectiveness, if there is such a thing, depends on the individual, is
there any point in defining "objective" standards thereof?


Well you ask a good question. Maybe people are not understanding what I am
saying here. I am not saying all aspects and of art are purely objective to
every degree. Of course much of art is subjective. I am saying that there are
objective standards in art. I am not saying one can objectively say DaVinci was
a better artist than Picasso or visa versa. I would say that they are both
excellent artists by objective standards in art.

Sorry, no. There is no such thing as an "objective standard" in a purely
subjective arena.

Actually, there are some pretty objective standards, but they are only
ancillary to judging "greatness" and they certainly aren't an
exclusive thing (i.e. they don't preclude the fact that most of
judging art is subjective). I'm referring to putting certain art in
stylistic categories. You can certainly do this to a great degree.
Even though there is art that crosses styles, there are a certain
number of "objective" categories that art can fall under (and much of
it can be defined as what a particular piece of art *isn't*).

Just a quick example. Seurat's Les Poseuses is Post-Impressionistic.
It can be defined even further as Pointilistic. So, objectively, it
would be hard to quarrel with either classification. It is *not*
Pre-Raphaelite, Cubist, Primitive, Folk, Renaissance, Bauhaus, Pop, or
NeoClassic, and it's hard to objectively quarrel with that either. If
someone wanted to be cantakerous, they could cause cause a ruckus and
call it Modern, I suppose, even though it really is just the lead-in
to Modern and virtually nobody calls it that.

The problem comes when you try to decide whether it's a greater work
of art than, say, Gauguin's Portrait of a Woman, with Still Life.
That's when subjectivity comes into play.

But ultimately, art is about 95% subjective and 5% objective. At least
that's my subjectively objective opinion.