Help in determining if art is good.

[powder]

I have been asked on many occasions to write something like this for all the people that are often baffled by 'modern' art.  I am proposing a simple formula to apply to art and artists to help determine if what they are producing is actually good.  

 

I would like to get some feedback on this from anyone interested in the topic.  It has some Canadian content but the principles are, I hope, universal.  

 

I have posted the article on my blog for now.  

 

http://davidlangevin.com/davids-blog/

[endostate]

I am proposing a simple formula to apply to art and artists to help determine if what they are producing is actually good.  

 

Since value is subjective, I think the price offered by the consumer is the determining factor.

 

It's like proposing a simple formula to apply to food and chefs to help determine if what they are making is actually good.  I guess comparing sales figures is a good start...

 

Good Sales = Good Art?

[Donnadogsoth]

I have been asked on many occasions to write something like this for all the people that are often baffled by 'modern' art.  I am proposing a simple formula to apply to art and artists to help determine if what they are producing is actually good.  

 

I would like to get some feedback on this from anyone interested in the topic.  It has some Canadian content but the principles are, I hope, universal.  

 

I have posted the article on my blog for now.  

 

http://davidlangevin.com/davids-blog/

 

I agree with your lucid presentation, and thank you, and submit that "good" hinges purely on principle, or on ideas.  The concept art parodies the ideas of the master painters, which are akin to the musical ideas of the classical masters.  These ideas or principles relate uniquely to the human mind as capable of discovering them, rather than exhibiting monkey-cleverness.

 

I think  you will run into a lot of static from your idea because of its "blasphemy" against the new church of multiculturalism, which invades art and declares truth, beauty, and goodness the unholy trinity once used by Eurocentric colonialists to oppress the rest of the world, etc..

 

Multiculturalism is based on vengeance for real and perceived European crimes, against any European targets vulnerable enough to warrant the effort of destroying.  In defending "good art" you are defending the towering WTC (Western Traditional Civilisation) from the winged messengers of postmodern nihilism, hedonism, and suicide.

[brucethecollie]

My sister is an artist and just about to graduate from Chicago with a masters in fine art and so I've recently been wondering how she will fare out in the world.  She is aware of how difficult it is to pay off her student loans with art and so she has a teaching certificate for stability.  I've always asked myself if I like her art because it's hers or because I just do...or because its good.  I walk through my local art museum and wonder if something is good or if i'm just not trained to see a good painting when I encounter one.  

 

I think what you said in your post was really helpful to me.  I think I will share it with my sister and hope she doesn't hate me for it.  I have talked to artists who say they try to create things that will carry a message, politically, socially, etc, and so it seems like modern art is often an expression that is not exactly phenomenal in technical design.  And yet, it is very popular to see nowadays.  Your example regarding Bach was excellent.  

 

I get that price offered by consumers is a huge thing but what about factors that alter what is seen as value within a culture?  The Kardashians make tons of money...through distorted social value that is subjective but arguable?  I don't even know what i'm saying anymore so I'm going to be done with this comment.  But I appreciated the link very much, thanks!  Maybe I will get back to you with my sister's comments-we'll see if I'm brave enough

[powder]

I agree with your lucid presentation, and thank you, and submit that "good" hinges purely on principle, or on ideas.  The concept art parodies the ideas of the master painters, which are akin to the musical ideas of the classical masters.  These ideas or principles relate uniquely to the human mind as capable of discovering them, rather than exhibiting monkey-cleverness.

 

I think  you will run into a lot of static from your idea because of its "blasphemy" against the new church of multiculturalism, which invades art and declares truth, beauty, and goodness the unholy trinity once used by Eurocentric colonialists to oppress the rest of the world, etc..

 

Multiculturalism is based on vengeance for real and perceived European crimes, against any European targets vulnerable enough to warrant the effort of destroying.  In defending "good art" you are defending the towering WTC (Western Traditional Civilisation) from the winged messengers of postmodern nihilism, hedonism, and suicide.

Thanks Donnadogsoth, I think you are right, I am going to get some flack for challenging the empire of political correctness in the art world.  Someone had to say it tough.  

 

My sister is an artist and just about to graduate from Chicago with a masters in fine art and so I've recently been wondering how she will fare out in the world.  She is aware of how difficult it is to pay off her student loans with art and so she has a teaching certificate for stability.  I've always asked myself if I like her art because it's hers or because I just do...or because its good.  I walk through my local art museum and wonder if something is good or if i'm just not trained to see a good painting when I encounter one.  

 

I think what you said in your post was really helpful to me.  I think I will share it with my sister and hope she doesn't hate me for it.  I have talked to artists who say they try to create things that will carry a message, politically, socially, etc, and so it seems like modern art is often an expression that is not exactly phenomenal in technical design.  And yet, it is very popular to see nowadays.  Your example regarding Bach was excellent.  

 

I get that price offered by consumers is a huge thing but what about factors that alter what is seen as value within a culture?  The Kardashians make tons of money...through distorted social value that is subjective but arguable?  I don't even know what i'm saying anymore so I'm going to be done with this comment.  But I appreciated the link very much, thanks!  Maybe I will get back to you with my sister's comments-we'll see if I'm brave enough

Thanks Bruce  , glad it gave you some insight.  Yeah, you lost me there in the last paragraph.  I would love to hear feedback from your sis.  

[A4E]

I have made abstract animations to freely distributable music for years, mainly for my own selfish enjoyment. But now I got very curious about what your expert opinion on them would be. If you are interested.

 

Most recent video HD.

Another HD video.

Older video.

[luxfelix]

I have made abstract animations to freely distributable music for years, mainly for my own selfish enjoyment. But now I got very curious about what your expert opinion on them would be. If you are interested.

 

Most recent video HD.

Another HD video.

Older video.

 

Do you VJ/project these on surfaces? 

[A4E]

Do you VJ/project these on surfaces? 

No, but that is interesting. Did not really think about that before. Am wondering how it would be.

[powder]

I have made abstract animations to freely distributable music for years, mainly for my own selfish enjoyment. But now I got very curious about what your expert opinion on them would be. If you are interested.

 

Most recent video HD.

Another HD video.

Older video.

I think it is pretty cool.  

[ribuck]

I am not very artistic, so I find it easy to determine if art is good. If I see a piece of modern art (for example, a skateboard dipped in paint and propped up at an angle and titled "Youth Angst"), I say to myself "I could have done that", and then I know that it's not good art.

 

Good art helps me experience thoughts and emotions that I otherwise wouldn't experience. Bad art doesn't.

[powder]

I am not very artistic, so I find it easy to determine if art is good. If I see a piece of modern art (for example, a skateboard dipped in paint and propped up at an angle and titled "Youth Angst"), I say to myself "I could have done that", and then I know that it's not good art.

 

Good art helps me experience thoughts and emotions that I otherwise wouldn't experience. Bad art doesn't.

Yeah, I think that is a good test.  

[Mister Mister]

The philosopher/poet Wilhelm von Goethe came up with a means of evaluating art based on 3 questions:  What was the artist trying to do?  How well did they do it?  Was it worth doing? 

Still somewhat subjective, but I think it helps to give clarity, especially because "good" is too vague..  For example with regards to modern art such as splatter paintings a la Jackson Pollack, we can identify that the artist is trying to point out that there is no focus, and maybe they did this well, but disagree that it was worth doing.  In other words, their technique may be good, but their motivations bad, or vice versa.

[MrNlul77]

I've always believed noone can tell you whether a piece of art is "good", the individual decides. For me following a formula would stifle the organic thought processes used in the evaluation of the piece/works. Even if every other person on the planet says a piece is "good", if an individual thinks otherwise, that doesn't mean that individuals opinion is wrong.

 

The criteria by which a piece could be deemed as "good" are as varied as the number of preferences that any individual could have.

 

Unless there's a restriction in the criteria for evaluation, in which case removing freedom of choice/thought, I doubt whether their is any work of art that every person would class as "good".

[WasatchMan]

Art is the expression of a person's view of life.  If it is one of disgust, they will try to pass modern art off as grand.  Good art can be measured by how well it actually does reflect and inspire greatness and not weakness, sadness, ineptness, etc.

 

This is what Rand has to say, along as much more on the subject (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/modern_art.html, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/art.html)

 

("Art and Cognition," The Romantic Manifesto)

 

 

Decomposition is the postscript to the death of a human body; disintegration is the preface to the death of a human mind. Disintegration is the keynote and goal of modern art—the disintegration of man’s conceptual faculty, and the retrogression of an adult mind to the state of a mewling infant.

 

To reduce man’s consciousness to the level of sensations, with no capacity to integrate them, is the intention behind the reducing of language to grunts, of literature to “moods,” of painting to smears, of sculpture to slabs, of music to noise.

 

But there is a philosophically and psychopathologically instructive element in the spectacle of that gutter. It demonstrates—by the negative means of an absence—the relationships of art to philosophy, of reason to man’s survival, of hatred for reason to hatred for existence. After centuries of the philosophers’ war against reason, they have succeeded—by the method of vivisection—in producing exponents of what man is like when deprived of his rational faculty, and these in turn are giving us images of what existence is like to a being with an empty skull.

 

While the alleged advocates of reason oppose “system-building” and haggle apologetically over concrete-bound words or mystically floating abstractions, its enemies seem to know that integration is the psycho-epistemological key to reason, that art is man’s psycho-epistemological conditioner, and that if reason is to be destroyed, it is man’s integrating capacity that has to be destroyed.

 

It is highly doubtful that the practitioners and admirers of modern art have the intellectual capacity to understand its philosophical meaning; all they need to do is indulge the worst of their subconscious premises. But their leaders do understand the issue consciously: the father of modern art is Immanuel Kant (see his Critique of Judgment).

 

I do not know which is worse: to practice modern art as a colossal fraud or to do it sincerely.

 

Those who do not wish to be the passive, silent victims of frauds of this kind, can learn from modern art the practical importance of philosophy, and the consequences of philosophical default. Specifically, it is the destruction of logic that disarmed the victims, and, more specifically, the destruction of definitions. Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration.

 

Works of art—like everything else in the universe—are entities of a specific nature: the concept requires a definition by their essential characteristics, which distinguish them from all other existing entities. The genus of art works is: man-made objects which present a selective recreation of reality according to the artist’s metaphysical value-judgments, by means of a specific material medium. The species are the works of the various branches of art, defined by the particular media which they employ and which indicate their relation to the various elements of man’s cognitive faculty.

 

Man’s need of precise definitions rests on the Law of Identity: A is A, a thing is itself. A work of art is a specific entity which possesses a specific nature. If it does not, it is not a work of art. If it is merely a material object, it belongs to some category of material objects—and if it does not belong to any particular category, it belongs to the one reserved for such phenomena: junk.

 

“Something made by an artist” is not a definition of art. A beard and a vacant stare are not the defining characteristics of an artist.

 

“Something in a frame hung on a wall” is not a definition of painting.

 

“Something with a number of pages in a binding” is not a definition of literature.

 

“Something piled together” is not a definition of sculpture.

 

“Something made of sounds produced by anything” is not a definition of music.

 

“Something glued on a flat surface” is not a definition of any art.There is no art that uses glue as a medium. Blades of grass glued on a sheet of paper to represent grass might be good occupational therapy for retarded children—though I doubt it—but it is not art.

 

“Because I felt like it” is not a definition or validation of anything.

 

There is no place for whim in any human activity—if it is to be regarded as human. There is no place for the unknowable, the unintelligible, the undefinable, the non-objective in any human product. This side of an insane asylum, the actions of a human being are motivated by a conscious purpose; when they are not, they are of no interest to anyone outside a psychotherapist’s office. And when the practitioners of modern art declare that they don’t know what they are doing or what makes them do it, we should take their word for it and give them no further consideration.

[Donnadogsoth]

Art is the expression of a person's view of life.  If it is one of disgust, they will try to pass modern art off as grand.  Good art can be measured by how well it actually does reflect and inspire greatness and not weakness, sadness, ineptness, etc.

 

This is what Rand has to say, along as much more on the subject (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/modern_art.html, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/art.html)

 

("Art and Cognition," The Romantic Manifesto)

 

A choice quote, WasatchMan; thanks.

[powder]

...Even if every other person on the planet says a piece is "good", if an individual thinks otherwise, that doesn't mean that individuals opinion is wrong.

 

 

 

You have completely missed the point, you should read the article before commenting on it.  

[luxfelix]

Here's something to add to the mix:

 

"If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

 

No. Since sound is the result of the human mind converting sound pressure waves into neural signals, the tree would create sound pressure waves, but without an audience there is no sound.

 

Likewise, art is a manifest appeal to the senses translated through the mind into meaning.

 

As in the tree example, art occurs in the mind and is not sourced in the world absent an audience capable of appreciating some meaning beyond the matter/energy.

 

This is a very broad definition of art and the emphasis on the mind is meant to borrow the principles of UPB/APB/NAP (moral/immoral/amoral and objective/subjective) to then provide a basis for analyzing how good a particular artwork is beyond craftsmanship/skill evaluations and, additionally, how art can be aligned with ethics, as words can be aligned with truth.

 

If you're familiar with the Harry Potter interpretation thread/video, that would also be an example of how art -- in this case a meta/derivative -- can be created through interpretation/critique, transmuting fallacy and fiction into insight and verisimilitude.

[hroc]

..once knew a guy named Art.