Art Criticism - Good, Bad, or Whatever?

[Eonwe]

Inspired most recently by this thread in the pit about whether or not hip-hop sucks, and previous threads about various other art forms, artists, or what have you, I think it might be useful to have a discussion about the merrits of art forms abstractly, without specifically referring to a specific type of art (hip-hop, for example).

In the referenced thread and related conversations, it seems as if there are a few prevailing opinions, which hopefully I’m understanding clearly. Namely, an art form has worth that is related to…

[ul]
[li]…the virtuosity of those creating the art.[/li][li]…the ability of the creators to utilize the framework of a genre in order to achieve an ideal within said genre.[/li][li]…the broadness of its appeal.[/li][li]…the amount of meaning/relevance in the art’s ‘message.’[/li][li]…its level of influence on other artists.[/li][li]…its relationship to other art to which it is contemporary.[/li][li]…its relationship to other art of which it is derivative.[/li][/ul]

There are probably others, but these seem to be the biggies. So, what is it? What is the framework for art criticism that is the most valid, or the most useful?

I believe that there has got to be more meaning to criticism than “I think it’s good, therefore let me make up a reason.” There must be objective ways to look at art and discuss it. Perhaps some art might be ‘good’ when viewed through one lens, but ‘bad’ when viewed through another?

How do we discuss art without resorting to ‘you disagree, therefore you don’t know enough, or enough of the right sort of thing,’ and, ‘my opinion is valid no matter what information it may or may not be based on. I’ve seen all I need to see, and if you think that’s not enough, you’re elitist and full of yourself.’

Whenever these sorts of pissing matches happen here, I find myself torn between the two sides, but I often feel like they’re talking about two (or more) different criteria for judgement. What works in criticism? How can a person form a valid opinion that will be respected (if not agreed with) by others? Coming up with a clear perspective and technique for criticism seems like a good first step.

[ouryL]

Art criticism goes par and parcel with art appreciation - it is its complement.

[nameless]

Thanks for starting this thread, Eonwe.

I said in the other thread that I currently don’t understand how one can evaluate aesthetics in any objective way. However, I enjoy art critique–both observing it and taking part in it–though I don’t find it has much objective basis. And certainly, if a persuasive argument can be made for useful objective criteria and their application to artistic works, I’m open to that.

Disclaimer: I’m not formally trained in art or literature–my background is in the sciences, and that probably colors my view of art critique significantly.

[Excalibre]

I don’t know that I can fairly contribute much to a discussion like this, but I find the topic quite fascinating. It’s always seemed to me that there is at least some objectivity to evaluating art. After all, critics do tend to agree on their opinions of things that fall within their fields of expertise. That could be because they’re cribbing off each other and learning to agree so as to fit in, but that seems unlikely to me. Obviously opinions on anything are mixed, but it’s always seemed to me that there are objective criteria for art that people apply in criticizing it, even if no one’s actually figured out what those criteria are.

[Maeglin]

@Eonwe

How do we discuss art without resorting to ‘you disagree, therefore you don’t know enough, or enough of the right sort of thing,’ and, ‘my opinion is valid no matter what information it may or may not be based on. I’ve seen all I need to see, and if you think that’s not enough, you’re elitist and full of yourself.’

For the most part, we don’t. These are all conversational non-starters.

There is no point whatsoever in discussing art with people who believe that their personal opinions are inescapable conclusions of their knowledge or with people who believe that their fundamentally uninformed opinions are interesting and relevant to anyone other than themselves.

I disagree with the idea that the purpose of art criticism is to assess the “worth” of a piece of art. If anything, criticism should locate the piece of art in its artistic and historical context and, more importantly, illuminate the aesthetic that drove its creation. What rules did the work follow and what rules did it break? What basic human experience does it concentrate? Is it successful?

The success of a piece of art and its worth are frequently unrelated. The former is interesting; the latter is not.

[Maeglin]

@Excalibre

It’s always seemed to me that there is at least some objectivity to evaluating art. After all, critics do tend to agree on their opinions of things that fall within their fields of expertise.

How many counterexamples would it take to convince you otherwise?

[nameless]

@Excalibre

After all, critics do tend to agree on their opinions of things that fall within their fields of expertise.

As humans we have a lot in common. We have genes in common–genes that contribute to factors as abstract as our linguistic ability (consider the foxP2 gene). Many of us exist in the echo chamber of a common culture. It doesn’t surprise me that many people agree on what sounds good. But does this mean that absolute standard of artistic value exists, or just that we’re generally wired in such a way, perhaps in groups, to generally agree on certain artistic themes? And that maybe within these groups, different things sound good or bad?

The whole thing reminds me of the debate regarding moral relativism…

[Excalibre]

@Maeglin

How many counterexamples would it take to convince you otherwise?

Examples obviously couldn’t be offered as evidence either way. You’d have to find some objective way to measure whether critics agree or disagree in general, and I don’t have any idea how you’d do that. You could probably do so if you explicitly limited your study to a single particular area and a well-delineated set of criticisms to work from, but then you’d run into major problems with sampling error. I don’t see it as a problem that couldn’t be examined objectively, but it’d sure be hard to resolve.

At any rate, I’m a bit too much of an empiricist to put much faith in a few isolated examples.

[guppy]

@Maeglin

If anything, criticism should locate the piece of art in its artistic and historical context and, more importantly, illuminate the aesthetic that drove its creation. What rules did the work follow and what rules did it break? What basic human experience does it concentrate? Is it successful?

To me this is what any formal discussion about art and music has to deal with. You cannot objectively evaluate the goodness or badness of a painting; but you can look at its historical context and the relative importance to other works of art.

P.S. Pollock sucks. :eek:

[Excalibre]

@nameless

As humans we have a lot in common. We have genes in common–genes that contribute to factors as abstract as our linguistic ability (consider the foxP2 gene). Many of us exist in the echo chamber of a common culture. It doesn’t surprise me that many people agree on what sounds good. But does this mean that absolute standard of artistic value exists, or just that we’re generally wired in such a way, perhaps in groups, to generally agree on certain artistic themes? And that maybe within these groups, different things sound good or bad?

The whole thing reminds me of the debate regarding moral relativism…

Don’t bring up foxp2 again, or you’ll have to see me go on my “Science in the Media” rant. Suffice it to say that what the newspapers said about it is most likely utterly deceptive if not outright lying. Reporters fuck up so badly when they try to do science.

As to whether our genes or culture tie our values together rather than some external Fundamental Truth, I’m not sure I see the value in that argument. Very little of what we call “objective” is really objective in that sense, and it starts coming down to a complex philosophical question that I wouldn’t be able to discuss intelligently. I’m certainly not trying to claim that art has value even in the absence of any observer, so our genetic allotment can basically be taken for granted. (If we were to meet a species of aliens, it’d sure be interesting to find out whether their aesthetic standards resembled ours at all.)

[Maeglin]

@Excalibre

Examples obviously couldn’t be offered as evidence either way. You’d have to find some objective way to measure whether critics agree or disagree in general, and I don’t have any idea how you’d do that. You could probably do so if you explicitly limited your study to a single particular area and a well-delineated set of criticisms to work from, but then you’d run into major problems with sampling error. I don’t see it as a problem that couldn’t be examined objectively, but it’d sure be hard to resolve.

At any rate, I’m a bit too much of an empiricist to put much faith in a few isolated examples.

I am also something of an empiricist, too much of an empiricist to put much faith in certain kinds of general claims.

Testable hypotheses can be generated by the theory that “ultimately, critics agree”. A little statistics will tell you whether or not this agreement is due to random variance or whether it is impossible to reject the null hypothesis.

But this is still not a very interesting exercise because it is unlikely that we could even agree on a reasonable hypothesis. I do not think that my examples would be isolated, either. In my experience, good critics frequently arrive at very different conclusions.

I am perfectly willing to concede that hundreds of years later, most critics agree about a lot of things. Even the most staunch serialist would probably agree that Vivaldi certainly has his merits. It still took over 200 years for them to be generally accepted. It is more interesting to watch the critics slug it out over works of art that have not already survived historical winnowing.

[nameless]

@Excalibre

Don’t bring up foxp2 again, or you’ll have to see me go on my “Science in the Media” rant. Suffice it to say that what the newspapers said about it is most likely utterly deceptive if not outright lying. Reporters fuck up so badly when they try to do science.

Yeesh. My initial exposure to it was a Nature Neuroscience review concerning the study of the KE family, but we can talk about something else if you want.

As to whether our genes or culture tie our values together rather than some external Fundamental Truth, I’m not sure I see the value in that argument. Very little of what we call “objective” is really objective in that sense, and it starts coming down to a complex philosophical question that I wouldn’t be able to discuss intelligently.

Well a lot of things are objective. Matter is composed of molecules. Triangles have a sum of angles of 180 degrees. DNA is the hereditary molecule. Things get dicier when you move towards questions like “Is the destruction of human life objectively wrong?” or, “Does Jessica Simpson suck at singing?” I guess I’m comfortable with a lack of objectivity so long as people don’t try to insert objectivity where it doesn’t exist.

Anyway, I know nothing about philosophy, and I agree when you say this question approaches a philosophical argument. So maybe I’ll shut up.

[Excalibre]

@Maeglin

I am also something of an empiricist, too much of an empiricist to put much faith in certain kinds of general claims.

Touché!

Testable hypotheses can be generated by the theory that “ultimately, critics agree”. A little statistics will tell you whether or not this agreement is due to random variance or whether it is impossible to reject the null hypothesis.

But this is still not a very interesting exercise because it is unlikely that we could even agree on a reasonable hypothesis. I do not think that my examples would be isolated, either. In my experience, good critics frequently arrive at very different conclusions.

Surely they do sometimes. But obviously there’s some element of general agreement - how many movie critics praised Gigli or Battlefield Earth? That’s not a coincidence. Obviously there’s some general, core agreement on what constitutes a good movie. Otherwise you wouldn’t expect any patterns like that at all.

[Excalibre]

@nameless

Yeesh. My initial exposure to it was a Nature Neuroscience review concerning the study of the KE family, but we can talk about something else if you want.

Sorry, but the evidence that foxP2 is any kind of “grammar gene” is simply not there, and that’s what I thought you were getting at, since you seemed to be addressing the genetic component of people’s opinions. Last I heard about it, the closest we can say is that it’s involved in brain development, but it’s certainly not safe to relate it to any particular bit of brain functionality at all.

Well a lot of things are objective. Matter is composed of molecules. Triangles have a sum of angles of 180 degrees. DNA is the hereditary molecule. Things get dicier when you move towards questions like “Is the destruction of human life objectively wrong?” or, “Does Jessica Simpson suck at singing?” I guess I’m comfortable with a lack of objectivity so long as people don’t try to insert objectivity where it doesn’t exist.

Triangles are an aspect of an axiomatic system that we’ve developed, not something that exists in the universe. If the only things that are “objective” are those that can be clearly derived from axioms, then it makes sense to speak of objective truth only where we can be certain those axioms apply. It basically eliminates the ability to objectively examine the universe. And the other things you mentioned are basically true, but ultimately great simplifications, so it’s hard for me to accept that they meet the “triangle standard”.

Anyway, I know nothing about philosophy, and I agree when you say this question approaches a philosophical argument. So maybe I’ll shut up.

Yeah, I’m not real aware of philosophy either. I tend to feel silly arguing within the context of an area that I know very little about.

[Maeglin]

@Excalibre

Surely they do sometimes. But obviously there’s some element of general agreement - how many movie critics praised Gigli or Battlefield Earth? That’s not a coincidence. Obviously there’s some general, core agreement on what constitutes a good movie. Otherwise you wouldn’t expect any patterns like that at all.

Ok, this is very true. I am unaware of any debate over the merits of Gigli. But I think the real action happens at the margins. How uniformly do critics accept new masters, genre-breakers, creators of new rules and systems? I don’t think that too many people needed a PhD or a filmmaker to tell them Gigli sucked, but I do rely on critics to help me stretch my aesthetics in other realms. Good, avant garde stuff is usually an acquired taste, and it is not even always clear how one should acquire it. I sometimes like to have a little help.

[Miller]

@guppy

To me this is what any formal discussion about art and music has to deal with. You cannot objectively evaluate the goodness or badness of a painting; but you can look at its historical context and the relative importance to other works of art.

So, how does one discuss new art?

[Maeglin]

@Miller

So, how does one discuss new art?

You can’t talk about the context of new art?

[Miller]

@Maeglin

You can’t talk about the context of new art?

Good point, I was thinking of “historical context” more in the sense of what the work inspired, not what inspired the work.

[capybara]

All of what Maeglin said (M-- have you been off the boards for a bit? Haven’t noticed you around much. Maybe we float in different circles?) about context and all that. BUT. . . near the start of last century there was a trend in art history/ aesthetics to try to pin down some physiological or otherwise objective . . . science, for lack of a better term, of aesthetics. It’s not a real current trend, as po-mo and pluralism and all that is in style, but we do still have a canon. Under attack, sure, and rightfully so, but there are still the art history surveys and we still teach the same core works and more or less agree to what at any point was most important or characteristic for whatever reasons. I’ve started to suspect, though, that half the time what we do is less like an anthropolology/ethnography museum (the typical and run-of-the-mill of a given culture–representative works) and more like a freak show (really exceptional things-- things that stand out, disruptive profiles in whatever particular time and place, ruptures in tradition. The Picassos rather than the Kinkaids. We focus on the pioneers, things that aren’t at all typical of the moment. It’s an interesting question, why we focus on particular works.

[Maeglin]

I have been off the boards, due mostly to a career change. I do miss this sort of thing, though.

Your points about the science of aesthetics are salient. I find searching for an objective aesthetic less than useful in my own life.

You teach the artists who ruptured tradition, but these artists self-consciously or otherwise spawned legions of imitators. They are moments of discontinuity but not exactly flashes in the pan. Some become typical regrettably quickly. Explaining why they were once and are still great can be very difficult under these circumstances.

Why some pieces get all of the attention is an interesting question. Watching this process work is as revolting as watching someone make sausage. My own background is in classical literature: does any canon get attacked with greater frequency or vigor?