Objective quality in art--can it really exist?

[Don_t_Panic]

@Shakester

Some artists that didn’t get appreciated in their lifetimes did manage to leave us a lasting legacy that was eventually appreciated. Van Gogh, who I mentioned earlier, is the poster boy for that. The singer-songwriter Nick Drake is another good example. Genius, but hardly anyone noticed at the time.

I see your Nick Drake, and I’m thinking that I might raise you Bach. In his lifetime he was well known as an organist, but not so much as a composer. After his death, his reputation even declined at first (though Mozart and Beethoven were both fans), as his music was thought to be old-fashioned compared to the much hipper classical style. It wasn’t until a revival in the mid-1800s, almost a century after his death, that he began to be seen as, doh, *only one of the top two composers in history, *rivaled only by Mozart.

Makes you wonder what’s going unappreciated now that will make people in a hundred years go “wow, how come they didn’t notice that?”

[unwashed_brain]

@Thudlow_Boink

If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a noise? Or is a sense of sound inherent in humans?

No, but whether that sound is enjoyable to humans or not is.

[Baal_Houtham]

@Thudlow_Boink

Yeah, and I bet your toaster doesn’t, either. What’s your point? Doesn’t that suggest that there’s something inherent in it that’s there for them to enjoy?
This suggests to me that there is objective quality in art, but that it often takes training or experience or a certain background to be able to learn to recognize and appreciate it.

*The dog comment was saying that music appreciation depends on the listener.

*Jesu, Joy: Yeah, there’s something special there for a lot of people. It’s subjective enjoyment. If you want to define popularity as objective quality, feel free to do so.

Is there something that objectively separates Jesu, Joy from millions of less popular songs? Yes, more people like it. Why do more people like it? Because a high percentage of people like it compared to the number who dislike it. Yes, but what makes them like it? It makes them feel interesting or pleasurable emotions.

Isn’t that an objective standard?
If you define “objective” as the subjective opinion of a certain group of people, then yes. Is it objectively good art to the people who don’t like it? To the scattered souls who are actively irritated by it? Does it remain good art if the next generation has a completely different aesthetic preference?

Two somewhat related questions:
If humans discover the building blocks of musical fascination and a computer spits out a song that everyone likes is it a work of art? Is it objectively good?

[jovan]

@Thudlow_Boink

If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a noise? Or is a sense of sound inherent in humans?

It makes a sound wave. A sound is what happens when that wave reaches an ear, has its energy transduced into neural signals, which are then processed by a brain. That you chose “sound” and not “electron spin” is proof that its value, here as a metaphor, is dependent on you having ears and a brain.

I don’t like the expression “it’s all in your head” because it’s not true. Art is a relationship between a person and an object. It is not an attribute of either.

[Alka_Seltzer]

@Shakester

That’s true, but what I meant was that if a cultural artefact manages to make enough of an impact to survive, then history will sort out whether it’s great or not.

I don’t entirely disagree, but you seem to put more faith in this process than I would. A question that’s impossible to answer is, for every Van Gogh or Nick Drake, how many other artists of similar merit sink into obscurity? For an artist to be revived, it’s not enough for a few people to recognise their work, it then needs to be promoted in some form, formally or informally. Whether this is successful may have more to do with other factors than the works’ content. Van Gogh cutting off his ear was pure gold in marketing terms. The internet is an ideal medium for this, but any revived artist is direct competition with all the other cultural output that is being churned out, from rock music to cat videos. There is only so much art people can consume, and we tend to concentrate on the familiar. The theory of memetics has a lot of merit. A further problem is that your description of Nick Drake as a genius is highly subjective. I’ve heard and liked a few of his songs, but I wouldn’t describe him as such myself. On the whole, I’d rather listen to, say, Laura Marling. However, I wouldn’t say I have enough familiarity with their work and the genre to make a strong judgement on the subject.

@Shakester

I have no doubt that more great but unappreciated art is lost forever than is eventually recognised.

Yes, I agree that is inevitable.

[unwashed_brain]

@jovan

“it’s all in your head” because it’s not true. Art is a relationship between a person and an object. It is not an attribute of either.

My quote was, “it’s in your head,” referring to an individual’s innate sense of aesthetics.

[Shakester]

@Alka_Seltzer

A further problem is that your description of Nick Drake as a genius is highly subjective. I’ve heard and liked a few of his songs, but I wouldn’t describe him as such myself. On the whole, I’d rather listen to, say, Laura Marling. However, I wouldn’t say I have enough familiarity with their work and the genre to make a strong judgement on the subject.

OK, I’ll withdraw “genius” and replace it with “great”. The point remains that his work is now widely recognised as great by people who are fans of that sort of thing.

[Balance]

In posts past, I have suggested that there are two distinct measures of the quality of a work of art; I think of them as the Craftsmanship and Success axes.

The Craftsmanship axis is at least semi-objective, and deals with the technical execution of the work. While there are many details specific to any given medium, the essence of this measure is how closely the work approaches what the artist was trying to produce. Are the straight lines actually straight? Did the musicians hit all the notes correctly?

The Success axis is much fuzzier. What I consider on the Success axis is how closely the work approaches the effect the artist was trying to produce. Does the work successfully communicate what the artist intended to communicate? Does it evoke the emotional response in the audience it was designed to evoke? Obviously, any given work will succeed with some people and fail with others, so this is very subjective. In general, I am inclined to say that a work can be considered successful if the majority of people in the target audience experience the emotional response the artist intended. In fact, the work only fails completely if no one experiences the intended response.

Another way to look at it, perhaps, is that Craftsmanship measures aspects of the art/artist relationship, while Success measures the art/audience relationship.

There is some correlation between the axes; generally speaking, better craftsmanship improves the chance that a work will succeed with any given member of the audience. It’s no guarantee, though–poorly crafted art can succeed, and flawlessly executed art can fail. Ultimately, I don’t think “good art” versus “bad art” is a particularly useful distinction to make.

[Alka_Seltzer]

@Shakester

The point remains that his work is now widely recognised as great by people who are fans of that sort of thing.

Yes, I understand that, and it carries some weight with me. Folk rock is a relatively popular genre. My point is, Nick Drake always had more chance of being re-discovered than, say, a balkan folk musician of the same era, regardless of their respective merits.

[Thudlow_Boink]

Objective vs. subjective quality in art is one of those debates (Nature vs. nurture is another) in which people commonly make the mistake of thinking it has to be one or the other, all or nothing, and that evidence or arguments in favor of X are automatically against Y.

It seems clear to me that there are both subjective and objective components to the quality of a work of art. I completely agree that there is “subjective enjoyment”; I completely disagree that this precludes objective quality in the work itself. Different viewers/listeners/readers have different responses to the same work, but what they’re responding to is (at least to a large degree) something inherent in the work itself.

[unwashed_brain]

@Thudlow_Boink

I completely disagree that this precludes objective quality in the work itself.

The problem I have with this is what you’re terming “objective quality” has to be subjectively agreed upon and/or evaluated. An objective quality ought not be a matter of opinion.

Or are you really just saying that things (such as art) have physical properties and exist in space and time? Because I can agree with you on that.

Assigning goodness/badness to the physical properties of things (art included) happens inside a human’s brain. There’s nothing inherent in art that changes that. This includes the recognition that, “hey, that was made by someone, or made by something made by someone. Neat-o!”

[Roderick_Femm]

I like the OP because it brings up two different aspects about the putative quality of any work of art: what is the art trying to achieve, and how well does it achieve that end?

What the art is trying to achieve means what reaction it is trying to evoke in the observer. This generally reflects the values of the artist, and the response reflects the values of the observer.

How well it achieves that end is based on such factors as craftsmanship, appropriate technique, and talent of the artist. Van Gogh does not at first appear to have a very sophisticated technique, but it is appropriate in that it is very effective.

Related to issues of craftsmanship and technique is the issue of complexity and subtlety. A work of art that hammers you over the head with its message may make an impact on you, but the impact may not last as long or be as profound as that of a work that has more subtlety or complexity.

So, in brief, my opinion is that these are all pretty much subjective matters, although the observer can always point to some objective points along the way. For the observer, if the art has an agreeable point of view, if that point of view is expressed skillfully, and if the art rewards further attention by revealing additional layers of meaning, then the observer will almost certainly regard the art as good. The next observer may not find the point of view agreeable, or the subtlety of the piece may be beyond him, and for him the art is not good.

You learn a lot more about the observer than about the art by studying these kinds of reactions.
Roddy

[Baal_Houtham]

“Is it hot in here?” If someone say “yes” that’s a personal judgment, and subjective, not objective. Even if a room is heated to the point where every human on earth would agree it’s “hot”, it’s still a personal judgment. If you want objective standards, you should refer to a thermometer.

Same thing with Art, although the analogy is not exact. Compared to the sensation of heat, the sensation of liking a picture or song is fickle and elusive, and people routinely disagree on the quality of artistic creations. But even if everyone were to agree a song is “hot” that still isn’t an objective measurement.

There is no thermometer that measures creative quality other than popularity.

Everybody wants to believe their favorite songs are objectively better than the shit the next fool likes, but sorry, there’s no way to prove it.

If accepting that there are objective standards of artistic quality means that I can be forced not to hate Harry Chapin’s Cat’s In the Cradle*, then you just take your fancy theories and catch a train to Saskatoon.

*a song dear to the hearts of many Dopers, that -to me- is bombastic and built on 7th grade level irony.

[Miller]

@Balance

The Success axis is much fuzzier. What I consider on the Success axis is how closely the work approaches the effect the artist was trying to produce. Does the work successfully communicate what the artist intended to communicate? Does it evoke the emotional response in the audience it was designed to evoke? Obviously, any given work will succeed with some people and fail with others, so this is very subjective. In general, I am inclined to say that a work can be considered successful if the majority of people in the target audience experience the emotional response the artist intended. In fact, the work only fails completely if no one experiences the intended response.

How do you judge the success of a work that is not explained by the artist, either because the artist refused to explain it, or because the artist’s thoughts (or even identity) have been lost to history?

On a related note, what if I really like a work of art, based on my interpretation of it, only to later find that the artist intended a meaning that I find uninteresting or even actively repellant? Is the work a success, because I really enjoyed it, or a failure, because I enjoyed it for the “wrong” reasons?

[Deegeea]

The problem with the conclusion that it’s all subjective is that the same aesthetic sense that leads people to like art, also leads them to like certain things in math, for example. And it turns out that the math that’s more popular/considered better is also more likely to describe something in physical reality that is testable and therefore kind of what we mean by objective.

That makes it seem, to me, that like other senses, the human “aesthetic” sense is probably sensing something that has objective existence. Taste is also subjective, in that foods seem to taste different to different people, and individuals have varying food they like or dislike. But taste is objective in that there are actual molecules that correspond to flavors that are detected repeatably.

I think art is like that. Aesthetic judgment is noticing something objective, that various people have different receptors for or not, the receptors change with new input, they are weighted differently depending on previous experience and individual variation, but essentially there’s something (a huge variety of things really) objective that’s being perceived and has a commonality.

[Balance]

@Miller

How do you judge the success of a work that is not explained by the artist, either because the artist refused to explain it, or because the artist’s thoughts (or even identity) have been lost to history?

This is one of the reasons it’s the fuzzy axis. I’m generally inclined to be inclusive: if the work generates an emotional response that doesn’t in some way clash with one or more obvious themes of the work, I would probably call it a successful work of art. (Of course, if the artist is being a jackass about it, I become less charitable.)

On a related note, what if I really like a work of art, based on my interpretation of it, only to later find that the artist intended a meaning that I find uninteresting or even actively repellant? Is the work a success, because I really enjoyed it, or a failure, because I enjoyed it for the “wrong” reasons?

From the communication perspective it’s a failure. It does not fulfill its intended purpose. That doesn’t mean it can’t remain aesthetically pleasing to you for your own reasons. A Ferrari with no engine can’t go fast under its own power, so it fails as a car, but it’s still a beautiful object.

[Blaster_Master]

Quality of art absolutely exists, but it’s not a linear measure. For instance, it’s pretty straightforward to tell how technically skilled one is with a particular medium, whether it’s with a brush and paint, a guitar, or whatever. Any given piece that is virtually the same but one is done by a technically more skilled person will generally be better, like if two bands cover the same song, generally the more technically skilled band will sound better. However, technical skill is not enough because there’s plenty of examples of terrifically skilled artists turning out terrible pieces. How many well regarded actors haven’t put out a mediocre performance in a dud movie?

Another important dimension is message, as in, how effectively does the artist convey the message? Do lots of people get the same sort of message or is it all over the place? Does it convey the complexities of it or just get a very basic idea across? A painter may have enough technical skill to create a nearly photo-realistic painting, but it’s somehow lifeless; whereas another painter who is clearly less skill is able to express some depth about the subject, whether she’s happy or sad and all these sorts of things.

Composition matters, in that one may have amazing technical skill and even be able to communicate, but it’s just a mess and not really particularly appealing. For instance, one could make a piece that is skillfully drawn and expresses a message well but utterly lacks in basic composition because it’s off-balance, not because that’s part of the message, but because it just wasn’t designed that way, and it comes off very poorly and unappealling. Even pieces that are specifically designed to be chaotic by a good artist will generally show aspects of good composition by deliberately going against certain general rules of composition while maintaining others or making effective use of contrasts or the like. For instance, a poor attempt in music will often be someone playing essentially random notes with no sense of time, even if its played really fast and even though that does indeed express chaos, it’s very unpleasant. A good composer will make use of unusual time-signatures to throw the rhythm off while still maintaining some rhythm, or make use of unusual scales, so it has a different harmony, but still maintains a level of structure, or make use of dynamics or timbre to create contrast.

There’s also effective use of a genre. Where one can be have all of the above but do a terrible job of expressing it within that genre. As an example, trying to do a dance song with bizarre time signatures or controversial lyrics probably won’t be very effective, but it might work well in metal or rock. Obviously, one can define one’s own rules to some extent, and often the very best artists in any medium will be pioneers of a genre, but there’s still some set of rules to whatever genre or sub-genre they’re defining.

There’s others, but I think I’ve given the idea. We can judge any piece relative to any other piece linearly based on a single one of these things, but when we’re trying to put them all together, we’re all going to evaluate them differently and they even weigh in differently based upon their relative strengths. For instance, I generally highly value technical skill, but a few of my favorite songs are actually pretty simplistic, they just really do a great job in conveying the message and have exceptional composition. But I also readily admit that it’s not particularly high quality in terms of technical skill.
Now, there are of course subjective measures too, like a particular genre or particular mediums or whatever, but there’s nothing that makes, say impressionism meaningfully better or worse from cubism or a guitar better or worse than a tuba. The problem is that we all have likes and dislikes and they’re difficult to overcome to appreciate pure quality or lack thereof. I’ll likely rate a mediocre artist of a genre I love to be as good as an above average artist of one I dislike. That’s where the confusion comes in. But at the same time, if I actually focus on specific aspects, I can pull out the quality and make more objective opinions.

[Horatio_Hellpop]

A few months ago on The Colbert Report, Stephen had Steve Martin on as a guest and decided to poke a little fun at the man’s High Art pretensions/aspirations. Colbert showed him a number of unfamiliar paintings to see of he could tell which ones were by brilliant masters, which ones were by somebody’s Ritalin-addled kid, and which one was by Hitler. Steve Martin nailed it each time. So in a way, yes, maybe there is a level of objective quality there.