No matter if we are buying art to decorate our home or office, or are simply purchasing work as an investment, it’s apparent that a method for assessing the value of art is necessary. This is where Art Criticism can help us.
Art is something created by humans to be experienced by humans. A sunset may be beautiful, but it must be painted, filmed, somehow created or manipulated by humanity to fall within the definition of art. Rocks in nature may form a face, but unless someone somehow manipulated the position of some of the parts, or adjusted their state in some way, our definition of art would exclude them.
Is there such a thing as a high or a low art? What is the distinction between an artisan and an artist, between major and minor arts, and why is it made?
Artists deal with ideas; artisans make ideas a reality in the minor arts such as furniture making, bronze casting, and iron working. Often the line is very fine. The idea or spiritual aspect has been given precedence since the fourth century doctors of theology denounced materialism in favor of the Spiritual Gnosos.
Works created for the praise and glory of God were never signed by medieval Artists. Not until those works became a way of attaining a form of immortality for the exceptionally gifted were signatures an accepted concept. If a master’s work is worth more than a student’s work, we must have a way to identify his works and distinguish them from pretenders.
Interestingly, time has a way of weeding out specious works popular during the lifetime of the artist. Rembrandt’s early works were masterfully done, and tremendously popular. His work was in such demand that he was taking orders internationally. Then a series of disasters struck and Rembrandt’s work changed, becoming more introspective and sensitively moody. His popularity waned, and he soon became penniless.
Today, however; his later works are the most valued, as they speak to every soul in need of great faith and undying reverence for God. Many are the travelers found weeping before the portrait of Rembrandt’s dying son, as grief yet also hope and love are communicated across all language barriers, and heart speaks to heart without any constraints. It was a work executed without regard for payment, rendered solely for the love of a son by a grieving father pouring out his feelings in his painting. It became more valued than the huge and glamorous works of his youth.
Why? Because it speaks across time and language barriers to all who share his experience. Its value arises from the context - the where, why and how it was painted. This is an example of one way of evaluating art called Contextualism, and is a convenient way to introduce the idea of Art Criticism.
For all the eclecticism of our contemporary era - or perhaps because of it - we must have a way of evaluating art, of enumerating its virtues and/or shortcomings. Art Criticism provides those critical methods of assigning value, whether that value is monetary or otherwise.
Useful models of criticism or evaluation have been carefully constructed along four general categories, as shown below. The author was told in no uncertain terms that one must choose only one of those four ways to evaluate art, because it was impossible to construct a model that could embrace all of them.
However, as I studied those categories I found that none of them completely covered all the areas needed, and none of them seemed complete without the others. The following model is, therefore, my own contrivance that I hope will be useful to you. You may judge for yourself, or indeed pick and choose to construct your own model for art criticism.
Have you ever noticed how once you buy a new car or a new suit you suddenly begin seeing exactly what you bought everywhere? We see only that for which we are looking, or that which is forced upon us by circumstance. In the spirit of focusing your attention on what you are observing, here then are those four major categories of evaluating art:
- Mechanism - The impact or immediate influence of the work. How much you like the work determines how good it is according to the Mechanism model. Ads and commercials are good examples: they reach right out and grab you, but people often tire of them before too long. Applying the other three criteria can help you avoid this kind of “Art Fatigue.”
- Organicism - The organization and construction of a work, merits ascribed by discipline-based art education. Using this model look for organization and design. Does the work have variety and balance, with the focal point off-center to avoid boredom and the eerie feeling that accompanies works that don’t obey these simple rules?
- Formism - The area attempting to measure the “moral rightness” of a work, and how it adheres to accepted rules. Like I mentioned earlier, time weeds out spurious works so try to judge the work as people will in a hundred years. Don’t be taken in by fads that won’t last, especially if you are investing in art as a financial hedge.
- Contextualism - A work’s application to the human condition is what we try to ascertain in Contextualism. This may take a bit of research to discover. Motives and the emotional involvement of the artist play a great part. If the work is done to follow a fad, or simply to turn a profit, beware! On the other hand, even if others have made the genre a fad, if the artist is deeply involved with the subject emotionally and spiritually it won’t diminish the ultimate value of his work.
I’ll cover each of these four models in other articles in greater depth.
William Turner says:
June 18th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Very good article